HALIFAX (AP) —The U.S. Coast Guard says an underwater vessel has located a debris field near the Titanic in the search for a missing submersible with five people aboard, a potential breakthrough in an increasingly urgent around-the-clock effort.
The Coast Guard’s post on Twitter gave no details, such as whether officials believe the debris is connected to the Titan, which was on an expedition to view the wreckage of the Titanic. The search passed the critical 96-hour mark Thursday morning when breathable air could have run out.
The Titan was estimated to have about a four-day supply of breathable air when it launched Sunday morning in the North Atlantic — but experts have emphasized that was an imprecise approximation to begin with and could be extended if passengers have taken measures to conserve breathable air.
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HALIFAX (AP) —The search for the missing submersible on an expedition to view the wreckage of the Titanic passed the critical 96-hour mark Thursday when breathable air could have run out, a grim moment in the intense effort to save the five people aboard.
The Titan submersible was estimated to have about a four-day supply of breathable air when it launched Sunday morning in the North Atlantic — but experts have emphasized that was an imprecise approximation to begin with and could be extended if passengers have taken measures to conserve breathable air. And it’s not known if they survived since the sub’s disappearance.
Rescuers have rushed ships, planes and other equipment to the site of the disappearance. On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard said an undersea robot sent by a Canadian ship had reached the sea floor, while a French research institute said a deep-diving robot with cameras, lights and arms also joined the operation.
Authorities are hoping underwater sounds might help narrow their search, whose coverage area has been expanded to thousands of miles — twice the size of Connecticut and in waters 2 1/2 miles (4 kilometers) deep. Coast Guard officials said underwater noises were detected in the search area Tuesday and Wednesday.
Jamie Pringle, an expert in Forensic Geosciences at Keele University, in England, said even if the noises came from the submersible, "The lack of oxygen is key now; even if they find it, they still need to get to the surface and unbolt it."
The Titan was reported overdue Sunday afternoon about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, as it was on its way to where the iconic ocean liner sank more than a century ago. OceanGate Expeditions, which is leading the trip, has been chronicling the Titanic’s decay and the underwater ecosystem around it via yearly voyages since 2021.
By Thursday morning, hope was running out that anyone on board the vessel would be found alive.
Many obstacles still remain: from pinpointing the vessel’s location, to reaching it with rescue equipment, to bringing it to the surface — assuming it’s still intact. And all that has to happen before the passengers’ oxygen supply runs out.
Dr. Rob Larter, a marine geophysicist with the British Antarctic Survey, emphasized the difficulty of even finding something the size of the sub — which is about 22 feet (6.5 meters) long and 9 feet (nearly 3 meters) high.
“You’re talking about totally dark environments," in which an object several dozen feet away can be missed, he said. "It’s just a needle in a haystack situation unless you’ve got a pretty precise location.”
Newly uncovered allegations suggest there had been significant warnings made about vessel safety during the submersible’s development.
Broadcasters around the world started newscasts at the critical hour Thursday with news of the submersible. The Saudi-owned satellite channel Al Arabiya showed a clock on air counting down to their estimate of when the air could potentially run out.
Captain Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District said a day earlier that authorities were still holding out hope of saving the five passengers onboard.
“This is a search-and-rescue mission, 100%,” he said Wednesday.
Frederick said while the sounds that have been detected offered a chance to narrow the search, their exact location and source hadn't yet been determined.
"We don't know what they are, to be frank,” he said.
Retired Navy Capt. Carl Hartsfield, now the director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Systems Laboratory, said the sounds have been described as “banging noises,” but he warned that search crews “have to put the whole picture together in context and they have to eliminate potential manmade sources other than the Titan.”
The report was encouraging to some experts because submarine crews unable to communicate with the surface are taught to bang on their submersible’s hull to be detected by sonar.
The U.S. Navy said in a statement Wednesday that it was sending a specialized salvage system that’s capable of hoisting “large, bulky and heavy undersea objects such as aircraft or small vessels."
The Titan weighs 20,000 pounds (9,000 kilograms). The U.S. Navy’s Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System is designed to lift up to 60,000 pounds (27,200 kilograms), the Navy said on its website.
Lost aboard the vessel is pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate. His passengers are: British adventurer Hamish Harding; Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman; and French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet.
At least 46 people successfully traveled on OceanGate’s submersible to the Titanic wreck site in 2021 and 2022, according to letters the company filed with a U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, that oversees matters involving the Titanic shipwreck.
One of the company’s first customers characterized a dive he made to the site two years ago as a “kamikaze operation.”
“Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other,” said Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman and adventurer from Germany. “You can’t be claustrophobic.”
During the 2.5-hour descent and ascent, the lights were turned off to conserve energy, he said, with the only illumination coming from a fluorescent glow stick.
The dive was repeatedly delayed to fix a problem with the battery and the balancing weights. In total, the voyage took 10.5 hours.
The submersible had seven backup systems to return to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that drop off and an inflatable balloon.
Nicolai Roterman, a deep-sea ecologist and lecturer in marine biology at the University of Portsmouth, England, said the disappearance of the Titan highlights the dangers and unknowns of deep-sea tourism.
“I think it is important to remember that to us humans, the deep sea is a very inhospitable place," he said.
“Even the most reliable technology can fail, and therefore accidents will happen. With the growth in deep-sea tourism, we must expect more incidents like this.”
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HALIFAX (AP) —The search for the missing submersible on an expedition to view the wreckage of the Titanic neared the critical 96-hour mark Thursday when breathable air is expected to run out, reaching a vital moment in the intense effort to save the five people aboard.
The Titan submersible was estimated to have about a four-day supply of breathable air when it launched Sunday morning in the North Atlantic. That puts the deadline to find and rescue the sub at roughly between 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT) and 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT), based on information the U.S. Coast Guard and company behind the expedition have provided.
Experts emphasized that is an imprecise estimate and could be extended if passengers have taken measures to conserve breathable air. And it’s not known if they survived since the sub disappeared Sunday morning.
Rescuers have rushed ships, planes and other equipment to the site of the disappearance. On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard said an undersea robot sent by a Canadian ship had reached the sea floor, while a French research institute said a deep-diving robot with cameras, lights and arms also joined the operation.
Authorities are hoping underwater sounds might help narrow their search, whose coverage area has been expanded to thousands of miles — twice the size of Connecticut and in waters 2 1/2 miles (4 kilometers) deep.
The Titan was reported overdue Sunday afternoon about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, as it was on its way to where the iconic ocean liner sank more than a century ago. OceanGate Expeditions, which is leading the trip, has been chronicling the Titanic’s decay and the underwater ecosystem around it via yearly voyages since 2021.
By Thursday morning, hope was running out that anyone on board the vessel would be found alive.
Many obstacles still remain: from pinpointing the vessel’s location, to reaching it with rescue equipment, to bringing it to the surface — assuming it’s still intact. And all that has to happen before the passengers’ oxygen supply runs out.
Dr. Rob Larter, a marine geophysicist with the British Antarctic Survey, emphasized the difficulty of even finding something the size of the sub — which is about 22 feet (6.5 meters) long and 9 feet (nearly 3 meters) high.
“You’re talking about totally dark environments," in which an object several dozen feet away can be missed, he said. "It’s just a needle in a haystack situation unless you’ve got a pretty precise location.”
The area of the North Atlantic where the Titan vanished Sunday is also prone to fog and stormy conditions, making it an extremely challenging environment to conduct a search-and-rescue mission, said Donald Murphy, an oceanographer who served as chief scientist of the Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol. The passengers are also facing temperatures just above freezing.
Meanwhile, newly uncovered allegations suggest there had been significant warnings made about vessel safety during the submersible’s development.
Broadcasters around the world started newscasts at the critical hour Thursday with news of the submersible. The Saudi-owned satellite channel Al Arabiya showed a clock on air counting down to their estimate of when the air could potentially run out.
Captain Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District said a day earlier that authorities were still holding out hope of saving the five passengers onboard.
“This is a search-and-rescue mission, 100%,” he said Wednesday.
Frederick said while the sounds that have been detected offered a chance to narrow the search, their exact location and source hadn't yet been determined.
"We don't know what they are, to be frank,” he said.
Retired Navy Capt. Carl Hartsfield, now the director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Systems Laboratory, said the sounds have been described as “banging noises,” but he warned that search crews “have to put the whole picture together in context and they have to eliminate potential manmade sources other than the Titan.”
The report was encouraging to some experts because submarine crews unable to communicate with the surface are taught to bang on their submersible’s hull to be detected by sonar.
The U.S. Navy said in a statement Wednesday that it was sending a specialized salvage system that’s capable of hoisting “large, bulky and heavy undersea objects such as aircraft or small vessels."
The Titan weighs 20,000 pounds (9,000 kilograms). The U.S. Navy’s Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System is designed to lift up to 60,000 pounds (27,200 kilograms), the Navy said on its website.
Lost aboard the vessel is pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate. His passengers are: British adventurer Hamish Harding; Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman; and French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet.
At least 46 people successfully traveled on OceanGate’s submersible to the Titanic wreck site in 2021 and 2022, according to letters the company filed with a U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, that oversees matters involving the Titanic shipwreck.
One of the company’s first customers characterized a dive he made to the site two years ago as a “kamikaze operation.”
“Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other,” said Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman and adventurer from Germany. “You can’t be claustrophobic.”
During the 2.5-hour descent and ascent, the lights were turned off to conserve energy, he said, with the only illumination coming from a fluorescent glow stick.
The dive was repeatedly delayed to fix a problem with the battery and the balancing weights. In total, the voyage took 10.5 hours.
OceanGate has been criticized for the use of a simple commercially available video game controller to steer the Titan. But the company has said that many of the vessel’s parts are off-the-shelf because they have proved to be dependable.
“It’s meant for a 16-year-old to throw it around” and is “super durable,” Rush told the CBC in an interview last year while he demonstrated by throwing the controller around the Titan’s tiny cabin. He said a couple of spares are kept on board “just in case.”
The submersible had seven backup systems to return to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that drop off and an inflatable balloon.
Retired Navy Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, who is now deputy director of the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University, said the disappearance underscores the dangers associated with operating in deep water and the recreational exploration of the sea and space.
“I think some people believe that because modern technology is so good, that you can do things like this and not have accidents, but that’s just not the case," he said
-----------
HALIFAX (AP) —The search for the missing submersible on an expedition to view the wreckage of the Titanic neared the critical 96-hour mark Thursday when breathable air is expected to run out, reaching a vital moment in the intense effort to save the five people aboard.
The Titan submersible was estimated to have a 96-hour supply of breathable air when it launched Sunday morning in the North Atlantic. That means the deadline to find and rescue the sub is roughly between 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT) and 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT), based on information the U.S. Coast Guard and company behind the expedition have provided.
Experts emphasized that is an imprecise estimate and could be extended if passengers have taken measures to conserve breathable air. And it’s not known if they survived since the sub disappeared Sunday morning.
Frank Owen, a submarine search-and-rescue expert, said the oxygen supply figure is a useful “target” for searchers, but is only based on a “nominal amount of consumption.” Owen said the diver on board the Titan would likely be advising passengers to “do anything to reduce your metabolic levels so that you can actually extend this.”
Rescuers have rushed more ships and vessels to the site of the disappearance, hoping underwater sounds they detected for a second straight day might help narrow their search in the urgent, international mission. They have expanded the coverage area to thousands of miles — twice the size of Connecticut and in waters 2 1/2 miles (4 kilometers) deep.
The Titan was reported overdue Sunday afternoon about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, as it was on its way to where the iconic ocean liner sank more than a century ago. OceanGate Expeditions, an undersea exploration company, has been chronicling the Titanic’s decay and the underwater ecosystem around it via yearly voyages since 2021.
By Thursday morning, hope was running out that anyone on board the vessel would be found alive.
Many obstacles still remain: from pinpointing the vessel’s location, to reaching it with rescue equipment, to bringing it to the surface — assuming it’s still intact. And all that has to happen before the passengers’ oxygen supply runs out.
Captain Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District said authorities were still holding out hope of saving the five passengers onboard.
“This is a search-and-rescue mission, 100%,” he said Wednesday.
The area of the North Atlantic where the Titan vanished Sunday is also prone to fog and stormy conditions, making it an extremely challenging environment to conduct a search-and-rescue mission, said Donald Murphy, an oceanographer who served as chief scientist of the Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol.
Meanwhile, newly uncovered allegations suggest there had been significant warnings made about vessel safety during the submersible’s development.
Frederick said while the sounds that have been detected offered a chance to narrow the search, their exact location and source hadn't yet been determined.
"We don't know what they are, to be frank,” he said.
Retired Navy Capt. Carl Hartsfield, now the director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Systems Laboratory, said the sounds have been described as “banging noises,” but he warned that search crews “have to put the whole picture together in context and they have to eliminate potential manmade sources other than the Titan.”
The report was encouraging to some experts because submarine crews unable to communicate with the surface are taught to bang on their submersible’s hull to be detected by sonar.
The U.S. Navy said in a statement Wednesday that it was sending a specialized salvage system that’s capable of hoisting “large, bulky and heavy undersea objects such as aircraft or small vessels."
The Titan weighs 20,000 pounds (9,071 kilograms). The U.S. Navy’s Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System is designed to lift up to 60,000 pounds (27,216 kilograms), the Navy said on its website.
Lost aboard the vessel are pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO of the company leading the expedition. His passengers are a British adventurer, two members of a Pakistani business family and a Titanic expert. OceanGate Expeditions oversaw the mission.
At least 46 people successfully traveled on OceanGate’s submersible to the Titanic wreck site in 2021 and 2022, according to letters the company filed with a U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, that oversees matters involving the Titanic shipwreck.
One of the company’s first customers characterized a dive he made to the site two years ago as a “kamikaze operation.”
“Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other,” said Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman and adventurer from Germany. “You can’t be claustrophobic.”
During the 2.5-hour descent and ascent, the lights were turned off to conserve energy, he said, with the only illumination coming from a fluorescent glow stick.
The dive was repeatedly delayed to fix a problem with the battery and the balancing weights. In total, the voyage took 10.5 hours.
OceanGate has been criticized for the use of a simple commercially available video game controller to steer the Titan. But the company has said that many of the vessel’s parts are off-the-shelf because they have proved to be dependable.
“It’s meant for a 16-year-old to throw it around” and is “super durable,” Rush told the CBC in an interview last year while he demonstrated by throwing the controller around the Titan’s tiny cabin. He said a couple of spares are kept on board “just in case.”
The submersible had seven backup systems to return to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that drop off and an inflatable balloon.
Jeff Karson, a professor emeritus of earth and environmental sciences at Syracuse University, said the temperature is just above freezing, and the vessel is too deep for human divers to get to it. The best chance to reach the submersible could be to use a remotely operated robot on a fiber optic cable, he said.
“I am sure it is horrible down there,” Karson said. “It is like being in a snow cave and hypothermia is a real danger.”
The passengers lost on the Titan are British adventurer Hamish Harding; Pakistani nationals Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, whose eponymous firm invests across the country; and French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet.
Retired Navy Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, who is now deputy director of the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University, said the disappearance underscores the dangers associated with operating in deep water and the recreational exploration of the sea and space.
“I think some people believe that because modern technology is so good, that you can do things like this and not have accidents, but that’s just not the case," he said.
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HALIFAX (AP) —Teams racing to find the missing Titan submersible have detected underwater noises in the search area. But it won’t be easy to find the source of that sound in the “noisy” ocean.
There are many other potential sources of sound underwater, including from fish, other animals and of course human-made instruments, according to Matt Dzieciuch, an ocean acoustics expert at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
While the Coast Guard said search teams heard banging noises at 30-minute intervals, it’s still unclear whether the banging noises were a true signal of life.
Usually, an underwater vehicle will have a device called a pinger that can correspond with the surface and make it easier to locate, Dzieciuch said. But it’s unclear whether the Titan submersible was using one.
The search team is facing additional challenges because sound gets bent as it travels underwater, due to how pressure and temperature change at different depths, Dzieciuch said. That can create echo-like effects and make it hard to locate the source of a particular sound.
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HALIFAX (AP) —Underwater mountains and valleys. Deep-sea water pressure. Weather conditions. And a search area twice the size of Connecticut – in waters 2 1/2 miles (4 kilometers) deep – with few clues about the Titan’s location.
The crews tasked with finding the Titan, which was reported overdue Sunday night, are facing all those challenges and more to locate the submersible amid the North Atlantic waters.
While undersea search efforts are nothing new – a 2019 expedition found two lost Japanese aircraft carriers that went down in World War II’s historic Battle of Midway around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands – looking for the 22-foot-long (6.7-meter) carbon-fiber vessel amid the vast ocean is far more difficult than finding a needle in a haystack.
Those Japanese aircraft carriers were exponentially larger than the Titan – and still they were lost for decades after the June 1942 air and sea battle.
“I’ve seen large vessels hiding within extreme geology so searching for smaller objects requires more detailed scrutiny as opposed to searching for a sunken (cruiser) or aircraft carrier,” wrote Robert Kraft, a deep-sea explorer who was part of the 2019 expedition, in an email to The Associated Press from aboard his latest voyage.
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HALIFAX (AP) —Remote-operated robots that are typically used for undersea exploration will instead be critical to any hope of finding the Titan.
There were two such remotely operated vehicles — or ROVs – in North Atlantic waters on Wednesday, with more on the way.
Designed to scan the sea floor in real time, the ROVs are outfitted with cameras and travel to depths many other vessels cannot.
ROVs have been used for undersea exploration since at least the mid-1980s, according to deep-sea explorer Katy Croff Bell, who is president of Ocean Discovery League.
The vessels are expensive to use and their method of data collection can be slow and painstaking, which is partly why scientists know so little about the ocean floor even after years of exploration.
But the ROVs might be the only way to find the Titan after the submersible vanished Sunday on a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic.
“ROVs are essential to the search and rescue mission,” Bell said. “Really the only way you’re going to be able to recover anything from the deep sea floor in real time.”
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HALIFAX (AP) —The daunting search and rescue effort for the Titan is rushing experts and specialized underwater equipment together by land, by air and by sea to find the submersible before its oxygen runs out.
A remotely operated vehicle that can scan the sea floor, known as an ROV, was flown to Canada on Tuesday and is expected to arrive at the Titanic site on Thursday morning.
“The equipment that is onsite and coming is the most sophisticated in the world and certainly capable of reaching those depths,” said Sean Leet, chief executive of Canadian Horizon Maritime company.
The company and the Mi’kmaq band co-own the Polar Prince, which is the research vessel that launched the Titan.
“We are praying for our friends onboard the Titan submersible,” said Miawpukek First Nation Chief Mi’sel Joe. “We want them to come home safely. We ask everyone across Canada and the world to pray with us that we can find and rescue the Titan.”
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HALIFAX (AP) —A Canadian surveillance vessel has detected underwater noises in the area where rescuers are searching for a submersible that went missing in the North Atlantic while bringing five people down to the wreck of the Titanic, authorities said Wednesday.
Coast Guard officials were bringing in more ships and other vessels to search the more narrowly defined area, though the exact location and source of the sounds has not yet been determined. The full scope of the search was twice the size of Connecticut in waters 2 1/2 miles deep, said Captain Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District.
“This is a search and rescue mission, 100%,” Frederick said. “When you’re in the middle of a search and rescue case, you always have hope.”
But even those who expressed some optimism warned that many obstacles remain: from pinpointing the vessel's location, to reaching it with rescue equipment, to bringing it to the surface — assuming it's still intact — before the passengers' oxygen supply runs out.
The area of the North Atlantic where the Titan submersible went missing on Sunday is prone to fog and stormy conditions, making it an extremely challenging environment to conduct a search-and-rescue mission, said Donald Murphy, an oceanographer who served as chief scientist of the Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol.
After a Canadian military surveillance aircraft detected underwater noises in the search area, a robotic vessel was sent to scour the region but had so far “yielded negative results,” the Coast Guard wrote on Twitter.
The Coast Guard did not elaborate on what rescuers believed the noises could be. The vessel is estimated to have as little as a day's worth of oxygen left if it is still functioning.
Three search vessels arrived on-scene Wednesday morning, including one that has side-scanning sonar capabilities. Authorities pushed to get salvage equipment to the scene in case the submersible is found.
The Coast Guard statement about detecting sounds underwater came after Rolling Stone reported that search teams heard “banging sounds in the area every 30 minutes.”
The report was encouraging to some experts because submarine crews unable to communicate with the surface are taught to bang on their submersible’s hull to be detected by sonar.
“It sends a message that you’re probably using military techniques to find me and this is how I’m saying it," said Frank Owen, a submarine search and rescue expert. "So, that’s really encouraging if that’s the case.”
Richard Garriott de Cayeux, the president of The Explorers Club, wrote an open letter to his club’s adventurers, saying he had “much greater confidence” about the search after speaking to officials in Congress, the U.S. military and the White House.
However, no official has publicly suggested they know the source of the underwater noises.
Meanwhile, questions remain about how teams could reach the lost submersible, which could be as deep as about 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) below the surface near the watery tomb of the historic ocean liner. Newly uncovered allegations also suggest there had been significant warnings made about vessel safety during its development.
Lost aboard the vessel are pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO of the company leading the expedition. His passengers are a British adventurer, two members of a Pakistani business family and a Titanic expert.
Authorities reported the 22-foot carbon-fiber vessel overdue Sunday night, setting off the search in waters about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s.
The submersible had a four-day oxygen supply when it put to sea around 6 a.m. Sunday, according to David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate Expeditions, which oversaw the mission.
Owen said the estimated 96-hour oxygen supply is a useful “target” for searchers, but is only based on a “nominal amount of consumption the average human might consume in doing certain things.” Owen said the diver on board the Titan would likely be advising passengers to “do anything to reduce your metabolic levels so that you can actually extend this 96 hours.”
Chris Brown, a British adventurer who paid a deposit to go on the Titan voyage but later withdrew because of what he called safety concerns, said word that the searchers have heard sounds is both good news and bad news.
“If the sounds are coming from below the water indicator then that indicates that they may be alive in the water, but now we’ve got time pressures in getting them up to the surface,” Brown told ABC’s “Good Morning America” Wednesday.
The submersible had seven backup systems to return to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that drop off and an inflatable balloon.
Aaron Newman, who has been a passenger on the Titan, told NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday that if the submersible is below a couple hundred meters and without power, the passengers are in complete darkness and it's cold.
“It was cold when we were at the bottom,” he said. “You had layered up. You had wool hats on and were doing everything to stay warm at the bottom.”
Jeff Karson, a professor emeritus of earth and environmental sciences at Syracuse University, said the temperature is just above freezing, and the vessel is too deep for human divers to get to it. The best chance to reach the submersible could be to use a remotely operated robot on a fiber optic cable, he said.
“I am sure it is horrible down there,” Karson said. “It is like being in a snow cave and hypothermia is a real danger.”
Meanwhile, documents show that OceanGate had been warned there might be catastrophic safety problems posed by the way the experimental vessel was developed.
David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations, said in a 2018 lawsuit that the company’s testing and certification was insufficient and would “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible.”
The company insisted that Lochridge was “not an engineer and was not hired or asked to perform engineering services on the Titan.” The firm also says the vessel under development was a prototype, not the now-missing Titan.
The Marine Technology Society, which describes itself as “a professional group of ocean engineers, technologists, policy-makers, and educators,” also expressed concern that year in a letter to Rush, OceanGate’s chief executive. The society said it was critical that the company submit its prototype to tests overseen by an expert third party before launching in order to safeguard passengers. The New York Times first reported on those documents.
The search for the missing vessel has drawn international attention. In Dubai, where the missing British adventurer Hamish Harding lives, Crown Prince Hamadan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum wrote: “Dubai and its people pray for their safety and hopeful return home.”
Others aboard include Pakistani nationals Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, whose eponymous firm invests across the country. In Pakistan's port city of Karachi, employees at his firms said they prayed for the two's safe return, as did government officials. French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet also was on the vessel.
Retired Navy Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, who is now deputy director of the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University, said the disappearance of the submersible underscores the dangers associated with operating in deep water and the recreational exploration of the sea and space, "two environments where in recent past we’ve seen people operate in hazardous, potentially lethal environments,” Murrett said.
“I think some people believe that because modern technology is so good, that you can do things like this and not have accidents, but that’s just not the case," he said.
___
HALIFAX (AP) —Underwater noises detected by a surveillance aircraft provided a measure of hope Wednesday as search vessels working against long odds scoured the North Atlantic for a submersible that vanished while bringing five people down to the wreck of the Titanic.
But even those who expressed some optimism warned that many obstacles remain: from pinpointing the vessel's location, to reaching it with rescue equipment, to bringing it to the surface — assuming its still intact — before the passengers' oxygen supply runs out.
The area of the North Atlantic where the Titan submersible went missing on Sunday is prone to fog and stormy conditions, making it an extremely challenging environment to conduct a search-and-rescue mission, said Donald Murphy, an oceanographer who served as chief scientist of the Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol.
After a Canadian military surveillance aircraft detected underwater noises in the search area, an robotic vessel was sent to scour the region but had so far “yielded negative results,” the Coast Guard wrote on Twitter.
The U.S. Coast Guard did not elaborate on what rescuers believed the noises could be. The vessel is estimated to have as little as a day's worth of oxygen left if it is still functioning.
Three search vessels arrived on-scene Wednesday morning, including one that has side-scanning sonar capabilities.
Authorities pushed on Wednesday to get salvage equipment to the scene in case the sub is found.
The Coast Guard statement about detecting sounds underwater came after Rolling Stone reported that search teams heard “banging sounds in the area every 30 minutes.”
The report was encouraging to some experts because submarine crews unable to communicate with the surface are taught to bang on their submersible’s hull to be detected by sonar.
“It sends a message that you’re probably using military techniques to find me and this is how I’m saying it," said Frank Owen, a submarine search and rescue expert. "So, that’s really encouraging if that’s the case.”
Richard Garriott de Cayeux, the president of The Explorers Club, wrote an open letter to his club’s adventurers, saying he had “much greater confidence” about the search after speaking to officials in Congress, the U.S. military and the White House.
However, no official has publicly suggested they know the source of the underwater noises.
Meanwhile, questions remain about how teams could reach the lost submersible, which could be as deep as about 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) below the surface near the watery tomb of the historic ocean liner. Newly uncovered allegations also suggest there had been significant warnings made about vessel safety during its development.
Lost aboard the vessel are pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO of the company leading the expedition. His passengers are a British adventurer, two members of a Pakistani business family and a Titanic expert.
Authorities reported the 22-foot carbon-fiber vessel overdue Sunday night, setting off the search in waters about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s.
The submersible had a four-day oxygen supply when it put to sea around 6 a.m. Sunday, according to David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate Expeditions, which oversaw the mission.
Owen said the estimated 96-hour oxygen supply is a useful “target” for searchers, but is only based on a “nominal amount of consumption the average human might consume in doing certain things.” Owen said the diver on board the Titan would likely be advising passengers to “do anything to reduce your metabolic levels so that you can actually extend this 96 hours.”
Chris Brown, a British adventurer who paid a deposit to go on the Titan voyage but later withdrew because of what he called safety concerns, said word that the searchers have heard sounds is both good news and bad news.
“If the sounds are coming from below the water indicator then that indicates that they may be alive in the water, but now we’ve got time pressures in getting them up to the surface,” Brown told ABC’s “Good Morning America” Wednesday.
The submersible had seven backup systems to return to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that drop off and an inflatable balloon.
Aaron Newman, who has been a passenger on the Titan, told NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday that if the submersible is below a couple hundred meters and without power, the passengers are in complete darkness and it's cold.
“It was cold when we were at the bottom,” he said. “You had layered up. You had wool hats on and were doing everything to stay warm at the bottom.”
Jeff Karson, a professor emeritus of earth and environmental sciences at Syracuse University, said the temperature is just above freezing, and the vessel is too deep for human divers to get to it. The best chance to reach the submersible could be to use a remotely operated robot on a fiber optic cable.
“I am sure it is horrible down there,” he said. “It is like being in a snow cave and hypothermia is a real danger.”
Meanwhile, documents show that OceanGate had been warned there might be catastrophic safety problems posed by the way the experimental vessel was developed.
David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations, said in a 2018 lawsuit that the company’s testing and certification was insufficient and would “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible.”
The company insisted that Lochridge was “not an engineer and was not hired or asked to perform engineering services on the Titan.” The firm also says the vessel under development was a prototype, not the now-missing Titan.
The Marine Technology Society, which describes itself as “a professional group of ocean engineers, technologists, policy-makers, and educators,” also expressed concern that year in a letter to Rush, OceanGate’s chief executive. The society said it was critical that the company submit its prototype to tests overseen by an expert third party before launching in order to safeguard passengers. The New York Times first reported on those documents.
The search for the missing vessel has drawn international attention. In Dubai, where the missing British adventurer Hamish Harding lives, Crown Prince Hamadan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum wrote: “Dubai and its people pray for their safety and hopeful return home.”
Others aboard include Pakistani nationals Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, whose eponymous firm invests across the country. In Pakistan's port city of Karachi, employees at his firms said they prayed for the two's safe return, as did government officials. French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet also was on the vessel.
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HALIFAX (AP) —A Canadian military surveillance aircraft detected underwater noises as a massive operation searched early Wednesday in a remote part of the North Atlantic for a submersible that vanished while taking five people down to the wreck of the Titanic.
A statement from the U.S. Coast Guard did not elaborate on what rescuers believed the noises could be, though it offered a glimmer of hope for those lost aboard the Titan as estimates suggest as little as a day's worth of oxygen could be left if the vessel is still functioning.
Meanwhile, questions remain about how teams could reach the lost submersible, which could be as deep as about 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) below the surface near the watery tomb of the historic ocean liner. Newly uncovered allegations also suggest there had been significant warnings made about vessel safety during its development.
Lost aboard the vessel are pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO of the company leading the expedition. His passengers are a British adventurer, two members of a Pakistani business family and a Titanic expert.
The Coast Guard wrote on Twitter that a Canadian P-3 Orion had “detected underwater noises in the search area.” Searchers then moved an underwater robot to that area to search. However, those searches “have yielded negative results but continue.”
“The data from the P-3 aircraft has been shared with our U.S. Navy experts for further analysis which will be considered in future search plans,” the Coast Guard said.
The Coast Guard statement came after Rolling Stone, citing what it described as internal U.S. Department of Homeland Security emails on the search, said that teams heard “banging sounds in the area every 30 minutes.”
In underwater disasters, a crew unable to communicate with the surface relies on banging on their submersible's hull to be detected by sonar. However, no official has publicly suggested that's the case and noises underwater can come from a variety of sources.
Yet the reports have sparked hope in some, including Richard Garriott de Cayeux, the president of The Explorers Club. He wrote an open letter to his club's adventurers, who include the missing British man and the Titanic expert aboard the Titan, that they had “much greater confidence” now after they spoke to officials in Congress, the U.S. military and the White House about the search.
Three C-17 transport planes from the U.S. military have been used to move commercial submersible and support equipment from Buffalo, New York, to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to aid in the search, a spokesperson for U.S. Air Mobility Command said.
The Canadian military said it provided a patrol aircraft and two surface ships, including one that specializes in dive medicine. It also dropped sonar buoys to listen for any sounds from the Titan.
Rescuers have been racing against the clock because even under the best of circumstances the vessel could run out of oxygen by Thursday morning.
In addition to an international array of ships and planes, an underwater robot had started searching in the vicinity of the Titanic and there was a push to get salvage equipment to the scene in case the sub is found.
Authorities reported the carbon-fiber vessel overdue Sunday night, setting off the search in waters about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s.
The submersible had a four-day oxygen supply when it put to sea around 6 a.m. Sunday, according to David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate Expeditions, which oversaw the mission.
CBS News journalist David Pogue, who traveled to the Titanic aboard the Titan last year, said the vehicle uses two communication systems: text messages that go back and forth to a surface ship and safety pings that are emitted every 15 minutes to indicate that the sub is still working.
Both of those systems stopped about an hour and 45 minutes after the Titan submerged.
“There are only two things that could mean. Either they lost all power or the ship developed a hull breach and it imploded instantly. Both of those are devastatingly hopeless,” Pogue told the Canadian CBC network on Tuesday.
The submersible had seven backup systems to return to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that drop off and an inflatable balloon. One system is designed to work even if everyone aboard is unconscious, Pogue said.
Aaron Newman, who has been a passenger on the Titan, told NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday that if the submersible is below a couple hundred meters and without power, the passengers are in complete darkness and it's cold.
“It was cold when we were at the bottom,” he said. “You had layered up. You had wool hats on and were doing everything to stay warm at the bottom.”
Meanwhile, documents show that OceanGate had been warned there might be catastrophic safety problems posed by the way the experimental vessel was developed.
David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations, said in a 2018 lawsuit that the company’s testing and certification was insufficient and would “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible.”
The company insisted that Lochridge was “not an engineer and was not hired or asked to perform engineering services on the Titan.” The firm also says the vessel under development was a prototype, not the now-missing Titan.
The Marine Technology Society, which describes itself as “a professional group of ocean engineers, technologists, policy-makers, and educators,” also expressed concern that year in a letter to Rush, OceanGate’s chief executive. The society said it was critical that the company submit its prototype to tests overseen by an expert third party before launching in order to safeguard passengers. The New York Times first reported about those documents.
The search for the missing vessel has drawn international attention. In Dubai, where the missing British adventurer Hamish Harding lives, Crown Prince Hamadan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum wrote: “Dubai and its people pray for their safety and hopeful return home.”
Others aboard include Pakistani nationals Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, whose eponymous firm invests across the country. In Pakistan's port city of Karachi, employees at his firms said they prayed for the two's safe return, as did government officials. French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet also was on the vessel.
Describing Harding and Nargeloet as “tourists” is a misnomer, said Newman, the former Titan passenger.
“These are people who lived on the edge and loved what they were doing. If anything’s going on, these are people that are calm and thinking this through and doing what they can to stay alive,” Newman said, adding that he felt safe and in the hands of professionals on his descent. “It’s a good set of people.”
___
HALIFAX (AP) —A Canadian military surveillance aircraft detected underwater noises as a massive search continued early Wednesday in a remote part of the North Atlantic for a submersible that vanished while taking five people down to the wreck of the Titanic.
A statement from the U.S. Coast Guard did not elaborate on what rescuers believed the noises could be, though it offered a glimmer of hope for those lost abroad the Titan as estimates suggest as little as a day's worth of oxygen could be left if the vessel is still functioning.
Meanwhile, questions remain about how teams could reach the lost submersible, which could be as deep as about 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) below the surface near the watery tomb of the historic ocean liner. Newly uncovered allegations also suggest there had been significant warnings made about vessel safety during its development.
Lost aboard the vessel are pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO of the company leading the expedition. His passengers are a British adventurer, two members of a Pakistani business family and a Titanic expert.
The Coast Guard wrote on Twitter that a Canadian P-3 Orion had “detected underwater noises in the search area.” Searchers then moved an underwater robot to that area to search. However, those searches “have yielded negative results but continue.”
“The data from the P-3 aircraft has been shared with our U.S. Navy experts for further analysis which will be considered in future search plans,” the Coast Guard said.
The Coast Guard statement came after Rolling Stone, citing what it described as internal U.S. Department of Homeland Security emails on the search, said that teams heard “banging sounds in the area every 30 minutes.”
In underwater disasters, a crew unable to communicate with the surface relies on banging on their submersible's hull to be detected by sonar. However, no official has publicly suggested that's the case and noises underwater can come from a variety of sources.
Yet the reports have sparked hope in some, including Richard Garriott de Cayeux, the president of The Explorers Club. He wrote an open letter to his club's adventurers, who include the missing British man and the Titanic expert aboard the Titan, that they had “much greater confidence” now after they spoke to officials in Congress, the U.S. military and the White House about the search.
Three C-17 transport planes from the U.S. military have been used to move commercial submersible and support equipment from Buffalo, New York, to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to aid in the search, a spokesperson for U.S. Air Mobility Command said.
The Canadian military said it provided a patrol aircraft and two surface ships, including one that specializes in dive medicine. It also dropped sonar buoys to listen for any sounds from the Titan.
Rescuers have been racing against the clock because even under the best of circumstances the vessel could run out of oxygen by Thursday morning.
In addition to an international array of ships and planes, an underwater robot had started searching in the vicinity of the Titanic and there was a push to get salvage equipment to the scene in case the sub is found.
Authorities reported the carbon-fiber vessel overdue Sunday night, setting off the search in waters about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s.
The submersible had a four-day oxygen supply when it put to sea around 6 a.m. Sunday, according to David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate Expeditions, which oversaw the mission.
CBS News journalist David Pogue, who traveled to the Titanic aboard the Titan last year, said the vehicle uses two communication systems: text messages that go back and forth to a surface ship and safety pings that are emitted every 15 minutes to indicate that the sub is still working.
Both of those systems stopped about an hour and 45 minutes after the Titan submerged.
“There are only two things that could mean. Either they lost all power or the ship developed a hull breach and it imploded instantly. Both of those are devastatingly hopeless,” Pogue told the Canadian CBC network on Tuesday.
The submersible had seven backup systems to return to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that drop off and an inflatable balloon. One system is designed to work even if everyone aboard is unconscious, Pogue said.
Meanwhile, documents show that OceanGate had been warned there might be catastrophic safety problems posed by the way the experimental vessel was developed.
David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations, said in a 2018 lawsuit that the company’s testing and certification was insufficient and would “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible.”
The company insisted that Lochridge was “not an engineer and was not hired or asked to perform engineering services on the Titan.” The firm also says the vessel under development was a prototype, not the now-missing Titan.
The Marine Technology Society, which describes itself as “a professional group of ocean engineers, technologists, policy-makers, and educators,” also expressed concern that year in a letter to Rush, OceanGate’s chief executive. The society said it was critical that the company submit its prototype to tests overseen by an expert third party before launching in order to safeguard passengers. The New York Times first reported about those documents.
The search for the missing vessel has drawn international attention. In Dubai, where the missing British adventurer Hamish Harding lives, Crown Prince Hamadan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum wrote: “Dubai and its people pray for their safety and hopeful return home.”
Others aboard include Pakistani nationals Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, whose eponymous firm invests across the country. In Pakistan's port city of Karachi, employees at his firms said they prayed for the two's safe return, as did government officials. French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet also was on the vessel.