The search for the missing submersible known as the Titan is reaching a critical stage, as the vessel’s 96-hour oxygen supply is estimated to run out later Thursday. However, the search effort remains full of “hope,” the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday afternoon, reiterating that “this is a search and rescue mission, one hundred percent.”
Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick said officials are still planning to recover the crew alive.
“We’re right in the middle of a search and rescue case, so I don’t want to get into a discussion about when that would end,” he said.
The five-person expedition to see the wreckage of the Titanic vanished off the coast of southeastern Canada on Sunday, 900 miles east of Cape Cod. On Tuesday and Wednesday, “banging noises” picked up by sonar yielded no results.
The Coast Guard’s search will continue in full force Thursday, even past the mark of estimated available oxygen for the five people onboard, because “people’s will to live really needs to be accounted for,” Rear Adm. John Mauger said.
Mauger, who is leading the search for the missing submersible by the Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Air Force, was asked on NBC’s “Today” show Thursday whether the search would continue now that the estimated amount of oxygen available to those onboard the Titan has expired. Mauger did not directly address the part about the oxygen, but he stressed that the search-and-rescue mission would not stop.
“We use all available data and information to prosecute those searches, but we continue to find in particularly complex cases that people’s will to live really needs to be accounted for as well,” he said. “So we’re continuing to search and proceed with rescue efforts.”
Mauger said he was “overwhelmed” by the support the Coast Guard and other agencies have received from the international community in what has been a “complex search-and-rescue effort.” He expressed optimism now that remotely operated vehicles have hit the ocean floor and are searching for the submersible that was on an expedition to explore the wreckage of the Titanic.
“We are fully committed to prosecuting the search-and-rescue efforts,” he said. “We’re going to continue searching throughout the day for this.”
In its first public update on Thursday morning, the U.S. Coast Guard did not indicate whether the estimated amount of emergency oxygen has run out for the five passengers inside the Titan submersible missing in the North Atlantic.
But the Coast Guard announced that a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) launched by a Canadian vessel hit the sea floor Thursday and has begun searching for the missing submersible. The ROV was deployed by the Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic as part of the fifth day of a search-and-rescue operation that’s gripped the world.
Coast Guard officials have previously indicated that the vessel’s 96 hours of emergency oxygen would run out early Thursday.
In addition to the Canadian ROV, the French vessel L’Atalante is also preparing its own ROV to enter the water in hope of finding the Titan, the Coast Guard said.
Two of those on board the Titan, British businessman Hamish Harding and retired French navy commander Paul-Henri Nargeolet, are members of the Explorers Club, a New York-headquartered professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research and scientific exploration.
Overnight, the president of the club, Richard Garriott, sought to encourage other members, tweeting, “There is good cause for hope” and thanking them for helping and supporting the rescue mission, including through “advice, volunteering of services and equipment.”
Garriott said that a remotely operated vehicle owned by deep-sea specialist firm Magellan was also en route to help. Magellan said earlier in a statement on its website that it had been contacted by OceanGate, which manages the Titan vessel, early Monday.
“Magellan is now mobilising to St John Airport and then onto the vessel to support the rescue efforts. We remain 100% focused on supporting the rescue mission to recover the submersible, using our knowledge of the specific site and our expertise operating at a depth considerably in advance of what is required for this incident,” it said in an updated statement Thursday.
Former workers at OceanGate Inc., the company that operates the vessel, raised questions about the safety and regulatory standards of the company as early as 2018, according to court documents.
(c) 2023, The Washington Post
