A submarine with five people on board used to observe the remains of the British liner Titanic in the North Atlantic disappeared, triggering a multinational search and rescue operation, US and Canadian authorities said Monday.
The vessel, operated by OceanGate Expeditions, began its descent on Sunday morning and lost contact with the surface in less than two hours later, the US Coast Guard said on Twitter.
One of those on board is believed to be a British aviator.after he posted in advance on social media about joining the expedition.
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The US Coast Guard said in a statement Monday that one of his planes was “searching for five peoples after the Canadian research vessel Polar Prince lost contact with its submersible during a dive approximately 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) east of Cape Cod.”
“It’s challenging to conduct a search in that remote area, but we’re deploying all available resources to make sure we can locate the cabin and rescue the people on board,” US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger told reporters in Boston, where he oversees the operation.
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Time is a key factor, as Mauger estimates that by this Monday afternoon there is still 70% or more oxygen left.
The Canadian Coast Guard said it is also participating in the search effort with a fixed-wing aircraft and a ship dispatched to the search area.
On his website, OceanGate Expedition says a diving expedition to the Titanic site was “currently underway”.
The company says it uses a submersible called Titan for its dives to a maximum depth of 4,000 meters (13,100 feet).
Has a autonomy of 96 hours for a crew of five people.
Without having studied the vessel itself, Alistair Greig, professor of marine engineering at University College London, suggested two possible theories based on images of the ship published by the press.
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Said if it had an electrical or communications problem, it could have surfaced and remained floating, “waiting to be found.”
“Another scenario is that the pressure hull was compromised, a leak,” he said in a statement. “So the prognosis is not good.”
While the submersible may still be intact during its dive, “there are very few vessels” capable of reaching the depth to which the Titan could have traveled.
In a statement cited by CBS News and other media outlets, OceanGate Expeditions said: “Our entire focus is on the submersible crew members and their families.”
British millionaire and aviator Hamish Harding posted on his Instagram account on Sunday that he was “proud to finally announce” that he had joined the OceanGate Expedition “for its RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist on the submarine going down the Titanic.”
“Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only crewed mission to the Titanic in 2023,” added the 58-year-old aviator.
“A weather window has just opened and tomorrow we will try to dive,” he added.
It was not known who else was on board. Harding wrote that “the submarine team has a pair of legendary explorers, some of whom have made more than 30 dives on the RMS Titanic since the 1980s.”
AFP tried unsuccessfully to contact OceanGate, and Harding’s Action Aviation company, also contacted, declined to comment.
In its statement, OceanGate said it was “deeply grateful for the extensive assistance we have received from various government agencies and deep-sea companies in our efforts to re-establish contact with the submersible.”
ANDhe Titanic left the English port of Southampton on April 10, 1912 for a maiden voyage to New York, but sank after hitting an iceberg five days later.
Of the 2,224 passengers and crew on board, almost 1,500 died.
wreckage of the ocean liner They were discovered in 1985 650 kilometers off the Canadian coast, at a depth of 4,000 meters in international ocean waters. Atlantic. Since then, treasure hunters and tourists have visited the area.
AFP
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