The US and Canadian Coast Guards continued search operations for the Titan on Tuesday, June 20th. A small tourist submarine that went missing in the Atlantic Ocean off North America while participating in an expedition to the Titanic’s sinking area with five people on board including French aquanaut and wreck specialist Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
The search for him had “brought no results” for the time being, the US Coast Guard said in the early evening, adding that the missing submersible still had “about 40 hours” of oxygen.
The French research institute for the exploitation of the sea (Ifremer) has diverted its ship Atalante, equipped with a deep-sea robot, to the location in the North Atlantic where the submarine disappeared, the Secretary of State for the Sea said on Tuesday. Atalante should be part of a mission on Wednesday arrive in the area around 8 p.m. (Newfoundland time) before the operators dispatched from Toulon let the robot dive towards the almost four thousand meter deep wreck. The missing Titan submarine began its dive on Sunday with a crew of five and a range of 96 hours.
Read the portrait we dedicated to him in 2022. Article reserved for our subscribers Oceanaute Paul-Henri Nargeolet, “Monsieur Titanic”
Search and rescue mission launched
Authorities were warned Sunday by the boat’s operator, OceanGate Expeditions, a private company that operates the submersible, that it went missing off the coast of Canada during an organized trip to the Titanic wreck. OceanGate Expeditions said in a statement Monday that it is “assessing and mobilizing all options” to bring the crew back safely.
Rear Admiral John Mauger, chief of the US Coast Guard, said during a press conference on Monday that three American and two Canadian planes are currently deployed to find the submarine. The search for the submersible, which previously focused on the ocean surface, is now taking place underwater, he announced Tuesday on ABC News’ Good Morning America.
A Canadian P-3 aircraft also dropped sonobuoys in the area where Titanic sank to record any sounds of the 21-foot-long Titanic. Boats and planes searching for the submersible have now searched 13,000 square kilometers, Rear Admiral Mauger added.
The search area is more than 1,450 kilometers off the coast of the state of Massachusetts – and at a depth of almost four kilometers. The air search, unsuccessful throughout the day, was suspended for the night. the Coast Guard tweeted Americans on Monday around 9pm (3am in France).
OceanGate Expeditions’ Titan submersible, June 2021. OCEANGATE EXPEDITIONS / AP
A US Coast Guard spokesman confirmed Monday evening that there were five people on the missing submarine. « The crew of the Polar Prince [un bateau de l’entreprise] “I lost contact with them about an hour and forty-five minutes into the dive,” he explained.
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Time is now of the essence when searching for the sub’s passengers. “It’s a remote region and it’s difficult to conduct research in such an area,” added John Mauger, estimating the submersible had seventy hours or more of oxygen reserves left. Frank Owen, a former submarine officer, told the BBC that the challenge for those on board was to keep cool and not use too much oxygen.
Instead, a $250,000 exploration
OceanGate Expeditions recently confirmed in his social networks that one of his expeditions was “underway” charges his clients $250,000 for a seat aboard his submarine and eight days to tour the famous wreck. According to the company, the submersible will seat five people, including a pilot, three fare-paying passengers and an “expert”.
Also read: One hundred and seven years after its sinking, the “Titanic” disappears inexorably and reveals new images
On the page of its website that explains the modalities of its activities, OceanGate Expeditions confirmed that a mission to visit the Titanic took place from June 12 to 20. The company’s only craft capable of penetrating the depths of the liner is the Titan, “a submersible designed to carry five people to depths of 4,000 meters,” which has a range of 96 hours for a crew of five.
The company uses the Polar Prince, an icebreaker previously operated by the Canadian Coast Guard, to ferry dozens of people and the submersible to the wreck site.
Who is on board?
The authorities did not want to confirm the identity of the people on board. Rear Admiral Mauger also did not want to provide any information “out of respect for the families” and was content with the statement that, according to the operator, it was a pilot and four other people.
Among the passengers is wealthy British businessman, aviator and space tourist Hamish Harding, 58, CEO of Action Aviation, confirmed Tuesday communicates, the Dubai-based private jet sales company. “The submarine’s crew consists of some legendary explorers, some of whom have completed more than thirty dives on the Titanic since the 1980s,” Mr Hamish wrote on his Instagram account on Saturday, announcing his participation in the voyage.
He added that French Titanic specialist Aquanaut Paul-Henri Nargeolet was also part of the expedition, which his family confirmed on BFM-TV. The marine explorer, who comes from Haute-Savoie and is now 77 years old, spent the first part of his career as a naval officer. As commander of the clearance diving group in Cherbourg (Manche, north-west of France) he then became a submarine pilot of the Undersea Intervention Group, which belongs to the French Navy. From there he turned to marine archeology, excavating several wrecks as part of the Naval Archeology Research Group. In 1986 he became responsible for Ifremer’s deep-deployment submarines. Since 2007 he has been director of the research program of the RMS Titanic/Phoenix International, which owns the wreck. The former clearance diver has worked on dozens of wreck recovery operations, including those of AF447, the Air France Rio Paris flight that crashed off Brazil in 2009.
Also on board, citing a statement from his family, is Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, vice president of the engro-conglomerate and administrator of the SETI Institute, and his son Suleman, according to the BBC.
Electrical, communication or hull problem
Without having studied the craft himself, Alistair Greig, professor of marine engineering at University College London, put forward two possible theories based on images of the device published in the press. He reckons that if he had had a problem with the electricity or communications, he could have been taken to the surface where he was adrift “waiting to be found.” “Another scenario would be that the hull was damaged” and there was a leak. “Then the prognosis is not good,” he added. And “very few ships can” go as deep as it could have sunk, he said.
For its part, SkyNew explains that in normal times the submarine sends out a signal every fifteen minutes to signal that it is safe. But the British broadcaster believes those signals have stopped.
CBS reporter David Pogue, who traveled aboard the submarine last year, told the BBC that the passengers were locked inside the main capsule, locked, and unable to get out on their own. Taking to Twitter, he recalled that the ship “got lost for a few hours last summer while I was on board.”
Third expedition to the “Titanic”
The wreck of the Titanic lies 3,810 meters (12,500 feet) at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, nearly 600 kilometers off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. In 1912, the liner collided with an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. Of the 2,200 passengers and crew on board, more than 1,500 perished.
This OceanGate expedition was the third organized to the site of the sunken transatlantic liner to document its deterioration and underwater life. The voyage was scheduled to begin in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador in early May and be completed by the end of June, according to a court document the company filed in April with the US district court in Virginia that has jurisdiction over the Titanic deal.