Oxygen on the bathyscaphe missing from the Titanic is enough for 96 hours: search difficulties

“All available” resources are being deployed to assist with search operations being carried out in the Atlantic Ocean after a submersible carrying five people to the wreck of the Titanic went missing.

The submersible, known as the Titan, is operated by OceanGate Expeditions, according to The Guardian. On Monday, reports came in that he was missing. Communication was lost 1 hour and 45 minutes after the dive on Sunday afternoon, the US Coast Guard said.

The vessel is capable of staying submerged for 96 hours, but it was not clear if it was still submerged or if it surfaced and failed to make contact.

The Titan is a carbon fiber and titanium submersible used to explore the wreck of the Titanic.

“This is a remote area and it is not easy to search this remote area,” the Coast Guard commander said on Monday. “But we will use every means available to make sure we can locate the vessel and rescue the people on board.”

Titan’s support vessel, the Canadian research icebreaker Polar Prince, will continue surface searches throughout the evening, while the Canadian P8 Poseidon aircraft will resume searches in the morning, the Coast Guard said late Monday.

David Concannon, advisor to OceanGate, said the submersible’s 96-hour oxygen service began at about 6 am Sunday. Concannon said he was supposed to be on the dive but couldn’t go because of another business with a client.

In an email to the Associated Press, he told the Associated Press that officials are working to get a remote-operated vehicle, which could reach depths of 6,000m, to the site as soon as possible.

The ROV can be dropped over the side of the vessel to which it is connected by an ‘umbilical cord’ allowing the pilot to control its engines and transmit real-time data from its sonar systems and cameras. However, the amount of Titanic wreckage on the ocean floor means it can take time to distinguish between what is a wreck and what is a “Titan”.

But experts said that even if the ship is found underwater, it could also be difficult to recover, especially if it is entangled in 100-year-old wreckage.

“Its parts [“Титаника”] scattered everywhere. It’s dangerous,” says Frank Owen, a retired Royal Australian Navy officer and director of the Submarine Rescue Project.

Alistair Greig, professor of marine engineering at University College London, notes: “If it has sunk to the seabed and cannot get back under its own power, the options are very limited. While the submersible may still be intact if it is off the continental shelf, very few vessels can get to that depth, and certainly not divers.”

“Submersibles usually have a drop weight, which is “mass that they can drop in an emergency to bring them to the surface using buoyancy,” Greig added. “If there was a power outage…or a communication failure, it could happen, and then the submersible would float on the surface, waiting to be found.”

Chris Parry, a retired Navy rear admiral, told Sky News the rescue is a “very complex operation”.

“The Titanic itself lies in a recess. There is a lot of garbage around. So trying to discriminate, particularly with sonar, and targeting the area you want to search with another submersible is going to be really, really hard.”

US and Canadian ships and aircraft combed an area about 1,450 kilometers east of Cape Cod on Monday, some dropping sonar buoys that can monitor depths of almost 4,000 meters, the US Coast Guard said. But the search was “difficult” because the crews didn’t know if the ship had resurfaced, which meant they had to comb both the surface and the ocean depths.

According to the latest information, one of the crew members of the bathyscaphe, the Irish explorer Rory Golden, got in touch. According to the Irish newspaper Irish Sun, he wrote on social networks that he was fine.

OceanGate expeditions to the Titanic wreck include archaeologists and marine biologists. The company also recruits people known as “mission specialists” who pay to participate in the expedition. They take turns operating the sonar equipment and performing other tasks in a five-man submersible. The Coast Guard said on Monday that one pilot and four “mission specialists” were on board.

One of those believed to be on board is Paul Henri Narjolet, a former French Navy commander, deep-sea diver and submersible pilot. As Director of Underwater Research for E/M Group and RMS Titanic, Inc., he is widely regarded as the lead specialist on the wreck site, and it is possible that he supervised the dive of a four-passenger submersible.

Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman were also on board, their family said in a statement.

“We are very grateful for the care shown by our colleagues and friends and would like to ask everyone to pray for their safety,” the statement said.

British businessman Hamish Harding, a well-known aviator and explorer, was part of a small group of space tourists who also booked an underwater trip.

Harding, 58, wrote on social media Saturday: “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only completed mission on the Titanic in 2023. The weather window has just opened and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.” In a previous post, he described himself as a “mission specialist” during the trip.

OceanGate Expeditions has been running expeditions since 2021. A statement on the company’s website on Monday read: “Our focus is on the crew members of the submersible and their families. We are deeply grateful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to re-establish contact with the submersible.”