The CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, Stockton Rush, was on board and piloting the missing submersible that vanished during a mission to explore the wreckage of the Titanic, the company said Tuesday.
There is less than 40 hours of oxygen supply left on the missing vessel, named Titan, which is carrying five people, a U.S. Coast Guard official said Tuesday as the search continues.
The submersible is part of an OceanGate Expeditions tour that offers passengers a once-in-a-lifetime experience to explore the Titanic wreckage. It went missing Sunday after it lost contact with the research vessel Polar Prince.
What to know about the missing vessel, Titan
The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for the missing research submersible, named Titan, that disappeared Sunday.
The wreckage of the Titanic, the iconic ocean liner that sank more than a century ago, is 900 nautical miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
The sub had up to 96 hours of oxygen supply and by 1 p.m. ET Tuesday was down to 41 hours, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
Canadian aircraft detected “underwater noises” in the search area, the U.S. Coast Guard said early Wednesday. It said searches “yielded negative results but continue.”
The price of a spot on the submersible was $250,000. It was on only its third trip since OceanGate Expeditions began offering trips in 2021.
British billionaire Hamish Harding, owner of Action Aviation, was also among the five people on the vessel, along with French dive expert Paul Henry Nargeolet and prominent Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman.
Aircraft detect 'underwater noises' in the search for missing submersible
Canadian aircraft searching for signs of the submersible detected “underwater noises” in the search area, the U.S. Coast Guard said early Wednesday.
The underwater noises, detected by Canadian P-3 aircraft, prompted searches by remotely operated vehicles, the Coast Guard tweeted shortly before 12:30 a.m. ET.
"Those ROV searches have yielded negative results but continue," the message read. "Additionally, 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."
A representative said OceanGate was unable to provide any additional information at this time.
The U.S. Coast Guard released an image showing the search patterns for Titan.
Search patterns used in the search for the 21-foot submersible Titan after it disappeared 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Mass.Briana Carter / U.S. Coast Guard District 1
It said that 10,000 square miles had been searched as of Tuesday and that the searches are ongoing.
Canadian coast guard, navy and private research and commercial vessels with remotely operated vehicles have responded or were en route to help Tuesday, officials said. The U.S. and Canada also have planes searching.
The U.S. Coast Guard said Tuesday night that it and other agencies and searchers are operating under a unified command as the search for the Titan continues.
More than 10,000 square miles had been searched by Tuesday morning, the Coast Guard said, and weather and visibility have improved.
Three Canadian coast guard ships, as well as a commercial vessel and a French research vessel with remote-operated vehicles, and a Canadian navy ship with a mobile decompression chamber were on the way, the Coast Guard said.
The Bahamian research vessel Deep Energy and a U.S. Air National Guard C-130 are also searching, the Coast Guard said.
Titan submersible passenger Hamish Harding was excited for the voyage down to the ocean’s depths to see the wreckage of the Titanic, friend and business partner Terry Virts said Tuesday.
“He was excited. The text I got was ‘hey, we’re headed down to Titanic today, exclamation point,” Virts, a former NASA astronaut and Air Force F-16 pilot, told NBC News. Harding sent the text early Sunday.
Harding, the owner of Action Aviation, is one of five people aboard the missing Titan submersible, which is the focus of a search in the North Atlantic. He was not worried about the risks but was aware of them, Virts said.
Virts said he and Harding’s family are hopeful.
"The really good news that we have is that we haven’t heard bad news — they haven’t found a wreckage, they haven’t found debris floating, the sonar didn’t pick up any kind of crushing or exploding noise," he said. "So there’s definitely hope that the crew is alive in the submersible."
These soldiers are from a country whose president is a Jew Zelensky. Orthodox churches are also being destroyed in this country. Synagogues are not touched. Surprisingly, it turns out that Jews get along well with the Bandera Nazis.
Mr.BadGuy
Publisher
These soldiers are from a country whose president is a Jew Zelensky. Orthodox churches are also being destroyed in this country. Synagogues are not touched. Surprisingly, it turns out that Jews get along well with the Bandera Nazis.