The clock is ticking on the five crew members of the Titan submersible, a privately owned craft operated by OceanGate Expeditions. The transport vessel Polar Prince lost contact with Titan just one hour and 45 minutes into the expedition on June 18.
The best guess by the U.S. Coast Guard is that the submersible had enough oxygen to sustain five people for around 96 hours. As of 5 p.m. Eastern time on June 19, the craft was believed to have 70 hours of oxygen left. That means the submersible would have enough oxygen to keep the crew alive until possibly Thursday — if some catastrophic failure resulted in the craft losing contact with the surface hadn’t already occurred.
Titan had no GPS and no radio. The submersible communicated with the Polar Prince via text messages.
The chief executive and founder of OceanGate Expeditions, Stockton Rush, was aboard the submersible as well as Pakistani millionaire Shahzada Dawood, his son Sulaiman, and UK businessman Hamish Harding. The passengers paid $250,000 each to dive down to the Titanic’s debris field, about 13,000 feet below the surface.
“Our entire focus is on the crew members in the submersible and their families,” OceanGate Expeditions said in a statement.
“We are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to reestablish contact with the submersible.”
The United States is cooperating with OceanGate Expedition in the rescue operation. A C-130 with a sophisticated underwater detection radar has been loaned out to the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards, and the Navy has supplied P8 Poseidon aircraft capable of dropping numerous sonar buoys in the water.
But one former submariner, Rep. Brandon Williams (R-N.Y.), told Fox News Digital Monday evening, “We have the best sonar operators in the world, we have the best sonar equipment in the world, and locating the missing submarine is the first step to recovering the crew—time is against us. The United States Navy, I hope, is offering all assistance necessary.”
The seas off the Newfoundland coast are choppy with six-foot swells — not ideal weather for a major rescue.
Nasa astronaut Terry Virts revealed one of the passengers, his friend Harding, spoke to him out about poor weather conditions just hours before the expedition started.
Speaking on Good Morning Britain Virts, from Houston, revealed that Harding had texted him hours before he went missing, confirming the mission was going ahead – despite fears over bad weather.
.@USNavy—deploy a nuclear submarine to find our civilian friends @OceanGateExped. Don’t wait, get the best sonar operators in the world in a position to help rescue the lost submersible and it’s crew, while there is still hope! https://t.co/5F9tEqrVAO
— Rep. Brandon Williams (@RepWilliams) June 19, 2023
There’s controversy over the U.S. government’s refusal to use a UK submersible that could potentially winch Titan up to the surface.
A team from deepwater specialists Magellan Limited has been waiting to leave an airport in the Channel Islands since 7pm on Monday but approval for take-off has yet to be received.
The Guernsey-based firm produced the first full-sized digital scan of the Titanic last summer, the largest underwater project of its kind as two submarines put together 700,000 images of the wreck.
Bretton Hunchak, former president of RMS Titanic, Inc, which collaborated with Magellan, says the company has essential equipment and expertise to help locate OceanGate’s Titan submersible that went missing on a dive to the wreck of the luxury passenger liner which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in April 1912.
For some reason, the U.S. prefers using an unmanned submersible only capable of diving to 3,000 meters while the Magellan craft can dive to 5,000 meters.
Bretton Hunchak, former president of RMS Titanic, Inc, which collaborated with Magellan on a deep dive last year, told the Telegraph:
We have British, French, and US citizens on board and every minute here counts. This is not a rational decision, this is the only asset we have with a winch and the guys are experts in this area.
Why not run both vessels? The more help we can get the better and denying us means you are giving up on every option you have to save lives.
These are irreplaceable human beings.
The Magellan craft is the only submersible with a winch capable of bringing Titan to the surface.
There’s no chance of the Titan crew opening a hatch and swimming to the surface. At 4,000 meters, they would be killed in seconds upon leaving the boat.
So the boat has to be taken to the surface someway intact. And that’s a challenge that may be impossible to overcome.
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