Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 21: The search team looking for the submersible vessel missing in the Atlantic Ocean is believed to have collected some data that show “signs of life” but is yet to find any clue about its location even as the stored oxygen in the vessel is depleting rapidly.
The search teams are racing against time as the five on board the vessel have less than 24 hours’ worth of oxygen left, the US Coast Guard said. The Titan was designed to have an oxygen supply of as much as 96 hours in case of an emergency.
The vessel Titan was headed to the wreck of the Titanic some 3,800 metres down on the sea-bed with five crew on-board. A search vessel said it was picking up ‘banging sounds’ at regular interval of 30 minutes. The US Coast Guard, Canadian Joint Rescue Centre, and research vessels from France are part of the team racing against the clock to locate the orca-sized submersible. Submersibles are manned watercraft that move similarly to submarines but within a much more limited range.
Explorers Club, a group involved with the rescue ops, today said the data from the search site shows likely signs of life. Rescuers using sonar detected “underwater banging sounds” where the craft vanished two days earlier. The noise repeats every 30 minutes, according to an internal US government memo cited by multiple US outlets.
OceanGate Expeditions, the operator of the mission, is leading underwater search efforts because of its knowledge of the site, the US Coast Guard said. Air searches failed to find any signs of the missing Titan, a 6.7-meter-long craft made of carbon fiber and titanium.
The rescue teams that have undertaken the gargantuan effort of scouring a 20,000-square-kilometer area of the North Atlantic are up against low visibility and adverse weather. “It’s pitch black down there. It’s freezing cold. The seabed is mud, and it’s undulating. You can’t see your hand in front of your face. It’s really a bit like being an astronaut going into space,” Titanic expert Tim Maltin said. Military planes, a submarine and sonar buoys have so far been used in the search for the vessel.
Shahzada Dawood, a prominent Pakistani businessman living in the UK, and his son Suleman, are among the five aboard the missing submersible. Also missing is chairman of Action Aviation Hamish Harding, a British businessman who collaborated with the Indian government to reintroduce eight wild cheetahs from Namibia to India.
US President Joe Biden is closely watching the events related to the missing submersible, White House national security adviser John Kirby said. Britain’s King Charles asked to be kept apprised of the search, a Buckingham Palace source said, as Shahzada Dawood is a long-time supporter of the monarch’s charity, the Prince’s Trust International.
Contact with the small sub was lost about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive in the mid-Atlantic on Sunday. OceanGate Expeditions, a company offering eight-day missions to see the Titanic debris for $250,000 per person, confirmed that its submarine was lost at sea with crew members on board.
The company’s chief executive, Stockton Rush, previously described the craft as “rock solid”, is also believed to be on board. The company said in a statement that it is “exploring and mobilising all options to bring the crew back safely.” French explorer Paul-Henry Nargeolet is also thought to be on board, according to a Facebook post by Harding before the dive started.
Harding also worked on a project to launch a regular business jet service to the Antarctic, working with a company called White Desert. He had arranged a customised Boeing 747-400 aircraft for the mission.
Harding is known for his exploratory escapades across the globe. The trip to Titanic’s wreckage was the latest in a string of adventures. He has visited the South Pole multiple times, flown into space in 2022 on board Blue Origin’s fifth human-crewed flight, and set three world records — including the longest time spent at full ocean depth during a dive to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench.
Over the weekend, Harding said on social media that a ship had set off from the city of St John’s, in Newfoundland, Canada, for the destination of the Titanic wreck. From there, he and the crew were planning to start diving operations in the submersible down to the wreck at around 04:00 local time on Sunday morning.
He wrote on Facebook that he was “proud to finally announce” that he would be aboard the mission to the wreck of the Titanic. Due to the “worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years,” he said, “this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023.” “A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.” Action Aviation said on Sunday that the sub had had a successful launch and Harding was “currently diving.”
Later, his stepson Brian Szasz said in a now-deleted post on Facebook: He “has gone missing on (the) submarine.” Patrick Woodhead, the founder of British tour operator White Desert Antarctica, said Harding was an “incredible” aviation explorer and a great advocate for discovering new pathways to make the world a better place. Harding had travelled with them to Antarctica a number of times, he said, including with U.S. astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
