Planes and ships in the United States and Canada raced Tuesday to find a submersible that went missing during a commercial dive to the Titanic site amid concerns over limited oxygen supplies for the five people on board.
A Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft, a CP-140 Aurora capable of detecting underwater objects, will join the search Tuesday morning, the U.S. Coast Guard Northeast Service in Boston said late Monday. That was after a nighttime sea surface search by C-130 Hercules aircraft.
Titan Submersibles operates $250,000-a-person tours of the Titanic wreck that include British entrepreneur Hamish Harding and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman.
All five missing have not yet been officially named, but multiple reports say the founders of French explorer Paul-Henry Nargeolet and OceanGate, the company that built the Titan and organized the voyage The man Stockton Rush (Stockton Rush) boarded the ship together. travel.
Harding is chairman of Action Aviation, a Dubai-based business jet broker.
The Canadian Aurora aircraft is used for anti-submarine warfare, which means it can detect underwater objects from the air.
Most of the aircraft and ships initially deployed in the search were limited to conducting searches to the surface in case the sub returned to the surface away from the ship that launched it. They are also equipped with sonar equipment to listen for any sounds produced.
The Titan was launched Sunday morning from the Polar Prince, the ship that took it to a dive site 900 nautical miles east of Cape Cod off the US coast.
The Arctic Prince reported losing contact with the Titan 1 hour and 45 minutes into the trip. Titan plans to go to the wreck of the Titanic, which sank in April 1912, killing some 1,500 people.
John Mauger, commander of the 1st U.S. Coast Guard District based in Boston, once briefing On Monday night, Titan had a “sustainment” capability designed to provide oxygen to those on board for up to 96 hours. That would make it possible for the search to be successful by Thursday morning local time.
“We’re using every moment of that time to locate the ship,” Mauger said.
The commander said the search was complicated because it needed to be carried out at the surface in case the ship managed to surface but had no communication, and in the “water column”.
The wreck of the Titanic lies at a depth of 3,800 meters at a water pressure approximately 380 times the atmospheric pressure at sea level.
“This is a remote area and searching in that remote area is challenging, but we are deploying all available assets to ensure we can locate the ship and rescue those on board,” the commander said.
according to OceanGate’s website, the submersible weighs 10.4 tons and is made of carbon fiber and titanium. It claims the ship is equipped with a real-time health monitoring system to monitor the effects of pressure on the hull, giving the crew enough time to return to the surface should any problems arise.