Missing Titanic Submersible: Rescuers Detect ‘Underwater Noise’ in Search Area and Redirect Efforts
The Coast Guard said in a brief statement on Twitter that some of the remote-operated vehicles involved in the search had been relocated in an attempt to determine the origin of the sounds.
Here’s the most recent information about the lost submersible:
Timelapse shows marine traffic in missing sub area
A timelapse shows the search patterns of marine traffic on the surface above the Titanic wreck site yesterday as the rescue effort ramped up.
Timelapse shows marine traffic in missing sub area
— Vattaj.com (@vattaj) June 22, 2023
Read more: https://t.co/ZJZmYnhupv#Titan #Titanic #TitanicRescue #submarine #submarinemissing #SubmarineSearch pic.twitter.com/LmDJRVYMO2
Additional search ships arrived overnight and all those involved are set to be there within the next few hours.
UPDATE: 06:05 Thursday, June 22, 2023 (EDT) Time in Washington, DC, USA
“We have to prepare ourselves for the worst’, former Navy officer warns
The situation is “gloomy” and we have to “prepare ourselves for the worst,” an ex-Navy officer has said.
Retired rear admiral Chris Parry told Sky News that the chances of survival for the Titan crew at this point are “vanishingly small”.
Mr Parry said the five men are at the “extreme limits for their oxygen” and even if the submersible were found now, it would take time to bring it to the surface to release them.
“I’m afraid it is very gloomy indeed,” he said.
On the rescue effort, Mr Parry said there is a “vast concentration of seabed and operations vessels” at the search site.
Arriving now is a ship called Horizon Arctic, he added, bringing a “very capable” US remotely operated vehicle named Curve 21.
It is “essentially a crane”, Mr Parry says, with a cable that can go down to 20,000 feet.
“I think the idea will be that if Titan is found, that the remote operating vehicle will go down, make sure it’s all right… attach the cable and they’ll bring it up.”
But in a less hopeful view of the chances of success, he said: “I’m afraid to say that even if we were to find Titan now, the time it would take to get down there, secure them, bring them up… it’s vanishingly small in terms of the likelihood of survival.”
A Canadian surveillance plane searching for the missing Titan submarine and the five persons on board in the North Atlantic has “detected underwater noises in the search area,” according to the US Coast Guard early Wednesday.
The Coast Guard stated on Twitter that remote-controlled vehicles were still looking for the Titan. Late Tuesday, officials in the United States and Canada did not immediately reply to demands for more comment.
An international rescue squad has been racing to find the Titan in an area of the ocean the size of Connecticut.
The surface has been scanned by aircraft from the United States and Canada, and sonar buoys have been pinging the depths.
As of Tuesday, the Titan was estimated to have fewer than two days of oxygen left.
Even if the Titan is found — in a remote stretch of water where the bottom is more than two miles under the turbulent surface – recovering it may be difficult.
The US Navy utilizes a remote-controlled vehicle that can reach depths of 20,000 feet to collect things from the bottom.
Ships carrying such a vehicle, however, typically go at little more than 20 miles per hour, while the Titanic lay around 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.
On Sunday morning, the submersible was more than midway through what should have been a two-and-a-half-hour dive to the Titanic wreckage when it lost touch with a hired research ship.
For years, leaders in the submersible craft industry had warned of “catastrophic” concerns with the vessel’s design, and they were concerned that the Titan had not followed regular certification protocols./NYT
