The search to find the missing Titanic tourist submersible has only expanded since the vessel went missing.
The Titan submersible went missing on Sunday, June 18, during a mission to survey the wreckage of the Titanic. The vessel had up to 96 hours of oxygen supply. Their oxygen supply is expected to run out by Thursday morning.
OceanGate Expeditions began offering trips in 2021 and it cost $250,000 for a seat.
11:03 a.m. Thursday
As oxygen levels on Titan submersible are depleted, there are ways to conserve
Associated Press
The Titan was said to have enough oxygen on board to last 96 hours, according to the U.S. Coast Guard, meaning they could run out sometime Thursday.
But there are ways the five passengers can conserve, said professor Hugh Montgomery, director of the Centre for Human Health and Performance at University College London, even as temperatures drop to near freezing.
The human body makes every effort to maintain a core body temperature so shivering may increase oxygen demands, he said.
“The only effective way to limit O2 demand in this circumstance is not to burn excess energy,” Montgomery said.
That means staying immobile or sleeping. Meditation can also slightly reduce oxygen demand by producing less stress hormones, less movement and more relaxed muscles, but such effects will be marginal, he said.
10:32 a.m. Thursday
French deep sea robot joins search for missing submersible
Associated Press
A French deep sea robot that can dive to depths of 6,000 meters (19,685 feet) has joined the search for the missing Titan submersible and its five passengers.
France’s state-run ocean research institute said Thursday the Victor 6000 is fitted with cameras, lights and robotic arms that could, if Titan is found, assist in raising it to the surface.
“With all of its cameras and things, we’re capable of finding things really well in an area 20 to 30 meters (yards) around,” said Olivier Lefort, the fleet director at the French ocean research institute Ifremer. He added that if the Titan is found, Victor 6000 could help attach cables to the submersible in an effort to raise it.
The robot was aboard the French ocean research ship L’Atalante, which was working in the Atlantic, 48 hours away, when the Titan vanished Sunday on its way to the Titanic wreckage, which is at about 3,800 meters (12,467 feet) deep.
The French vessel L'Atalante has just deployed their ROV. #Titanic
— USCGNortheast (@USCGNortheast) June 22, 2023
8:54 a.m. Thursday
Search for the missing Titanic submersible passes the critical 96-hour mark for oxygen supply
The search for the missing submersible on an expedition to view the wreckage of the Titanic passed the critical 96-hour mark Thursday when breathable air could have run out, a grim moment in the intense effort to save the five people aboard.
The Titan submersible was estimated to have about a four-day supply of breathable air when it launched Sunday morning in the North Atlantic — but experts have emphasized that was an imprecise approximation to begin with and could be extended if passengers have taken measures to conserve breathable air. And it’s not known if they survived since the sub’s disappearance.
7:14 p.m. Wednesday
Titan searchers face challenges with underwater mountains, water pressure, weather
Associated Press
Underwater mountains and valleys. Deep-sea water pressure. Weather conditions. And a search area twice the size of Connecticut – in waters 2 1/2 miles (4 kilometers) deep – with few clues about the Titan’s location.
The crews tasked with finding the Titan, which was reported overdue Sunday night, are facing all those challenges and more to locate the submersible amid the North Atlantic waters.
While undersea search efforts are nothing new – a 2019 expedition found two lost Japanese aircraft carriers that went down in World War II’s historic Battle of Midway around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands – looking for the 22-foot-long (6.7-meter) carbon-fiber vessel amid the vast ocean is far more than finding a needle in a haystack.
Those Japanese aircraft carriers were exponentially larger than the Titan – and still they were lost for decades after the June 1942 air and sea battle.
“I’ve seen large vessels hiding within extreme geology so searching for smaller objects requires more detailed scrutiny as opposed to searching for a sunken (cruiser) or aircraft carrier,” wrote Robert Kraft, a deep-sea explorer who was part of the 2019 expedition, in an email to The Associated Press from aboard his latest voyage.
6:44 p.m. Wednesday
Search area for lost Titanic-bound submersible deepens, doubles in size as oxygen dwindles
Associated Press
Rescuers on Wednesday rushed more ships and vessels to the area where a submersible disappeared on its way to the Titanic wreckage site, hoping underwater sounds they detected for a second straight day might help narrow their search in an increasingly urgent mission.
Crews were scouring an area twice the size of Connecticut in waters 2 1/2 miles deep, said Captain Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District, who noted that authorities are still holding out hope of saving the five passengers onboard the Titan.
6:41 p.m. Wednesday
Sound could help, or hinder, search for submersible
Associated Press
Teams racing to find the missing Titan submersible have detected underwater noises in the search area. But it won’t be easy to find the source of that sound in the “noisy” ocean.
There are many other potential sources of sound underwater, including from fish, other animals and of course human-made instruments, according to Matt Dzieciuch, an ocean acoustics expert at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
While the Coast Guard said search teams heard banging noises at 30-minute intervals, it’s still unclear whether the banging noises were a true signal of life.
Usually, an underwater vehicle will have a device called a pinger that can correspond with the surface and make it easier to locate, Dzieciuch said. But it’s unclear whether the Titan submersible was using one.
The search team is facing additional challenges because sound gets bent as it travels underwater, due to how pressure and temperature change at different depths, Dzieciuch said. That can create echo-like effects and make it hard to locate the source of a particular sound.
5:25 p.m. Wednesday
The Titan submersible: The latest on the search, outlook for rescue
Associated Press
A Canadian aircraft detected underwater noises in the search area Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Officials said they don’t know what made the sounds, and a robotic vessel scouring the area so far has “yielded negative results.” Additional remotely operated vessels were sent.
“The equipment that is onsite and coming is the most sophisticated in the world and certainly capable of reaching those depths,” said Sean Leet, chief executive of Canadian company Horizon Maritime.
As of Wednesday, searchers had covered an area twice the size of Connecticut in waters 2 1/2 miles deep.
4:23 p.m. Wednesday
Outlook bleak for passengers on the Titan, despite massive rescue effort
Associated Press
Time is quickly running out in the search for a missing submersible that lost contact with its mother ship on Sunday as it descended to the wreck of the Titanic with five people aboard.
As an international fleet of surveillance vessels and aircraft forges ahead with ongoing search and rescue efforts, each passing second makes it less likely that the passengers on the Titan will be found alive as their oxygen supply is expected to run out by Thursday morning.
4:16 p.m. Wednesday
US Coast Guard announces 879 miles have been searched on Wednesday
The U.S. Coast Guard announced that an aircraft searched 879 miles over the search area on Wednesday. Aircrafts from other agencies are also scheduled to search.
As of now, these are the completed searches for the Titan, a 21-foot submersible from the Polar Prince, as of Wednesday afternoon.#Titanic pic.twitter.com/alpYBFA8kQ
— USCGNortheast (@USCGNortheast) June 21, 2023
4:14 p.m. Wednesday
The US Coast Guard is bringing in more ships, vessels to search for lost Titanic tourist submersible
Associated Press
Rescuers on Wednesday rushed more ships and vessels to the area where a submersible disappeared on its way to the Titanic wreckage site, hoping underwater sounds they detected for a second straight day might help narrow their search in an increasingly urgent mission.
The full scope of the search was twice the size of Connecticut in waters 2 1/2 miles deep, said Captain Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District, who noted that authorities are still holding out hope of saving the five passengers onboard the Titan.
3:32 p.m. Wednesday
Specialized vessel flown to Canada, to be used to search sea floor for Titan
Associated Press
The daunting search and rescue effort for the Titan is rushing experts and specialized underwater equipment together by land, by air and by sea to find the submersible before its oxygen runs out.
A remotely operated vehicle that can scan the sea floor, known as an ROV, was flown to Canada on Tuesday and is expected to arrive at the Titanic site on Thursday morning.
“The equipment that is onsite and coming is the most sophisticated in the world and certainly capable of reaching those depths,” said Sean Leet, chief executive of Canadian Horizon Maritime company.
The company and the Mi’kmaq band co-own the Polar Prince, which is the research vessel that launched the Titan.
“We are praying for our friends onboard the Titan submersible,” said Miawpukek First Nation Chief Mi’sel Joe. “We want them to come home safely. We ask everyone across Canada and the world to pray with us that we can find and rescue the Titan.”
3:05 p.m. Wednesday
US Navy sending equipment for possible salvage
Associated Press
The U.S. Navy is sending a specialized salvage system that’s capable of hoisting “large, bulky and heavy undersea objects such as aircraft or small vessels” in the hopes that the Titan will be found in the waters of the North Atlantic.
The Titan weighs 20,000 pounds (more than 9,000 kilograms). The U.S. Navy’s Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System is designed to lift up to 60,000 pounds (27,215 kilograms), the navy said on its website.
The Flyaway has a traction winch as well as a system that prevents “high-snap tension” from occurring in the lift line.
2:34 p.m. Wednesday
The US Coast Guard is bringing in more ships, vessels to search for lost Titanic tourist submersible
Associated Press
A Canadian surveillance vessel has detected more underwater noises in the area where rescuers are searching for a submersible that went missing in the North Atlantic while bringing five people down to the wreck of the Titanic, authorities said Wednesday.
Coast Guard officials were bringing in more ships and other vessels to search the more narrowly defined area, though the exact location and source of the sounds has not yet been determined. The full scope of the search was twice the size of Connecticut in waters 2 1/2 miles deep, said Captain Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District.
1 p.m. Wednesday
US Coast Guard provides update on search efforts for missing Titanic tourist sub
Capt. Jamie Frederick, First Coast Guard District response coordinator, delivered a press briefing in Boston, Massachusetts, about the ongoing search for the 21-foot submarine Titan, June 21, 2023.
The Coast Guard is searching for five persons after the Canadian research vessel Polar Prince lost contact with their submersible during a dive, approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Sunday morning. (U.S. Coast Guard video by Petty Officer 3rd Class Briana Carter)
9:48 a.m. Wednesday
Insufficient prototype testing could put Titanic sub passengers in extreme danger, a lawsuit says
Associated Press
The company whose submersible vanished in the North Atlantic on a tourist dive to the wreck of the Titanic was repeatedly warned that there might be catastrophic safety problems posed by the way it was developed, documents show.
With five people aboard a vessel that if still functioning would have a dwindling amount of oxygen, an expanding international fleet of ships and airplanes is searching for the Titan, operated by OceanGate Expeditions. The undersea exploration company based in Everett, Washington, has been making yearly voyages to the Titanic since 2021.
1:14 a.m. Wednesday
A Titanic expert, an adventurer, a CEO, and a father and son are on the missing submersible
Associated Press
A renowned Titanic expert, a world-record holding adventurer, two members of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest families and the CEO of the company leading an expedition to the world’s most famous shipwreck are facing critical danger aboard a small submersible that went missing in the Atlantic Ocean.
The submersible Titan was reported overdue Sunday night about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, according to Canada’s Joint Rescue Coordination Center, spurring a desperate international rescue effort. Rescuers were racing against the clock because the oxygen supply could run out by approximately 6 a.m. Thursday.
6:47 p.m. Tuesday
In race against clock, expanding fleet of ships searches for submersible lost near Titanic wreck
Associated Press
In a race against the clock on the high seas, an expanding international armada of ships and airplanes searched Tuesday for a submersible that vanished in the North Atlantic while taking five people down to the wreck of the Titanic.
U.S. Coast Guard officials said the search covered 10,000 square miles (26,000 square kilometers) but turned up no sign of the lost sub known as the Titan. Although rescuers planned to continue looking, time was running out because the vessel would have less than two days of oxygen left if it is still intact and functioning.
2:55 p.m. Tuesday
The vessel missing near the Titanic wreck is a submersible, not a submarine: Here’s the difference
Associated Press
The vessel that went missing Sunday in the North Atlantic while exploring the Titanic’s wreckage is a submersible not a submarine, and there is a key difference.
The Titan, with five people on board, remained missing Tuesday even as an international search and rescue effort was underway.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration explains the difference. A submarine has enough power to leave port and come back to port under its own power.
But a submersible has more limited power and range. It needs a mother ship from which to launch, to return to, and for support and communications.
The Titan’s mother ship is the Polar Prince, a former Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker.
2:49 a.m. Tuesday
Deep-sea craft carrying 5 people to Titanic wreckage reported missing, search underway
Associated Press
A rescue operation was underway deep in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean on Monday in search of a technologically advanced submersible vessel carrying five people to document the wreckage of the Titanic, the iconic ocean liner that sank more than a century ago.
The vessel was reported overdue Sunday night about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, according to Canada’s Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Lt. Cmdr. Len Hickey said a Canadian Coast Guard vessel and military aircraft were assisting the search effort, which was being led by the U.S. Coast Guard in Boston.