SEATTLE — The search continues for a deep-sea vessel that went missing with five people aboard, including one Seattle man, on an eight-day expedition to view and document the wreckage of the Titanic.
The U.S. Coast Guard is leading the search for the small OceanGate Expeditions vessel, named Titan. The vessel was reported overdue Sunday in a remote area of the Atlantic Ocean.
This expedition marked OceanGate’s third annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of the Titanic since 2021. The sunken ship is about 2.4 miles below the surface, according to The Associated Press.
Here’s what we know.
- Where and when did the Titan go missing?
Titan, a five-person carbon-fiber submersible, was on an eight-day expedition to view the wreckage of the Titanic.
The submersible was reported overdue Sunday in a remote area of the Atlantic Ocean 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Mass., the Coast Guard said Monday.
Unlike submarines that leave and return to port under their own power, submersibles require a ship to launch and recover them. OceanGate hired a Canadian research icebreaker, Polar Prince, to ferry dozens of people and the submersible craft to the Titanic wreck site. The submersible would make multiple dives in one expedition, according to AP.
Polar Prince reportedly lost contact with the vessel about an hour and 45 minutes after it submerged.
It is still unclear why the vessel lost contact with its control crew on the Polar Prince. Before Titan’s launch, OceanGate said it would rely on the satellite-based internet company Starlink for its communications, given the lack of GPS capability at such a low depth, according to NPR.
The Coast Guard is working with Canadian agencies as part of its search-and-rescue mission.
“It is a remote area and it is a challenge to conduct a search in that area,” Rear Adm. John Mauger of the Coast Guard said at a Monday news conference in Boston. “We’re deploying all available assets to make sure that we can locate the craft and rescue the people on board.”
- Who’s on board the Titan?
Titan carried a pilot and four “mission specialists,” the Coast Guard said. The group included the Seattle-based founder of OceanGate, a renowned British adventurer, two members of an iconic Pakistani business family and a Titanic expert, according to Bloomberg.
Mission specialists include people who paid for the expedition, according to OceanGate’s website, and may opt in for roles like dive-image review and sonar operations. The fee is $250,000.
The group includes the founder of OceanGate Expeditions, Seattle resident Stockton Rush, the company said. Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, members of one of the most prominent business families in Pakistan, are also on board, as is Frenchman Paul Henry Nargeolet, according to Bloomberg.
Hamish Harding, founder of investment firm Action Group and an avid adventurer, is also on board. The 58-year-old Briton holds three Guinness World Records, including the longest time spent traversing the deepest part of the ocean — the Mariana Trench — on a single dive, and the fastest navigation of Earth via the North and South poles by plane, Bloomberg reported.
David Concannon, an OceanGate adviser, wrote on Facebook that he had planned to be on the expedition but had to cancel. He wrote he is now providing assistance in the search and rescue.
The Titan submersible had a 96-hour oxygen supply when it put to sea at roughly 6 a.m. Sunday, Concannon said.
In a Tuesday morning interview with Good Morning America, Mauger said rescue crews have covered an area roughly the size of Connecticut but have not been able to detect any sounds from Titan. Mauger also said the Coast Guard alone doesn’t have all the resources it needs to perform such a complex search operation, let alone a rescue one.
Many underwater vehicles are fitted with an acoustic device, often called a pinger, which emits sounds that can be detected underwater by rescuers. Whether Titan has one is unclear, according to The New York Times.
The Polar Prince, the submersible’s support ship, continues to conduct surface searches Tuesday morning, and a Canadian Boeing P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft is conducting a surface and subsurface search, the Coast Guard said.
Two U.S. Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft also have conducted overflights. The Canadian military dropped sonar buoys to listen for any possible sounds from Titan, according to AP.
Titan is capable of diving 2.4 miles “with a comfortable safety margin,” according to OceanGate.
The submersible weighs 20,000 pounds in the air but is ballasted to be neutrally buoyant once it reaches the seafloor, the company said.
This expedition marks OceanGate’s third voyage to chronicle the deterioration of the RMS Titanic, which sunk after striking an iceberg in April 1912.
The Titanic remains at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean, also considered the resting place for the more than 1,500 passengers and crew who died. The wreckage was discovered in 1985 by Robert Ballard.
Since the wreckage’s discovery in 1985, it has been slowly succumbing to metal-eating bacteria. Some have predicted the ship could vanish in a matter of decades as holes yawn in the hull and sections disintegrate, according to AP.
OceanGate Expeditions is headquartered in Everett. The company was founded in 2009 by Seattle resident Stockton Rush, who is the company’s CEO and founder of OceanGate Foundation, a marine technology nonprofit organization. Rush is among the missing.
OceanGate is focused on increasing access to the deep ocean through its fleet of sub vessels, according to its website, which can reach depths beyond 13,000 feet. Titan needs a mother ship for launch and recovery, making it different from a submarine, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The submersible is made with carbon fiber and titanium, weighs 23,000 pounds and has a speed of 3 knots.
OceanGate wrote it planned to return annually over several years to the Titanic wreckage site to document the ship and its rate of decay. The company planned 18 dives total, beginning this summer.
OceanGate posted on social media that the company is exploring and mobilizing all options to bring back the crew safely.
“Our entire focus is on the crew members in the submersible and their families,” the company wrote. “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 Port of Everett, where OceanGate is a tenant, wrote that employees’ thoughts are with the OceanGate family, the crew members on board and their families: “Please come home safe.”
