What we know of search and rescue operation after latest US Coast Guard updateHere’s a recap of today’s developments:
Rescue operations searching for the Titan submersible have focused their efforts on a remote area of the North Atlantic where a series of underwater noises have been detected. Noises were detected by Canadian P-3 aircraft on Tuesday and again on Wednesday, US Coast Guard officials said in a press conference this afternoon.
Experts have not yet identified the source of these noises, and officials have warned the sounds may not have originated from the missing vessel. Analysis of the noises has been “inconclusive”, Coast Guard Capt Jamie Frederick said. Remotely operated vehicle (ROV) searches have been deployed in the area where the P-3 aircraft recorded the noises, US Coast Guard officials said.
The five passengers on board the missing Titan sub had 96 hours of breathable air, according to its operator OceanGate’s specifications. This would mean oxygen could run out by Thursday morning, but experts say the air supply depends on a range of factors.
More ships and underwater vessels are being brought in to join the search and rescue operations, US Coast Guard officials said. Three search vessels arrived on the scene on Wednesday, including one that has side-scanning sonar capabilities. The full scope of the search is twice the size of Connecticut and 2 1/2 miles (4km) deep, Capt Frederick said.
Documents show that the sub’s operator, OceanGate, had been warned there might be catastrophic safety problems posed by the way the experimental vessel was developed. David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations, said in a 2018 lawsuit that the company’s testing and certification was insufficient and would “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible”.
‘Banging noises’ heard as search continues for Titanic sub – videoKey events
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Karen McVeigh
Recovering the missing Titan submersible and bringing its crew to safety in time using the latest advanced deep-sea rescue equipment would be an extremely difficult task, an expert has said.
Even if Titan is located, a successful rescue would require remote-controlled vehicles (ROVs) capable of allowing operators on the surface a clear view of the submersible’s location, any obstacles that may be present and where to attach cables capable of lifting it thousands of metres through the water.
If the Titan and its five-person crew did arrive at the Titanic wreck, they will be located 3,800 metres (12,500ft) below the surface on the seabed – too deep for most ROVs to reach. Only a “tiny percentage of the world’s submarines operate that deeply”, David Marquet, a former US Navy submarine commander, told CBC.
Read the full story here:
Map’We have to remain optimistic and hopeful’, says US Coast GuardCapt Jamie Frederick of the US Coast Guard says we “have to remain optimistic and hopeful” while the team is conducting a search and rescue operation.
The Coast Guard carry out search and rescue cases on a daily basis “and sometimes we don’t find what we’re looking for”, he says.
There are a lot of factors you have to consider. After considering all those factors, sometimes you’re in a position where you have to make a tough decision. We’re not there yet.
If we continue to search, potentially we could be at that point … That’s a discussion we will have with the families long before I am going to discuss here publicly.
More noises heard in search area today, says US Coast GuardThe US Coast Guard’s Capt Jamie Frederick says it is his understanding that “noises” were heard yesterday and this morning.
Carl Hartsfield of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution says it is “very difficult” to discern what the sources of the noises heard by the Canadian P-3 aircraft are.
He says there have been “multiple reports” of noises “and every one of those noises is being analysed, tracked, looked for patterns and reported upon”.
The noises “have been described as banging noises”, Hartsfield says, but acoustic analysts “have to put the whole picture together in context and they have to eliminate potential man-made sources”.
Passengers on missing sub have ‘limited rations’, says US Coast GuardThere are some “limited rations” of food and water on the Titan sub, the US Coast Guard’s Capt Jamie Frederick says.
I can’t tell you exactly how much they have on board, but they do have some limited rations aboard.
Experts ‘don’t know’ what the detected noises were, says US Coast GuardCapt Frederick says “we don’t know” what the noises that have been heard in the area of the site are, but that there is always hope in a search and rescue case.
The good news, what I can tell you, is that we’re searching in the area where the noises were detected, and we’ll continue to do so.
He says data from the Canadian P-3 aircraft has been shared with US Navy experts for further analysis “which will be considered in future search plans”.
Search area ‘two times the size of Connecticut’, says US Coast GuardThe unified command team is working “tirelessly” in response to this “incredibly complex” search operation to find the missing Titan sub, Capt Frederick says. He says that the team are in close contact with the family members of the five crew members on board the sub.
The team currently has five surface assets searching for the sub and expects to have a total of 10 surface assets searching in the next 24 to 48 hours, he says.
The surface search is now approximately two times the size of Connecticut and the subsurface search is up to two and a half miles deep, he says.
Capt Jamie Frederick of the US Coast Guard has started speaking at a news conference in Boston.
The Bahamian research vessel Deep Energy ship on site during the search for OceanGate Titan submersible. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesUS Coast Guard to hold briefingThe US Coast Guard will hold a press briefing to discuss the latest on the search for the missing Titan submersible at 1pm local time (6pm BST).
Capt Jamie Frederick will lead the press conference. We will be covering it live on the blog. You’ll also be able to stream it live at the top of the page.
David Marquet, a retired US Navy captain, said OceanGate may have gone “a little too far” with launching submersible carrying five people to the wreck of the Titanic.
In an interview with the BBC, Marquet said he admired “the innovative spirit” of the company behind the vessel now missing hundreds of miles off the Newfoundland coast.
“Sometimes we push the bounds and innovation gets ahead of where regulation is,” he said. He added:
But when you’re putting people down at 13,000ft, the laws of Mother Nature are gonna take over. So I think they might have gone a little too far.
I admire the spirit, but we know from years of safe submarines, what it takes. All the discipline, the rigour of the operational testing, the operational risk mitigation that you have to do to maintain submarine safe.
The Guardian’s Leyland Cecco in Toronto and Spoorthy Raman in St John’s have spoken to people in the town where the Titan submersible set off on Friday.
They write:
St John’s, Canada’s easternmost city in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, remains the closest city to the liner’s final resting place and has become the launching site for expeditions traveling to the wreck site, nearly 400 miles (650km) away – and more than 12,000ft (3,800 metres) below the surface of the ocean.
On Tuesday, the city, known for its brightly coloured “biscuit box” houses, was blanketed in a thick haze of fog and rain as residents made sense of the news.
“To hear that there are people in distress possibly and not knowing where they are and if we’re ever going to find them … it’s heart-wrenching,” said Anne Simmons, operations manager at a local tour company. “The whole world is watching because it’s the Titanic. Everybody knows about it.”
Here is their full dispatch: