David Gallo, an expert in mapping the ocean floor who led the first mapping expedition to Titanic, tells NBC10 Boston that a number of things could have gone wrong including the submersible possibly getting tangled in Titanic’s wreckage, which would mean it could take a robot to free the vessel.
The U.S. Coast Guard in Boston says everything is being done to locate and rescue five people onboard a missing submersible around 900 miles off the coast of Cape Cod.
In a 4:30 p.m. press briefing Monday, Rear Adm. John Mauger, commander of the First Coast Guard District, provided an update on the rescue operation that is underway deep in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean in search of the 21-foot submersible vessel that was carrying people to view the wreckage of the Titanic.
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OceanGate Expeditions confirmed the search for its five-person submersible and said its focus was on those aboard the vessel and their families.
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“For some time, we have been unable to establish communications with one of our submersible exploration vehicles which is currently visiting the wreck site of the Titanic. Our entire focus is on the wellbeing of the crew and every step possible is being taken to bring the five crew members back safely," the company said in a statement. "We are deeply grateful for the urgent and extensive assistance we are receiving from multiple government agencies and deep-sea companies as we seek to reestablish contact with the submersible. We pray for the safe return of the crew and passengers, and we will provide updates as they are available.”
David Concannon, an adviser to the company, said Oceangate lost contact with the sub Sunday morning. He said officials are working to get a remotely operated vehicle that can reach a depth of 6,000 meters (about 20,000 feet) to the site as soon as possible.
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Unlike submarines that leave and return to port under their own power, submersibles require a ship to launch and recover them. OceanGate hired the Canadian vessel Polar Prince, a medium duty icebreaker that was formerly operated by the Canadian Coast Guard, to ferry dozens of people and the submersible craft to the North Atlantic wreck site.
Mauger said they reached out to Polar Prince once the vessel was reported overdue and then launched surface and aerial searches.
USCG Northeast said the five-person submersible crew submerged Sunday morning, and the Polar Prince crew lost contact with them approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes into the vessel's dive.
The U.S. Coast Guard in Boston is leading the massive search and is being assisted in its efforts by other US and international agencies, including the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which said the vessel was reported overdue around 9:13 p.m. Sunday.
The wreck of the Titanic is around 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and at a water depth of around 13,000 feet.
"It is a remote area, and it is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area but we are deploying all available assets to make sure that we can locate the craft and rescue the people on board," Mauger said. "Adding to the complexity of this case is the fact that this was a submersible vessel and so we need to make sure that we're looking both on the surface for the vessel if it had surfaced back to the water but it somehow lost communications with the vessel and that's what the aircraft and surface search vessel are doing right now, but we're also having to search in the water column, and we're doing that right now with the use of sonar buoys and sonar on the ship that's out there to listen for any sounds that we can detect in the water column."
“It’s like going to another planet,” said David Gallo, an expert in mapping the ocean floor who led the first mapping expedition to Titanic.
He says it takes 2.5 hours to get down to the shipwreck, and while he hasn’t made that dive, he has been to the ocean’s surface there.
“It’s not like diving to a coral reef,” said Gallo. “You’re actually diving into a completely unfamiliar world.”
Gallo says a number of things could have gone wrong including the sub possibly getting tangled in Titanic’s wreckage, and it might take a robot to free the vessel.
“A robot that could untangle you, clip cables, untangle you from wires,” he said.
According to Mauger, the submersibile had a 96-hour oxygen supply available in case of emergency, meaning their search is a race against time.
"We're using that time, making the best use of every moment of that time to locate the vessel," Mauger said.
"Our first thoughts are with the crew members and the families of those board," he added. "We want to make sure that we have done absolutely everything that we can do to locate their family members and bring them home safe. So they're first and foremost in our thoughts every moment of this search operation."
The Coast Guard would not discuss any of the people on board Monday -- other than saying there is one pilot and four mission specialists -- or communication with their families.
Action Aviation confirmed that its company chairman, U.K. businessman Hamish Harding, was one of the tourists on board. The company’s managing director, Mark Butler, told the AP that the crew set out on Friday.
“Every attempt is being made for a rescue mission. There is still plenty of time to facilitate a rescue mission, there is equipment on board for survival in this event,” Butler said. “We’re all hoping and praying he comes back safe and sound.”
The expedition was OceanGate’s third annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of the iconic ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew. Since the wreckage’s discovery in 1985, it has been slowly succumbing to metal-eating bacteria, and some have predicted the ship could vanish in a matter of decades as holes yawn in the hull and sections disintegrate.
The initial group of tourists was funding the expedition by spending anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000 apiece.
The latest trip was scheduled to depart from St. John’s, Newfoundland, in early May and finish up at the end of June, according to a court documents filed by the company in April with a U.S. District Court in Virginia that presides over Titanic matters.
The 5-person submersible, named Titan, is capable of diving 4,000 meters or 13,120 ft. “with a comfortable safety margin,” OceanGate said in its filing with the court. It weighs 20,000 pounds (9,072 kilograms) in the air, but is ballasted to be neutrally buoyant once it reaches the seafloor, the company said.
The Titan is made of “titanium and filament wound carbon fiber” and has proven to “withstand the enormous pressures of the deep ocean,” OceanGate stated. OceanGate told the court that Titan’s viewport is “the largest of any deep diving submersible” and that its technology provides an “unrivaled view” of the deep ocean.
The Coast Guard said the Polar Prince and another vessel will continue to do surface searches Monday evening. Surface and subsurface searches by Canadian aircraft will continue Tuesday morning.
