Submersible Search Campaign: The search for a submarine missing in the North Atlantic has intensified as five people were pulled from the wreckage of the Titanic as the ship’s lack of oxygen threatens to bleak the survival of its passengers.
Meanwhile, a Canadian surveillance ship has detected more underwater sounds in the area where rescuers are conducting a search operation.
More ships and vessels pressed into action
Coast Guard officials were bringing in more ships and other vessels to search a more narrowly defined area, although the exact location and source of the sounding have yet to be determined. Capt. Jamie Fredericks of the First Coast Guard District said the full scope of the search was 2 1/2 miles deep in water twice the size of Connecticut. “This is a 100 per cent search and rescue mission,” Frederick said.
“We are in the midst of a search and rescue and we will continue to use every available asset at our disposal in an effort to locate Titan and the crew members.” Frederick said these voices were heard for the second day on Wednesday, but “to be honest, we don’t know what they are.” Retired Navy Capt. Carl Hartsfield, who is now director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Systems Laboratory, told a news conference Wednesday that he described the sounds as “thumping noises” but warned that the search team needed to “get a full picture.” have to be put together in context” and they have to eliminate possible man-made sources other than Titan.”
Even those expressing some optimism warned that many hurdles remained: from pinpointing the ship’s location, to reaching it with rescue equipment, to bringing it to the surface – assuming it could Still intact – before the passengers’ oxygen supply ran out.
The region of the North Atlantic where the Titan submarine went missing on Sunday is prone to fog and stormy conditions, making it an extremely challenging environment to conduct search and rescue operations, said Donald Murphy, an oceanographer who served as chief scientist. Worked as International Ice Patrol of the Coast Guard.
After a Canadian military surveillance aircraft detected underwater noises in the search area, a robotic vessel was dispatched to scour the area, the Coast Guard wrote on Twitter, but “received negative results” so far.
The Coast Guard did not elaborate on what rescuers believe may have been the noise. It is estimated that if the ship is still working, then only a day’s worth of oxygen will be left in it. Three search vessels arrived on the scene on Wednesday morning, including one with side-scanning sonar capability. Upon finding the submersible, officers pushed rescue equipment to the scene.
The Coast Guard’s statement about detecting underwater sounds came after Rolling Stone reported that search teams “heard banging sounds in the area every 30 minutes.”
The report was encouraging to some experts because submarine crews unable to communicate with the surface are taught to bang on their submarine’s hull to be detected by sonar.
Submarine search and rescue specialist Frank Owen said, “It sends a message that you are probably using military techniques to find me and I am saying it as such.” “So, it’s really encouraging if this is the case.”
Richard Garriot de Cayux, president of The Explorers Club, wrote an open letter to his club’s adventurers, saying he was “very, very confident” about the discovery after speaking to officials in Congress, the US military and the White House .
However, no officials have publicly suggested that they know the source of the underwater noises.
Meanwhile, questions remain as to how the teams may have reached the lost submersible, which may lie some 12,500 feet (3,800 m) deep below the surface near the historic shipwreck’s watery grave.
Recent allegations also suggest that significant warnings about ship safety were raised during its development.
The lost pilot on board is Stockton Rush, CEO of the company leading the expedition. His passengers are a British adventurer, two members of a Pakistani business family, and a Titanic expert.
The 22-foot carbon-fiber vessel capsized on Sunday night, prompting a search in waters about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, officials said. According to David Concannon, a consultant with Oceangate Expeditions, which oversaw the mission, the submersible had a four-day supply of oxygen when it put to sea around 6 a.m. Sunday.
Owen said the estimated 96-hour oxygen supply is a useful “goal” for researchers, but is based only on “the modest amount of consumption that the average human can consume doing certain things.” Owen said divers aboard Titan will be advising passengers “to do whatever it takes to lower your metabolic level so you can really extend this 96 hours.”
Chris Brown, a British adventurer who paid a deposit to go on a Titan trip but later withdrew due to safety concerns, said that explorers have heard the sound, which is both good news and bad news.
Brown told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday: “If the sound is coming from below the water indicator, it indicates they may be alive in the water, but now is the time for us to bring them to the surface.” Has gone.”
Brown had previously criticized the use of a simple commercially available video game controller to control the Titan. But Oceangate has said that many of the ship’s components are not ready because they have been proven reliable.
“It’s for a 16-year-old kid to throw it around,” and it’s “super durable,” Rush told the CBC in an interview last year when he tried throwing the controller around the Titan’s tiny cabin. was performed.
He added that some spare parts are kept on the ship “just in case”.
The submersible had seven backup systems for returning to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that would collapse and an inflatable balloon.
Aaron Newman, a former passenger on Titan, told NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday that if the submersible is below a few hundred meters and without power, the passengers are in complete darkness and freezing.
“It was cold when we were down there,” he said. “You layered up. You were wearing wool hats and doing everything you could to stay warm underneath.” Jeff Carson, professor emeritus of earth and environmental sciences at Syracuse University, said the temperature is slightly above zero, and the ship is too deep for human divers to reach it. The best chance to reach the submersible may be to use a remotely operated robot on a fiber optic cable, he said.
“I’m sure it’s awful out there,” Carson said. “It’s like being in an ice cave and hypothermia is a real danger.”
Meanwhile, documents show that Oceangate was warned that catastrophic safety problems could arise from the way the experimental vessel was developed.
David Lockridge, 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 potentially extreme danger in an experimental submersible.”
The company stresses that Lockridge “was not an engineer and was not hired or asked to provide engineering services on Titan”. The company also maintains that the ship under development was a prototype, not a prototype. That now missing Titan.
The Marine Technology Society, which describes itself as “a professional group of ocean engineers, technologists, policy-makers and educators”, also expressed concern that year in a letter to Oceangate chief executive Rush. The society said it was important that the company submit its prototype for tests to be overseen by an expert third party before launch for the safety of passengers.
The New York Times first reported on those documents.
The search for the missing vessel has attracted international attention. In Dubai, where missing British adventurer Hamish Harding lives, Crown Prince Hamadan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum wrote: “Dubai and its people pray for his safety and hope to return home.”
Others aboard include Pakistani national Prince Dawood and his son Suleman, whose eponymous firm makes investments across the country. In Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, employees of their firms said they prayed for the two’s safe return, as did government officials. French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargolet was also on board.
Retired Navy Vice Admiral Robert Murett, who is now deputy director of the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University, said the submarine’s disappearance underscores the dangers associated with deep-water operations and the recreational exploration of the ocean and space. said, two environments where in recent times we have seen people working in dangerous, potentially fatal environments.
“I think some people believe that modern technology is so good that you can do things like this and accidents won’t happen, but that’s not the case at all,” he said.
(with AP inputs)