Rescue teams are racing against time to find a submerged tourist submarine near the Titanic wreck in the Atlantic Ocean. writes the Guardian. The US Coast Guard said the submarine had indicated it would dive late and lost contact with the marine craft 1 hour and 45 minutes into the dive on Sunday.
According to the information currently available, it seems certain that among the passengers will be a millionaire British explorer, an old French military veteran and an expert in submarines.
By the way, the missing ship is the Titan, which was operated by the tour company OceanGate Expeditions. It is not yet known what happened to the submarine, and American and Canadian aircraft, as well as large ships, are being searched for. However, the search is difficult, as it is not known whether a ship surfaced in the meantime, or if they had to search both the surface of the water and the ocean.
In principle, passengers could survive on the submarine for four days, though until conditions are clarified, it’s hard to say.
The Guardian is aware that Paul-Henri Nargolet, former French naval commander, deep-sea diver and submarine pilot, is on board. He is Director of Underwater Research for E/M Group and RMS Titanic, Inc. He is considered an expert on the wreck site. It is possible that he was in charge of the ship and its four passengers during the dive. Nargulet led several expeditions to the Titanic and oversaw the resurfacing of 5,000 artifacts, including a 20-ton piece from the Titanic’s hull.
Britain’s Hamish Harding, a well-known aviator and explorer and one of the few to have been space tourists, is likely to be on board. His stepson, Brian Zsasz, posted on social media that Harding’s submarine was missing, but has since deleted the post. Harding himself took to Instagram and captioned the photo, “With Newfoundland’s worst winter in 40 years, this will likely be the first and only manned mission to Titanic in 2023. The weather window opened recently and we’ll try diving tomorrow.”
The submarine launched from the Polar Prince on Sunday morning. Now another similar submarine will arrive to help in the search.
“We focus our entire efforts on the submarine crew and their families,” she said in a statement posted on the company’s website on Monday. We are very grateful for the extensive assistance we have received from many government agencies and deep-sea companies in our efforts to restore contact with submarines. “
Since 2021, Bahamas-based OceanGate Expeditions has flown about 60 paying customers and 15-20 researchers to the wreck of the Titanic.
