A retired rear admiral has said there is a ‘vanishingly small’ chance of finding the missing Titanic submarine. His comments were made on LBC as the US Coastguard said it had detected noises in the search area.
However Chris Parry, a retired navy rear admiral from the UK, said without an “emitting signal” from the missing deep-sea vessel near the wreck site of the Titanic it will be “impossible” to find in the timescale.
And he blasted the ‘fundamentally dangerous’ decision to go so far down in the Atlantic Ocean in what he described as a ‘dodgy piece of technology’. The former Director General of Development, Concepts and Doctrine at the Ministry of Defence told LBC: “I’m afraid the odds are vanishingly small. Obviously, we want to remain hopeful and optimistic but there are two problems here – one is actually finding the thing and secondly is how on earth are you going to get it off the seabed. It’s never been done before and I don’t think anybody’s got any ideas about how to do it at the moment.”
He added: “You’ve got this vastly complex seabed with all the debris of the Titanic, you’ve got hills and canyons and everything, and I’m afraid to say without an emitting signal from the vehicle itself it’s almost, well, I’d say it’s impossible to find in the timescale. Why on earth you would go in a dodgy piece of technology where you actually have to sign away any right to sue the company for emotional damage, injury or death is beyond me.
“It is fundamentally dangerous, there was no back-up plan, it’s experimental and I’m afraid to say there’s an element of hubris if you want to go down and do that.”
The submersible, named Titan, lost communication with tour operators on Sunday while about 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland, during a voyage to the shipwreck off the coast of Canada. Titan has five people on board, including British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, and on Tuesday the US Coast Guard estimated the 6.7 metres (22ft) long OceanGate Expeditions vessel had just 40 hours of oxygen left.
The others on board are Shahzada Dawood, his son Suleman and OceanGate’s chief executive and founder Stockton Rush, reportedly together with French submersible pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet.
In a statement on Twitter, the US Coast Guard said: “Canadian P-3 aircraft detected underwater noises in the search area. As a result, ROV operations were relocated in an attempt to explore the origin of the noises. Those ROV searches have yielded negative results but continue.
“Additionally, the data from the P-3 aircraft has been shared with our U.S. Navy experts for further analysis which will be considered in future search plans.”
A friend of Hamish Harding has described him as “the quintessential British explorer” as the search-and-rescue mission for the Titan continues. mColonel Terry Virts, a former commander of the International Space Station, spoke to Nick Robinson on the Today programme about Mr Harding’s love of adventure.
He said: “Some people watch Netflix and some people play golf, and Hamish goes to the bottom of the ocean or into space or, you know, he sets world records flying around the planet. As I’ve said several times now, Hamish is the quintessential British explorer. He loves adventure. He loves exploring and that’s just the kind of person he is.”
Asked whether Mr Harding was “addicted to risk”, Colonel Virts replied: “No, not all.
“I don’t think Hamish is an adrenaline junkie at all. That’s not Hamish. He likes exploration. And, you know, exploration involves risk, but he’s also very methodical about it.”
