A video shows the frantic search efforts for the missing submarine that went on an expedition to the underwater Titanic wreck with five people on board.
Footage released from the US Coast Guard shows crews doing their part in the efforts to locate the submersible vessel named Titan that lost contact with its support crews on Sunday morning, one hour and 45 minutes after its descent.
Members of the US Coast Guard, US Navy, Canadian Coast Guard, and OceanGate Expeditions, the company running the trip, have joined forces in a unified command to carry out the extensive search and rescue operation that has been triggered.
Crews have covered an area of more than 10,000 square miles trying to locate the Titan, a 21-foot submersible research vessel.
On Tuesday, it was stated that the operation moved forward under favourable weather conditions, benefiting from improved visibility compared to the previous day.
Additional assets are currently en route to bolster the ongoing search efforts, the US Coast Guard said. These include the Canadian CGS John Cabot, Canadian CGS Ann Harvey, Canadian CGS Terry Fox, Canadian CGS Atlantic Merlin (ROV), Motor Vessel Horizon Arctic, Commercial Vessel Skandi Vinland (ROV), French Research Vessel L’Atalante (ROV), and His Majesty's Canadian Ship Glace Bay, which is equipped with a mobile decompression chamber and medical personnel.
Captain Jamie Frederick, the response coordinator from the First Coast Guard District, spoke of the complexity of the search operation, necessitating the involvement of multiple agencies with specialized equipment and subject matter expertise.
He stated: "While the Coast Guard has assumed the role of Search and Rescue Mission Coordinator, we do not have all of the necessary expertise and equipment required in a search of this nature.
"The Unified Command brings that expertise and additional capability together to maximize effort in solving this complex problem."
The incident was reported to the US Coast Guard on Sunday, June 18 at 5:40pm EDT when the 21-foot submersible was overdue to resurface from its dive near the wreckage of the Titanic, approximately 900 nautical miles East of Cape Cod.
The submersible, carrying five men, was launched at 8am Sunday with an expected resurfacing time of 3 pm, the Coast Guard said.
But contact was lost with the Research Vessel Polar Prince, triggering an international collaboration to locate it.
On Wednesday, a Canadian military surveillance aircraft detected underwater noises during the operation.
In underwater disasters, a crew unable to communicate with the surface relies on banging on their submersible’s hull to be detected by sonar.
However, no official has publicly suggested that’s the case and noises underwater can come from a variety of sources.
