The US Coast Guard has given an update on the urgent search for the missing submarine Titan. The submersible lost communication with tour operators on Sunday while about 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland, during a voyage to the Titanic shipwreck off the coast of Canada.
Rear Admiral John Mauger, of the US Coast Guard, said there are a number of different vessels undergoing both surface and sub-surface searches for Titan. He told BBC News: “This has been a very complex and difficult case for all of us but as we continue to actively search for the submersible and the people onboard our thoughts are with the crew members and their families who, I can imagine, are having a very difficult time at this point.
“We’re working very hard in a unified command structure with US government agencies, including the US Navy, with Canadian agencies, including the Canadian Coast Guard and Canadian armed forces, and then also with private sector entities including the OceanGate expedition.
“We’re focused on bringing all assets available to bear on the search for the submersible. This has happened in a remote location 900 miles off our coastline here in Cape Cod within the Coast Guard’s first district search zone.
“We have prioritised effort on both a surface search and then a sub-surface search so we have two vessels, two remote-operated vessels a remote-operated vehicle conducting a sub-surface search and we have an aircraft and surface vessels which are conducting the surface search at this moment.”
Rear Admiral Mauger said the team is currently trying to figure out whether the noises picked up on Wednesday are from the Titan. He explained: “We’re working very closely with leading acoustic experts both here in the US navy and the Canadian navy, and I’ve integrated a UK submariner into my command here in Boston thanks to the support from the UK consul general for Boston Dr Abbott, to make sure we have the expertise that we need to understand what that noise signature is and what it is telling us.
“While that analysis is going on though, we’re not waiting to target remote-operated vehicle operations in the areas that the sonar bodies tell us that that noise is potentially being generated. So we’ve relocated our remote-operated vehicles onsite to search in those areas.
“But at this time I haven’t had any confirmation of what the noise is.”
The US Coast Guard announced earlier on Wednesday that the Canadian P-3 aircraft detected underwater noises. Later on Wednesday, the US Coast Guard tweeted: “Three vessels arrived on-scene Wednesday morning, the John Cabot has side scanning sonar capabilities and is conducting search patterns alongside the Skandi Vinland and the Atlantic Merlin.”
The Titan has five people on board, including British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, and the 6.7m (22ft) long OceanGate Expeditions vessel may have less than 24 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-Henri Nargeolet.
An array of vessels are involved in the search effort, including Bahamian research vessel Deep Energy, French research vessel L’Atalante, His Majesty’s Canadian Ship Glace Bay – for a mobile decompression chamber and medical personnel – and four Canadian Coast Guard vessels, according to the US Coast Guard.
