Footage has been released that shows the Titanic submersible’s final moments on the surface before it started its ill-fated journey underwater.
A TikTok video has emerged, and quickly gone viral, that shows the craft just seconds before it plunged underwater to start the journey towards the shipwrecked Titanic miles below.
The short clip was taken by Abbi Jackson, an underwater photographer who posts videos about her work under the sea on her TikTok channel, with footage appearing to show the final moments the sub was on the surface.
So far the clip has been viewed almost 20 million times. The caption reads: “Watching a submarine go down to the Titanic.”
The sub, which has five people aboard, went missing on Sunday. Experts warned on Thursday that there was just a few hours left of oxygen onboard. The submariners are OceanGate’s CEO, Stockton Rush, French pilot Paul Henry Nargeolet, British billionaire Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood. The deepest undersea rescue operation ever is still searching 10,000 square miles of ocean.
The minivan-sized submersible Titan, operated by OceanGate Expeditions, began its descent at 1pm Sunday (BST) before losing contact with its surface support ship near the end of what should have been a two-hour dive to the site of the world’s most famous shipwreck, in a remote corner of the North Atlantic.
The submersible has four days of emergency oxygen and time is quickly running out to find it in time to save the people onboard. Its oxygen tanks are estimated to run out about midday on Thursday (BST).
Rescue teams, and loved ones of the Titan’s five occupants, took hope in US Coast Guard reports on Wednesday that Canadian search planes had recorded undersea noises using sonar buoys earlier that day and on Tuesday.
It has been reported that “banging” has been heard by rescue searchers underwater but the source of it has not been identifed.
It is understood, that if the submersible is found, it would take about eight hours to bring it back to the surface.
