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The CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, Stockton Rush, was on board and piloting the missing submersible that vanished during a mission to explore the wreckage of the Titanic, the company said Tuesday.
There is less than 40 hours of oxygen supply left on the missing vessel, named Titan, which is carrying five people, a U.S. Coast Guard official said Tuesday as the search continues.
The submersible is part of an OceanGate Expeditions tour that offers passengers a once-in-a-lifetime experience to explore the Titanic wreckage. It went missing Sunday after it lost contact with the research vessel Polar Prince.
What to know about the missing vessel, Titan
- The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for the missing research submersible, named Titan, that disappeared Sunday.
- The wreckage of the Titanic, the iconic ocean liner that sank more than a century ago, is 900 nautical miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
- The sub had up to 96 hours of oxygen supply and by 1 p.m. ET Tuesday was down to 41 hours, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
- Canadian aircraft detected “underwater noises” in the search area, the U.S. Coast Guard said early Wednesday. It said searches “yielded negative results but continue.”
- The price of a spot on the submersible was $250,000. It was on only its third trip since OceanGate Expeditions began offering trips in 2021.
British billionaire Hamish Harding, owner of Action Aviation, was also among the five people on the vessel, along with French dive expert Paul Henry Nargeolet and prominent Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman.
Aircraft detect 'underwater noises' in the search for missing submersible
Canadian aircraft searching for signs of the submersible detected “underwater noises” in the search area, the U.S. Coast Guard said early Wednesday.
The underwater noises, detected by Canadian P-3 aircraft, prompted searches by remotely operated vehicles, the Coast Guard tweeted shortly before 12:30 a.m. ET.
"Those ROV searches have yielded negative results but continue," the message read. "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 representative said OceanGate was unable to provide any additional information at this time.
Coast Guard image shows search patterns for Titan
The U.S. Coast Guard released an image showing the search patterns for Titan.
It said that 10,000 square miles had been searched as of Tuesday and that the searches are ongoing.
Canadian coast guard, navy and private research and commercial vessels with remotely operated vehicles have responded or were en route to help Tuesday, officials said. The U.S. and Canada also have planes searching.
Coast Guard establishes unified command in search for Titan
The U.S. Coast Guard said Tuesday night that it and other agencies and searchers are operating under a unified command as the search for the Titan continues.
More than 10,000 square miles had been searched by Tuesday morning, the Coast Guard said, and weather and visibility have improved.
Three Canadian coast guard ships, as well as a commercial vessel and a French research vessel with remote-operated vehicles, and a Canadian navy ship with a mobile decompression chamber were on the way, the Coast Guard said.
The Bahamian research vessel Deep Energy and a U.S. Air National Guard C-130 are also searching, the Coast Guard said.
Friend of man on submersible says he and Hamish Harding's family are hopeful
Titan submersible passenger Hamish Harding was excited for the voyage down to the ocean’s depths to see the wreckage of the Titanic, friend and business partner Terry Virts said Tuesday.
“He was excited. The text I got was ‘hey, we’re headed down to Titanic today, exclamation point,” Virts, a former NASA astronaut and Air Force F-16 pilot, told NBC News. Harding sent the text early Sunday.
Harding, the owner of Action Aviation, is one of five people aboard the missing Titan submersible, which is the focus of a search in the North Atlantic. He was not worried about the risks but was aware of them, Virts said.
Virts said he and Harding’s family are hopeful.
"The really good news that we have is that we haven’t heard bad news — they haven’t found a wreckage, they haven’t found debris floating, the sonar didn’t pick up any kind of crushing or exploding noise," he said. "So there’s definitely hope that the crew is alive in the submersible."
Search for missing submersible is a ‘monumental task,’ expert says
One of the best-case scenarios that might have happened to the Titan would be if it has been entangled in the wreckage of the Titanic, an ocean explorer and expert said Tuesday.
If that's the case, it could make the submersible with five people aboard easier to find, Tim Taylor, an ocean explorer and the CEO of Tiburon Subsea, said on NBC News Now.
“Lifting the submarine off the bottom is not as hard or difficult as one may think if it’s still intact,” Taylor said.
It’s unclear what happened to the submersible, and searches are ongoing.
“You’re really fighting a clock here,” Taylor said. “They don’t have a lot of options. Every hour that goes by, their options get less and less.”
Getting assets to the area takes time, he said, and when equipment arrives, searchers will have to decide where to look with the time they have.
“This is a monumental task,” he said.
Canada sending ship specializing in dive medicine
A Canadian plane with sonar flew above the area around the Titan, and Canada is sending rescue ships and a vessel equipped with a mobile hyperbaric recompression chamber, officials said.
The Royal Canadian Air Force CP-140 Aurora has been providing sonar searches, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
The Royal Canadian Navy ship HMCS Glace Bay has also been dispatched, Canada’s military said.
“HMCS Glace Bay provides a medical team specializing in dive medicine and a six person mobile hyperbaric recompression chamber,” it said in a statement.
A hyperbaric recompression chamber is used to treat or prevent decompression sickness. When divers are exposed to rapid decreases in pressure, nitrogen forms bubbles in tissue and blood.
Two other Canadian coast guard ships were either there or on the way.
U.S. Navy and Air Force sending support to search efforts
The U.S. Coast Guard is getting help in its search efforts from two other branches of the military.
A spokesperson for the Navy said it was deploying its Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System to assist the Coast Guard. The equipment is specifically designed for the "recovery of large, bulky, and heavy undersea objects," and it has deep ocean lifting capacity.
The Air Force will also provide aid by transporting "rescue-related" cargo from Buffalo, New York, to St. Johns, Newfoundland, it said.
King Charles asks to be updated on Titan passengers
King Charles III "has been asked to be kept up to date, and his thoughts and prayers are with the families and all those involved in the rescue operation," a royal source told NBC News.
Two of those on the submersible, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son, Suleman, are British citizens.
OceanGate CEO was piloting the sub when it disappeared
Stockton Rush, OceanGate's chief executive, was piloting the submersible, the company confirmed Tuesday.
A spokesperson previously said Rush was on board as a member of the crew.
Pilot said in lawsuit he was fired for warning Titan wasn't safe for deep dives
The pilot OceanGate hired to run manned tests of submersibles claimed five years ago in court papers that he was fired after he warned that the Titan’s carbon shell was not properly tested to make sure it could descend safely to 4,000 meters.
David Lochridge also claimed OceanGate refused to pay extra for a viewport that could be used safely at a depth of 4,000 meters.
When he complained that OceanGate would be endangering customers, Lochridge said in the court papers, he was given “10 minutes to immediately clear out his desk.”
Lochridge’s claims, which were first reported by The New Republic, were in his counterclaim to a 2018 breach of contract lawsuit OceanGate filed saying he was not an engineer. The two sides settled a few months later.
