A massive search and rescue effort for a missing submersible near the wreck of the Titanic is at a critical stage, with just hours left before the oxygen supply for the five people on board runs out.
As the search continues, it’s been revealed that the craft was designed to return to the surface after just 24 hours, according to Aaron Newman, an investor in OceanGate who visited the site on the vessel in 2021.
He told CNN the Titan is held underwater by ballast — heavy weights that helps with stability — built to be automatically released after 24 hours to send the sub to the surface.
“It is designed to come back up,” he told CNN.
Crew members are told they can activate this by rocking the ship or use a pneumatic pump to knock the weights free, Mr Newman said.
As a last resort, he said the lines securing the ballast are designed to fall apart after 24 hours to automatically send it back to the ocean’s surface.
Expert’s grim warning about ‘banging’ noise
A sonar expert has poured cold water on hopes the five people on board the Titan submersible might still be alive, offering an alternate explanation for the “banging” noises detected in the search area.
Jeff Karson, Professor Emeritus of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Syracuse University, told The Daily Mail that the sounds were most likely “debris” and “junk” from the wreckage of The Titanic.
“One possibility is that the sounds [are] bouncing around the debris, and so it‘s a more complicated echo,” he said.
“It’s just not bouncing off of one thing. It’s bouncing off a bunch of things. And it’s like, you know, dropping up a marble into a tin can. It’s rattling around and that would confuse the location. The banging — I have to say, I hear the Coast Guard guys talking about this, I wonder how much of this is just wishful thinking. Is it really banging or just some unidentified sound I think. I think that is a more accurate description right now.”
He noted that “in past investigations, looking for lost objects on the sea floor, I know that all sorts of crazy sound was discovered”.
“It’s just one more thing we don’t understand about the ocean, our own planet,” he said.
“There’s no telling where the sound is coming from or how far away it is. Personally, I’m worried that sound may be coming from something that’s far from the where they need to be looking. But they have to follow up on it. It’s the best lead right now. Everything is being done. It’s all hands on deck, international vessels, everybody is doing the best they possibly can.”
His comments came in stark contrast to an Australian submarine expert, who said earlier the “banging” noises detected in 30-minute intervals by rescuers searching for the Titan submersible were “encouraging” rescuers that the five people on board were still alive.
Frank Owen, a former Australian submarine officer and now search-and-rescue director, told the New York Post he is confident the noises are coming from inside of the Titan, as those aboard are well trained in emergency submarine situations.
“This tells me a huge amount,” he said.
“Onboard the Titan is the French former Navy diver, the Titanic expert [Paul-Henri Nargeolet]. But also because he’s a diver, he understands the way search forces look for submarines that are lost … submariners are taught that if they’re stuck in a disabled submarine on the hour and the half-hour they bang the hull for three minutes, then they stop. They don’t make any more noise.”
He added, “So the fact that we’re hearing banging at 30-minute internals tells me that the people inside are sending a message that says, ‘We understand that you would be looking for us and this is how you might expect us to react.’ So, it’s very encouraging.”
His comments come after authorities confirmed underwater “banging noises” continued to be heard on Wednesday in the area where the submersible disappeared on an ill-fated dive to explore The Titanic wreckage on Sunday.
The US Coast Guard told a press conference in Boston on Wednesday afternoon — early Thursday morning Australian time — that more noises had been heard, a day after Rolling Stone first reported “banging” sounds had been picked up by a Canadian aircraft at “30-minute intervals”.
“A Canadian P3 detected underwater noises in the search area,” Captain Jamie Frederick said. “It is my understanding that the P3 heard noises today, as well.”
He said efforts to pinpoint the source of noises had so far been unsuccessful. Asked about the 30-minute intervals described in the internal Department of Homeland Security emails cited by Rolling Stone, Captain Frederick said, “I hadn’t heard 30-minute intervals.”
He added the data had been sent to the US Navy for analysis but proved “inconclusive”. “The important piece is we’re searching in the area where the noises were detected,” he said.
He said of the noises, “We don’t know what they are, to be frank with you. We have to remain optimistic and hopeful.”
Extra ships, specialised salvage equipment and US Navy experts converged on the vast search area in the North Atlantic as rescuers, who have received help from around the world, concentrated their efforts near the sounds.
“We’re searching in the area where the noises were detected and we’ll continue to do so,” Captain Frederick said.
He also said a white, rectangular object found during the search was not believed to have been related to the Titan submersible, which has been lost since Sunday.
It comes amid news that rescue crews plumbing the depths of the Atlantic will get assistance from the Victor 6000 robot — a highly advanced, deep-sea craft and one of the few vessels on Earth capable of reaching the wreck.
The Victor 6000 is being rushed to the search site aboard French research vessel L’Atalante, and was expected to arrive on Wednesday evening — Thursday morning Australian time — around 12 hours before the oxygen supply on the missing submersible is expected to run out.
A three-metre-long, remote-controlled robot with a bright yellow back, the Victor 6000 has been described as a “flagship device for underwater operations”, by the French network BMTV, and is capable of reaching a depth of 6000 metres.
With the Titanic lying 3800 metres beneath the waves on the ocean floor, the craft should be more than capable of reaching it.
A rescue would see the Victor 6000 accompanied by Horizon Arctic, a powerful tug and supply ship which has a large cable which the deep sea craft can take down with it toward the wreck of the Titanic.
Victor 6000 is equipped with a robotic arm, which could be used for dislodging the lost Titan submersible if it is discovered trapped within the Titanic wreckage. It can also attach the cable from the Horizon Arctic to the vessel to help pull it to safety.
“Victor is not capable of lifting the submarine up on its own,” Olivier Lefort from the French state-run oceanic research institute Ifremer told Reuters.
“Victor is able to do visual exploration with all the video equipment it has. It is also equipped with manipulating arms which could be used to extricate the sub, such as by sectioning cables or things that would be blocking it at the bottom.”
But with no time to spare, in order for the robot to pull off a rescue, crews already on the site would likely need to locate the missing submersible before the Victor 6000 arrives.
Mr Lefort said the US Navy reached out to Ifremer requesting help, and that the organisation — where one of the five missing crew members, Mr Nargeolet, 77, previously worked — could not say no.
“This is the logic of seafarers. Our attitude was, we are close, we have to go,” he said.
Victor 6000 is operated by a 25-person crew on-board its mothership, the Atalante, all of whom are speeding to the search site with the hope of pulling off a miracle.
“We can work non-stop for up to 72 hours, we don’t need to stop at night,” Mr Lefort told Reuters.
Aircraft from the US and Canadian coast guards recently picked up on repetitive knocking noises emanating from the deep in the vicinity where surface crews lost contact with the Titan on Sunday.
It is believed the sounds could be coming from the stranded passengers hammering on the hull of their submersible to signal the surface.
“We don’t know what happened. The noises that were heard give us hope the submarine is on the seabed and that people are still alive, but other scenarios are possible,” said Mr Lefort.
“Even if hope is slim, we’ll go all the way.”
Also on board is the company’s chief executive, Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood.
Ships and planes have scoured around 20,000 square kilometres of surface water — roughly the size of Massachusetts — for the vessel, which was attempting to dive about 640 kilometres off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
After the noises were detected, rescuers relocated two remotely operated vehicles (ROV) that search under the water and one surface vessel with sonar capability, the US Coast Guard said.
The ROV searches have so far not yielded results but data from the Canadian aircraft has been shared with US Navy experts for acoustics analysis.
“There have been multiple reports of noises and every one of those noises is being analysed,” said Carl Hartsfield, from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
He added that the sounds “have been described as banging noises”.
Captain Frederick said the number of surface vessels in the search would double from five to 10 in the next 24 to 48 hours.
The Navy has sent a specialised winch system for lifting heavy objects from extreme depths, other equipment and personnel, and the Pentagon is deploying a third C-130 aircraft and three C-17s.
Titan began its descent at 8am on Sunday and was due to resurface seven hours later, according to the US Coast Guard.
Rescuers estimate that passengers may run out of air on Thursday morning, based on the sub’s capacity to hold up to 96 hours of emergency air.
The mission was expected to be the only manned trip to the Titanic this year due to bad weather, Mr Harding wrote in an Instagram post beforehand.
The Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in 1912 during its maiden voyage from England to New York with 2224 passengers and crew on board. More than 1500 people died.
It was found in 1985 and remains a lure for nautical experts and underwater tourists.
The pressure at that depth as measured in atmospheres is 400 times what it is at sea level.
Mike Reiss, an American television writer who visited the Titanic wreck on the same sub last year, told the BBC the experience was disorientating and that he had to sign a waiver that “mentions death three different times on page one”.
Alistair Greig, professor of marine engineering at University College London, has suggested two possible scenarios based on images of the Titan.
He said if it had an electrical or communications problem, it could have surfaced and remained floating, “waiting to be found” — bearing in mind the vessel can reportedly be unlocked from the outside only.
“Another scenario is the pressure hull was compromised — a leak,” he said in a statement.
“Then the prognosis is not good.”
In 2018, OceanGate Expeditions’ former director of marine operations David Lochridge alleged in a lawsuit that he had been fired after raising concerns about the company’s “experimental and untested design” of the craft
— with AFP and New York Post