BOSTON – The time-trial search for the submersible that disappeared Sunday in the Atlantic with five crew members aboard faces several challenges, not to mention the fact that the ship only has oxygen for a few hours.
The United States Coast Guard announced Wednesday that it will bring more boats and underwater craft to search for the submersible that disappeared in the North Atlantic Ocean after detecting sounds underwater, including thumping noises, that offered a glimmer of hope three days ago. after the Titan submersible disappeared with five people on board when it descended to view the wreckage of the Titanic.
At the moment the exact location and source of the sounds had not been determined, but it allowed the researchers to focus on a more defined area.
The total area of the search zone is twice the size of Connecticut and is 2.5 miles deep, said Capt. Jamie Frederick of the Coast Guard’s 1st District.
“This is 100% a search and rescue mission,” Frederick said. “When you’re in the middle of a search and rescue case, you always have hope.”
But even those who expressed a bit of optimism warned that many hurdles still lie ahead:
From finding the location of the submersible, to reaching it with a rescue team and bringing it to the surface, assuming it’s undamaged, and all before the oxygen supply for the passengers runs out.
The Mexican influencer Alan García traveled aboard the submersible that disappeared in the Atlantic. During his expedition there were communication problems. To see more from Telemundo, visit
The North Atlantic area where the Titan submersible disappeared Sunday is prone to fog and storms, making it an extremely difficult environment in which to conduct a search-and-rescue mission, said Donald Murphy, an oceanographer who worked as chief scientist of the Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol.
After a Canadian military surveillance plane detected underwater noise in the search area, a robotic vessel was dispatched to survey the region, but so far “had returned negative results,” the Coast Guard wrote on Twitter.
The Coast Guard did not provide details about what rescuers believed the noises might be. It is estimated that the ship has oxygen for a day, if it continues to operate.
Three vessels joined the search Wednesday morning, including one equipped with side-scan sonar. Authorities were rushing to bring salvage equipment to the site in case the submersible was found.
This is the juicy sum paid by the crew members of the expedition aboard the Titan submersible that disappeared in the Atlantic.
The Coast Guard statement about the sounds detected under the sea came after Rolling Stone magazine reported that search teams heard “thumping noises in the area every 30 minutes.”
The report was encouraging to some experts because underwater crews unable to communicate with the surface are taught to bang on the hull of the submersible so the noise can be picked up by sonar.
“It sends a message that they’re probably using military techniques to get them to find them and that’s how they’re saying it,” said Frank Owen, a submarine search and rescue expert. “So it’s really encouraging if that’s the case.”
Richard Garriott of Cayeux, and the president of The Explorers Club, wrote an open letter to his organization’s adventurers, saying he was “very confident” in the search effort after speaking with officials in the US Congress, as well as in the military and the White House.
However, no official has publicly hinted that the source of the sounds under the sea is known.
Meanwhile, questions linger about how teams could reach the lost vessel, which could lie as deep as 12,500 feet near the resting place of the historic liner.
This is the last that is known about the submarine that disappeared to the bottom of the sea on an excursion to reach the wreckage of the Titanic. To see more from Telemundo, visit
Newly discovered reports suggest that important warnings about the submersible’s safety had been made before its disappearance.
On board was the pilot Stockton Rush, CEO of the expedition organizing company, OceanGate. His passengers were a British adventurer, two members of a Pakistani business family and a Titanic expert.
Authorities reported the 22-foot carbon fiber boat missing Sunday night, sparking a search in waters about 435 miles south of St. John’s, Newfoundland.
The sub had a four-day supply of oxygen when it set sail around 6 a.m. Sunday, said David Concannon, a consultant with OceanGate Expeditions, which oversaw the mission.
Owen noted that an approximate 96-hour oxygen supply is a useful “target” for researchers, but it’s only based on a “nominal amount of consumption that the average human might consume doing certain things.”
Owen said the diver aboard the Titan would likely be advising passengers “to do whatever it takes to lower their metabolic levels so they can really extend these 96 hours.”
Chris Brown, a British adventurer who had given a deposit for the Titanic expedition but later withdrew it due to concerns, said the news that researchers have heard sounds is both good news and bad news.
“If the sounds are coming from the bottom of the sea then that indicates they could be alive in the water, but we now have time pressure to bring them to the surface,” Brown told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday.
The submersible had seven reserve systems to return to the surface, including drop-down sandbags and lead pipes and an inflatable balloon.
Aaron Newman, who has been a passenger on the Titan, told NBC’s “Today” show on Wednesday that if the submersible is below about 200 meters and without power, the passengers are in complete darkness and it is cold.
“It was cold when we were at the bottom,” he said. “We had bundled up. You wore beanies and did your best to keep warm at the bottom.”
Jeff Karson, emeritus professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Syracuse University, explained that the temperature is just above freezing and the submersible is too deep for human divers to reach it. The best way to reach the submersible could be by a remote-controlled robot via a fiber optic cable.
“I’m sure it’s horrible down there,” Karson said. “It’s like being in a snow cave, and hypothermia is a real danger.”
Meanwhile, documents have been released that OceanGate had been warned that there could be catastrophic safety problems with the way the experimental vessel was developed.
David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations, said in a 2018 lawsuit that the company’s testing and certification was insufficient and would “subject passengers to extreme potential danger in an experimental submersible.”
The company insisted that Lochridge “was not an engineer and was not hired or asked to perform engineering services on the Titan.” The company also claims that the ship under development was a prototype, not the now-defunct Titan.
