A Canadian surveillance vessel has detected more underwater sounds in the area where rescuers are searching submarine that was lost in the North Atlantic one sec kill five people to the wreck of the Titanic, authorities announced on Wednesday.
Coast Guard officials brought in more ships and other vessels to search a narrower area, although the exact location and source of the sounds have yet to be determined. The full scope of the search was twice that of Connecticut in waters 2 1/2 miles deep, said Captain Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District.
“It is a 100% search and rescue mission,” said Frederick. “We’re in the midst of a search and rescue operation and will proceed to make use of all available resources to seek out Titan and crew members.”
Frederick said the noises were heard on the second day of Wednesday, but “to be honest, we do not know what they’re.”
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – JUNE 21: U.S. Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick, together with other members of the U.S. Navy, Royal Navy, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, gives an update on the search for five people aboard a missing submarine roughly 900 miles away off the coast of Cape Cod on June 21, 2023 in Boston, Massachusetts. The Coast Guard is chasing a submarine with five passengers that went missing while diving into the wreck of the Titanic. (Photo: Scott Eisen/Getty Images)
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Retired Navy Captain Carl Hartsfield, now director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Systems Laboratory, told a Wednesday news conference that the sounds were described as “slapping noises” but warned that search teams “must put the whole picture together in context.” and must eliminate potential non-Titan man-made sources.”
Even those that expressed some optimism warned that many hurdles remained: from pinpointing the ship’s exact location, to reaching it with life-saving equipment, to bringing it to the surface – assuming it was still intact – before the passengers’ oxygen supply ran out.
The area of the North Atlantic where the Titan submarine went missing on Sunday is susceptible to fog and storms, making it a particularly difficult environment to conduct a search and rescue mission, said Donald Murphy, an oceanographer who was chief scientist for the International Coast Guard Ice Patrol.
After a Canadian military surveillance plane detected underwater noises in the search area, an automatic vessel was sent to search the region, but up to now has “returned negative results,” the coast guard tweeted.
The Coast Guard didn’t explain what the sounds could be based on rescuers. The vessel is estimated to have enough oxygen to last a day if it continues to be operating.
Three search vessels arrived at the scene Wednesday morning, including one equipped with side-scan sonar. Authorities pressed to bring rescue equipment to the scene should the submarine be found.
The Coast Guard’s statement on underwater sound detection comes after Rolling Stone reported that search teams heard “sounds of impact in the area every half-hour.”
The report was encouraging to some experts because submarine crews who cannot communicate with the surface are taught to hit the submarine’s hull to be detected by sonar.
“It’s sending a message that you just’re probably using military techniques to seek out me, and that is what I’m saying,” said Frank Owen, a submarine search and rescue expert. “In order that’s really encouraging if that is the case.”
Richard Garriott de Cayeux, president of the Explorers Club, wrote an open letter to adventurers from his club, saying he had “much more confidence” in the exploration after discussions with officials in Congress, the U.S. military and the White House.
Nevertheless, no official has publicly suggested that they know the source of the underwater sounds.
Meanwhile, questions remain about how teams could reach the missing submarine, which could also be about 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) below the surface near the watery tomb of the historic ocean liner. Newly discovered allegations also suggest that this was the case necessary ship safety warnings during its development.
The pilot Stockton Rush, the general manager of the company leading the expedition, was missing on board the ship. Its passengers are a British adventurer, two members of a Pakistani business family and a Titanic expert.
Authorities reported that the 22-meter-long carbon fiber vessel was delayed on Sunday eveningstarting the search in waters about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s.
In response to David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate Expeditions who oversaw the mission, the submarine had 4 days’ value of oxygen when it put to sea around 6am on Sunday.
Owen said the estimated 96-hour oxygen supply is a useful “goal” for prospectors, but is just based on the “nominal amount of consumption that the average person can use while performing certain activities.” Owen said a diver aboard the Titan would likely advise passengers to “do whatever it takes to lower your metabolism so you’ll be able to actually extend those 96 hours.”
Chris Brown, a British adventurer who paid a deposit to embark on the Titan voyage but later withdrew as a consequence of what he called safety concerns, said the news that the adventurers heard sounds was each good and bad news .
“If the sounds are coming from under the water gauge, which means they might be alive in the water, but now we’re under time pressure to bring them to the surface,” Brown told ABC’s Good Morning America on Wednesday.
An aerial view of the Bahamian research vessel Deep Energy upon arrival at the OceanGate Titan Submersible area.
United States Coast Guard | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Brown had previously criticized the use of a straightforward commercially available video game controller to manage the Titan. But OceanGate said many parts of the ship are ready because they’ve proven reliable.
“It’s designed for a 16-year-old to throw it around,” and it’s “super durable,” Rush told CBC last 12 months as he demonstrated by throwing a controller around the Titan’s tiny cabin. He said a number of spares were kept on board “just in case”.
The submarine had seven back-up systems for returning to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that dropped, and an inflatable balloon.
Aaron Newman, who was a Titan passenger, said on Wednesday’s NBC Today show that if the submarine is below a number of hundred meters and there isn’t a power, the passengers are in complete darkness and cold.
“It was cold once we were down there,” he said. “You’ve got dressed in layers. You wore woolen hats and did every thing you could possibly to maintain you warm down there.”
Jeff Karson, Professor Emeritus of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Syracuse University, said the temperature is just above freezing and the ship is just too deep for divers to get to. He said the best probability of attending to the submarine could be to make use of a remote-controlled robot on a fiber-optic cable.
“I’m sure it’s terrible down there,” Karson said. “It’s like being in a snow cave, and hypothermia is an actual danger.”
Meanwhile, documents show that OceanGate has been warned that the way the experimental ship was developed could cause catastrophic issues of safety.
OceanGate’s director of marine operations, David Lochridge, said in a 2018 lawsuit that the company’s testing and certification were inadequate and “would expose passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submarine.”
The company insisted that Lochridge “was not an engineer and was not hired or asked to perform engineering services on Titan.” The company also claims that the ship under development was a prototype and never a now-lost Titan.
The undated photo shows the submarine belonging to OceanGate beginning to descend.
OceanGate/Handouts | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
The Marine Technology Society, which describes itself as a “skilled group of ocean engineers, technologists, policy makers and educators,” also expressed concern earlier this 12 months in a letter to Rush, CEO of OceanGate. The company said it was very necessary for the company to submit its prototype to an external expert-supervised test before take-off to guard passengers. These documents were first reported by The Latest York Times.
The search for the missing ship attracted international attention. In Dubai, where missing British adventurer Hamish Harding lives, Crown Prince Hamadan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum wrote: “Dubai and its people pray for his or her safety and hopeful return home.”
Others on board include Pakistani nationals Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, whose eponymous company invests across the country. In the Pakistani port city of Karachi, employees of his corporations said they prayed for his or her secure return, as did government officials. Also on board was the French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet.
Retired Naval Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, who’s now associate director of the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University, said the submarine’s disappearance underscores the dangers of operating in deep water and recreational sea and space exploration. two environments where we now have seen people operating in dangerous, potentially lethal environments in the recent past,” Murrett said.
“I believe some people consider that because modern technology is so good you’ll be able to do these items and never have accidents, but that is just not the case,” he said.
An undated photo shows an OceanGate submarine beginning to descend into the sea. Search and rescue efforts proceed by the US Coast Guard in Boston after a tourist submarine en path to the site of the Titanic wreck went missing off Canada’s southeast coast.
OceanGate | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images