Submersible visiting Titanic wreck goes missing, prompting search
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for a missing Canadian research submersible that disappeared Sunday after it went to explore the wreck of the Titanic.
The 21-foot submersible and its five-person crew, from the Canadian research vessel Polar Prince, started a dive Sunday morning, the Coast Guard said. But the Polar Prince lost contact with the vessel after an hour and 45 minutes.
The missing submersible — which is named Titan, according to The Associated Press— is part of an OceanGate Expeditions tour exploring the Titanic wreckage, 900 nautical miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The private company charters trips to explore the wreckage with its research teams.
Rear Adm. John Mauger, the commander of the Coast Guard district leading the search, said authorities received a call for help from OceanGate on Sunday afternoon after the crew lost contact and the submersible missed its return time. He said the Coast Guard immediately launched a surface and aerial search to find or recover the submersible and any survivors.
"We really brought all assets that we have available to us to bear on finding the submersible and the people in it," Mauger said. "We understand from the operator of the submersible that there is a 96-hour reserve capacity on there, and so that gives us some time to effect a search. But when something happens on the high seas, it gets complicated quickly."
One of the missing crew members is Hamish Harding, the billionaire owner and chairman of Action Aviation. A post Sunday on Harding's Instagram account said he was joining OceanGate's expedition "as a mission specialist" — typically a one-time crew member who pays a fee to join the effort.
The fees from those crew members "underwrite the mission, the participation of the science team, and their own mission," OceanGate's website says.
The company said it was working with numerous government agencies to aid in the rescue.
"Our entire focus is on the crew members in the submersible and their families, we are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to reestablish contact with the submersible," OceanGate said in a statement.
Mauger said the Coast Guard has brought in technical experts, dropped sonar buoys to listen for underwater noise and reached out to other government agencies and private contractors for aid and "to really better understand what an undersea search and rescue effort would look like."
The bow of the RMS Titanic, which sank off Newfoundland in 1912.Nauticus via AP, file
Coast Guard officials said at a news conference Monday afternoon that they have deployed two C-130 aircraft for an aerial search and that the sonar buoys can listen to a depth of 13,000 feet.
The New York National Guard is providing a third C-130, and the Canadian Coast Guard provided a C-130, as well as a P8 Poseidon aircraft that has underwater detection capabilities.
The Coast Guard said it is also relying on commercial boat operators that were already in the nearby waters, as well as OceanGate's mother ship, Polar Prince, for help.
Mauger added at the news conference that the Coast Guard is working to expand its capabilities to include an underwater search, as well.
OceanGate's submersibles have shorter power cycles than submarines, and they are tied to mother ships (the Polar Prince in this instance) when they are operating far from land. Submarines, by contrast, can typically travel long distances independently and use ports as home bases.
OceanGate's expeditions include a 10-day trip with 18 dives off a larger boat to a maximum depth of 12,800 feet, according to the company. People may pay as much as $250,000 to join the exploration, The New York Times reported last year.
OceanGate's website says that during visits to the Titanic site, its teams collect images, videos and laser and sonar data for scientific study, document the condition of the wreck and gather information about the flora and fauna using the sunken ship as their maritime home.
Considered the world's most famous shipwreck, the Titanic was an opulent 883-foot ocean liner. Thought to be "unsinkable," it shocked the world in 1912 when it struck ice in the Atlantic Ocean and sank. More than 1,500 people died.
The wreckage was discovered in 1985, about 350 miles off Newfoundland. Surrounded by debris, the ship's two main pieces are around 2,000 feet apart, according to a full-size scan that was released this year.
Continued fascination with the Titanic has sparked a tourism industry around it and its sinking, particularly after the release of the eponymous 1997 film by the director James Cameron.
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that sucks
at 6 tons per square foot...
I can't imagine the terror the passengers must feel. Unless they are rescued it seems to have become a genuine and complete 'Titanic" experience.
Can't imagine paying $250,000.00 to die..........hope they find it prior to it running out of sustenance. I read they have enough for 96 hours but that makes the day Thursday ......sad all around..........
Sadly, this is fast approaching the point of a recovery operation rather than a rescue one. That being said, I do sincerely hope they are found in time.
It is now officially a recovery operation
It's over. The submersible ia reckened to have imploded on Sunday, leaving parts of it on the ocean floor and the corpses not yet found. It has turned out to be a genuine "Titanic" experience for the passengers,..
I think that the original submersible expedition to the Titanic and the filming of it had some historical value. Going back again and again was just tempting fate to little purpose. I know humanity needs risk takers and adventurers but visiting the Titanic over and over is pointless imo.
This business is for profit not research. Much like the Japanese whalers.
Seems this "sub" was also built on a limited budget with substandard parts.
This massive coordinated rescue operation will likely cost in the billions.
Wonder if the company can afford it. Or will my tax dollars be paying for it.
Even stranded Everest climbers are charged for rescue these days.
Maybe Cameron will make a movie about it no matter how it turns out.
Hate to sound cold about it but these are the facts.
Just read a article that stated a engineer employed by the submersible's maker tried to previously tell the company higher ups that it was unsafe. It seems he found the acrylic bubble on the front was only rated to 4,000 foot depth before failure rather than the 12,000 foot Titanic depth. When he told the head honchos that he was immediately fired and given approximately 10 minutes to clear his desk and be off the company premises. Looks like the fix may never have been implemented. Litigation looks very possible here. Only problem is the CEO of the company is also the pilot of the missing minisub.
And the company lawyer is already making noises that the US waited too long to initiate a search in an effort to pass the buck in anticipation of the lawsuits to come.
Yep.
Agreed. That is part of the problem when there are people running around with more money than good sense, and there are always greedy entrepreneur company's that are more than willing to indulge them. Given what has come to light about the safety issues, especially with a potentially faulty acrylic nose bubble, this probably was just a accident waiting to happen.
And the red tape delays are par for the course...........this is crap.............
I just saw an article on this. It should be a no brainer to approve the company who WERE JUST AT THE TITANIC SITE to join the search.
Is it not in international waters? tell the red tape dickheads to fuck themselves.
The woke mind can kill
The CEO of OceanGate, which is operating the missing Titanic tourist submarine, explains that the company didn’t want to hire any experienced “50 year old white guys” because they weren’t “inspirational.”
No, we don't want any "white guys."
Didn't they fire a 50 year old "White Guy" for pointing out the flaws in their systems?
We can't have that!
In your determination to make this political, you ignore the fact that Rush himself was an experienced white guy (older than 50, though). He was an experienced older white guy who was averse to regulations, testing, and safety features. That's not "woke".
Right. White people aren't woke.
Besides white people, what other races/genders do you think its okay for businesses to announce they won't hire because of their race?
This particular white guy wasn't "woke".
Someone needs a definition of woke
OceanGate CEO Missing in Titanic Sub Had History of Donating to GOP Candidates
Here’s who OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush has donated to.
A woke Republican, amazing.
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Here is his explanation re the comment of white guys.
OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush, who is aboard the missing submersible , once explained why he preferred not to hire "50-year-old White guys" with military experience to pilot his company's vessels.
Rush said he valued captains who were "inspirational" over experience, noting that "anybody can drive the sub," which is controlled with a $30 video game controller .
"When I started the business, one of the things you'll find, there are other sub operators out there, but they typically have gentlemen who are ex-military submariners, and you'll see a whole bunch of 50-year-old White guys," Rush told Teledyne Marine in a 2020 Zoom interview.
"I wanted our team to be younger, to be inspirational, and I'm not going to inspire a 16-year-old to go pursue marine technology, but a 25-year-old, you know, who's a sub pilot or a platform operator or one of our techs can be inspirational," Rush said. "So we've really tried to get very intelligent, motivated, younger individuals involved because we're doing things that are completely new."
Sure sounds like he was "woke"
Oh, that's the reason!
The words from teh man himself
You bet!
Yes, it is, and puts the partisan BS comments to rest.
'Debris field' discovered near Titanic in search for missing sub
They may have run out of oxygen sooner than planned.
Being nervous and scared will eat up the oxygen faster as people begin to panic. Sad ending if it is indeed the ending............and I don't doubt that it is.
A catastophic implosion 3 days ago would do that
It imploded. Everyone's dead
As I said in post #2.2.1 above, it has gone from a rescue operation to a recovery operation. My money is on the nose acrylic dome imploding as has already been surmised. If that is the case, the really sad part is that it could have been avoided if the CEO and others had listened to the engineer that brought that up and put a strengthened bubble on the nose.
I feel for the families of the dead, but no more so than I do for any other victim of an accident. A family of six whose car is broadsided in an intersection and bursts into flames, killing all six, now that is a tragedy.
Turning the Titanic into a tourist attraction would be a little ways down my list.
Numerous people die climbing Mt Everest every year and dont get much attention. And that is an individual attempt at going further.
Former Navy SEAL and current Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) had strong words about the emergency response to the missing OceanGate submersible this week, calling it an “epic failure of leadership.”
Crenshaw appeared on Fox News Thursday night, where host Trace Gallagher rolled tape from Crenshaw speaking to reporters on the steps of the Capitol.
“I have been hearing a lot of concerning things from people, the civilian side who are involved in this,” Crenshaw told reporters. “You know, we’ve got to look into it, see what’s true and what isn’t…What appears to be the case is epic failure in leadership. Where exactly that leadership failure is, I don’t know. Is it the White House, Coast Guard, Navy? I’m not sure.”
Crenshaw said that when he looked at the timeline from the moment they knew the submersible was missing on Sunday with five people on board, leadership failed to deploy two critical pieces of equipment — A 6K ROV and a Magellan submarine.
“Now, it’s important to note, that if you had just deployed those assets, they would have arrived on scene by Wednesday morning at the latest,” Crenshaw said. “That tapping continues to be heard and chatted about in all these channels throughout Wednesday. Then it stops late Wednesday. They finally deploy that 6K ROV, the only thing capable of actually going to that depth and seeing what’s down there, this morning. It deploys down there and the wreckage was exactly where they thought it would be. So where’s the failure here? The failure is to not put all your options on the table.
“You saw that Wall Street Journal article about , ‘The U.S. Navy heard this implosion, with their acoustic systems.’ So, what seems to me is that the leadership, the Coast Guard, was operating off of this assumption that that was an implosion. Now, other experts in this industry tell me that that could have easily been the sub just hitting the floor. And then you add that with this tapping, which was apparently like your standard procedure SOS, every half hour, you are hearing that throughout the day Tuesday and Wednesday, it begs the question — could this have been resolved differently if leadership had just acted sooner and actually put options on the table instead of just assuming, well it doesn’t matter because they’re dead. “
Watch the clip above via Fox News.
The post Rep. Dan Crenshaw Slams Emergency Response to Doomed Sub, Calls it ‘Epic Failure of Leadership’ first appeared on Mediaite .
True explorers are looking for something previously undiscovered.
These people were tourists.
Sorry, Biden is not responsible.
It was reported this evening that the US Navy picked up the implosion the minute it happened on Sunday and notified all parties on what they had picked up but could not say definitely that it was the submersible.
Perhaps Mr. Crenshaw should speak to the Navy for more information if he feels it was a failure in leadership.
The implosion happened on Sunday??? That's the day it went missing. There was definitely something mechanically wrong with that sub
They were listed as technician crew solely for insurance and liability purposes.
I think he may have been referring to the military leadership and it's tasking of resources.
They wanted the complete Titanic experience, I guess they got it.
Morning...And have now become part of the food chain..not quite what they were expecting...
Feel for their families though...
At least it was quick....
I read one article that said death would have been instantaneous. I felt bad for the teenager, his Aunt said he was scared to go to begin with.
From what I read it sounded like the view port collapsed. At 12000 feet below the surface, I don't think that a catastrophic failure is anything but quick
that's some expensive fish food...
I really hope that's what happened. I can't imagine the mental torture of waiting to die from lack of oxygen.
Yeah, the waiting to die thing would really get to me ...but not for long. Oh, wait. Is it too soon?
I once had someone tell me that at that depth, in a explosive decompression if someone snaps their fingers, you would be dead before you heard the sound. It is that quick.
Arvo...True but nothing goes to waste in the sea...there is always something that will come along and vac up or eat the remains...be it animal or human...
that's good. I still want to die in my sleep, tho
deep sea lobsters....
salt water suckers...
salt water carp...
Same here.
giant squid
Orca myself. I want to be at the top of the food chain in the ocean.
It is the top isn't it? They even hunt great white sharks.
Yep.