Massive international search on going to rescue the 5 travelers in the Titan sub.
The submersible has been missing since 18th June after diving to visit the remains of Titanic.
OceanGate Image
As oxygen level in the Titanic sub is expected to run out in hours, desperate search to find the 22-foot-long submersible called “Titan” has intensified. The submersible which is operated by OceanGate went missing on Sunday 18th June shortly after it started diving to visit the remains of the Titanic located about 350 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
According to the OceanGate the submersible is a “Cyclops-class manned submersible designed to take five people to depths of 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) for site survey and inspection, research and data collection, film and media production, and deep-sea testing of hardware and software”
Information from OceanGate website suggests that the missing sub has about 96 hours of back up oxygen to help in cases of emergencies. Experts are now concerned that the crew members must be rescued in matter of hours as the oxygen level in it is only expected to last until Thursday noon. Although the exact oxygen level could vary due to several factors, rescue effort has now entered a desperate phase, prompting international collaboration to rescue the team.
Five persons were on board the missing sub, including the CEO and founder of OceanGate (the company that operates the Titan), Stockton Rush. Rush also served as the vessels pilot. Also in the missing sub are Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, a Pakistani business man; Hamish Harding, a British tycoon that lives in United Arab Emirates; and a Titanic expert Paul Henry who is nicknamed “Mr. Titanic”.
The US Coast Guard says the expanded operation still remains an active search and rescue operation. The expanded international search now involves the use of several remotely operated vehicles (ROV) which are capable of getting to the sea bed to transmit images to the surface and other on sight equipment from several countries including USA, France and UK. Royal Submariners and equipment from a UK firm is also helping with the rescue operation according the UK government source.
The search area is about 10,000 sq. miles of the ocean being searched with the help of ships, aircrafts and several other equipment. Earlier, Coast Guards reported the detection of sound from the Ocean. But due to the vast search area, the location of the sound is still not yet known. This third OceanGate’s trip to the Titanic wreckage cost about US$250,000 per traveler.
The Titanic was a massive ship that spanned more than 880 feet long and weighed 46,329 tons. It was a unique engineering piece that the White Star Line Company boasted as an “unsinkable ship”. But on its maiden trip on the 10th of April 1912 from England to New York, the Titanic struck an iceberg that made it to sink.
But just about a few days into its maiden voyage from England to New York, the iceberg it stuck caused the Titanic to sink within three hours of the incidence and about 817 persons out of the estimated 1,522 persons on board died from the ship wreck. After about 7 decades, the Titanic’s location was discovered by divers to be off the Coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
As search and rescue effort intensifies, we wait in anticipation for the safe return of the five travelers on board the Titan submersible.
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