Titanic Submersible Search Highlights: Canadian safety regulators initiate probe into fatal loss

Previous passengers recall ill-fated Titan: 'I 100% knew this was going to happen' 

In the wake of the Titan's fatal implosion near the Titanic shipwreck on Sunday, some people who embarked on the company's deep-sea expeditions described experiences that foreshadowed the tragedy and look back on their decision to dive as "a bit naive.” But others expressed confidence and said that they felt they were "in good hands" nearly 13,000 feet (3,962 meters) below the ocean's surface.'Like playing Russian roulette' “I 100% knew this was going to happen,” said Brian Weed, a camera operator for the Discovery Channel’s “Expedition Unknown” show, who has felt sick to his stomach since the sub's disappearance Sunday. 

Weed went on a Titan test dive in May 2021 in Washington state's Puget Sound as it prepared for its first expeditions to the sunken Titanic. Weed and his colleagues were preparing to join OceanGate Expeditions to film the famous shipwreck later that summer. They quickly encountered problems: The propulsion system stopped working. The computers failed to respond. Communications shut down. Rush, the OceanGate CEO, tried rebooting and troubleshooting the vessel on its touch screens.“You could tell that he was flustered and not really happy with the performance,” Weed said. “But he was trying to make light of it, trying to make excuses.” They were barely 100 feet (30 meters) deep in calm water, which begged the question: “How is this thing going to go to 12,500 feet — and do we want to be on board?" Weed said. (AP)

US and Canada start the process of determining how the Titanic-bound submersible imploded 

Authorities from the U.S. and Canada began the process of investigating the cause of the fatal Titan submersible implosion even as they grappled with questions of who was responsible for determining how the tragedy unfolded. A formal inquiry has not yet been launched because maritime agencies are still busy searching the area where the vessel was destroyed, killing all five people aboard, the U.S. Coast Guard said Friday. (Reuters) 

US Coast Guard's bill alone will be in the millions, experts say

The cost of the unprecedented search for the missing Titan submersible will easily stretch into the millions of dollars, experts said. The U.S. Coast Guard — whose bill alone will hit the millions of dollars — is generally prohibited by federal law from collecting reimbursement pertaining to any search or rescue service, said Stephen Koerting, an attorney in Maine who specializes in maritime law.

“The Coast Guard, as a matter of both law and policy, does not seek to recover the costs associated with search and rescue from the recipients of those services,” the Coast Guard said Friday in a statement.The first priority in search and rescue is always saving a life, and search and rescue agencies budget for such expenses, said Mikki Hastings, president and CEO of the National Association for Search and Rescue.

“In the end, these people were in distress. We know what the ultimate result was. But during the search operation, there are people who are in distress,” she said of the Titan submersible.Rescue agencies don’t want people in distress to be thinking about the cost of a helicopter or other resources when a life is in danger.“Every person who is missing – they deserve to be found. That’s the mission regardless of who they are,” she said. (Reuters)

Canadian safety regulators open probe into fatal loss of Titan submersible

Canadian safety officials on Friday opened an investigation into the undersea implosion of a tourist submersible that killed all five people aboard while diving to the century-old wreck of the Titanic, raising questions about the unregulated nature of such expeditions.

In a statement on Friday, Canada's Transportation Safety Board (TSB) said it was launching a "safety investigation regarding the circumstances" of Titan's operation because its surface support vessel, the Polar Prince, was a Canadian-flagged ship. 

A TSB team was dispatched to St. John's, Newfoundland, about 400 miles north of the accident site, to gather information and conduct interviews, the agency said. (Reuters)

Lucy Cosnett, the cousin and goddaughter of the British adventurer Hamish Harding, has sought a full investigation into the deaths of the crew aboard the missing Titan sub. In an interview with BBC, she questioned the security checks on the sub, prior to its expedition."It should be fully investigated, to see what went wrong, why it happened, why they didn’t survive," Cosnett said. 

"He [Harding] was going to have his birthday tomorrow. He’d be 59 years old. I would have sent him a message or tried to call him to wish him happy birthday,” she added. Cosnett said that when she read reports of banging noises emitting from the ocean, she felt hopeful that maybe it may be coming from the submersible.

The Titan sub mishap has given way to concerns regarding its function and operation, as it was neither registered with international agencies nor certified by maritime industry groups that set basic engineering standards, reported The Guardian. OceanGate operates in international waters and thus, does not fall under the purview of US regulations.

Legal experts caution that liability waivers signed by passengers aboard the ill-fated submersible, which went missing during a dive to the Titanic wreck, may not absolve the vessel's owner from potential lawsuits brought by the victims' families. According to Reuters, waivers do not always provide foolproof protection, as courts may reject them if gross negligence or undisclosed hazards come to light.

The family of British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, shared an obituary with British Asian Trust, which stated, 'In this unfathomable tragedy, we try to find solace in the enduring legacy of humility and humanity that they have left behind and find comfort in the belief that they passed on to the next leg of their spiritual journey hand-in-hand, father and son,' reported The Guardian. The statement also said that the pair were “each other’s greatest supporters and cherished a shared passion for adventure and exploration of all the world had to offer them”. 

Scientisht and Journalist Michael Guillen appealed to discontinue all trips to the Titanic wreck, calling it 'sacred ground wher more than a thousand me, women and children lost their lives', reported Reuters. The former ABC News science editor, who himself deep-dived to the wreck site broke down while recounting his expedition and said that trips to the Titanic is not a 'touristy thing'. 'It is a serious site that needs to be treated with respect,' he added.

All trips to the site should be stopped until the cause of the OceanGate Expeditions submersible failure is determined, says Michael Guillen, a scientist and a journalist who recalled his own expedition in 2000 https://t.co/myaxD4JGcH pic.twitter.com/TmlI6FGc8B

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 23, 2023

As reported by The Guardian, Film director and deep-sea explorer James Cameron told Good Morning America, that the makers of the submersible were warned during the designing and operating of Titan, that it could lead to "catastrophic failure". "Each dive adds more and more microscopic damage. So yes, they operated the sub safely at Titanic last year and the year before, but it was only a matter of time before it caught up," he further added.

Charles Haas, President of the Titanic International Society has said 'human trips' to the Titanic wreck should be stopped considering safety aspects, in the wake of the Titan disaster. As per a report in The Guardian, Hass is of the opinion that there is "relatively little" to be learned about the wreackage and such surveys can be delegated to autonomous vehicles that scan debris in high resolution. He sought an "extensive, detailed investigation" by the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Transportation Safety Board and/or their Canadian counterparts. "Intensive pre-service inspection of deep-sea submersibles should be required by international regulation," he said.

UK PM Rishi Sunak's thoughts are with the loved ones of those who died in the "tragic incident" and they have been through an "unimaginably difficult ordeal" in the last few days, said his official spokesperson, according to The Guardian. It is also reported that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is in touch with the families to provide support.

Submersible vessel regulations were 'written in blood,' warned William Kohnen, Chairman of Manned Underwater Vehicles Committee, in an interview with the BBC. In 2018, he had written a letter raising safety concerns about OceanGate's development of Titan and said that OceanGate circumvented certification processes by operating in international waters.

University of Strathclyde attended by Suleman Dawood, who died on board the Titan, released an updated statement today. Professor Sir Jim McDonald, Principal & Vice-Chancellor said, 'We are shocked and profoundly saddened by the death of Suleman Dawood and his father in this tragic incident. The entire Strathclyde community offers our deepest condolences to the Dawood family and all those affected by this terrible accident.'

He further stated that the Student Wellbeing team remains on hand to offer appropriate support to Suleman’s classmates and the wider Strathclyde community at this difficult time.

 

 

 

 

 

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Liability waivers signed by passengers on a submersible lost at sea during a dive to the Titanic wreck may not shield the vessel's owner from potential lawsuits by the victims' families, legal experts said.

The passengers, who paid as much as $250,000 each for the journey to 12,500 feet below the surface, are believed to have signed liability waivers. A CBS reporter who made the trip with OceanGate Expeditions in July 2022 reported that the waiver he signed mentioned the possibility of death three times on the first page alone.

Waivers are not always ironclad, and it is not uncommon for judges to reject them if there is evidence of gross negligence or hazards that were not fully disclosed. “If there were aspects of the design or construction of this vessel that were kept from the passengers or it was knowingly operated despite information that it was not suitable for this dive, that would absolutely go against the validity of the waiver,” said personal injury attorney and maritime law expert Matthew D. Shaffer, who is based in Texas. (Reuters)

Director James Cameron, who has made multiple dives to the wreckage of the Titanic, told the BBC that briefings about 96 hours of oxygen supply and banging noises were a “prolonged and nightmarish charade” that gave the crew members’ families false hope.

Cameron said he knew an “extreme catastrophic event” had happened as soon as he heard the submersible had lost navigation and communications at the same time.

“For me, there was no doubt," Cameron said. "There was no search. When they finally got an ROV (remotely operated vehicle) down there that could make the depth, they found it within hours. Probably within minutes.” (AP)

The family of Hamish Harding and his company Action Aviation said in a statement they were "united in grief with the other families who have also lost their loved ones on the Titan submersible."

The statement said Harding was "a passionate explorer — whatever the terrain — who lived his life for his family, his business and for the next adventure."

"What he achieved in his lifetime was truly remarkable and if we can take any small consolation from this tragedy, it's that we lost him doing what he loved," the statement added. (Deutsche Welle)

OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Söhnlein today rejected criticism over his company's safety and certification, saying they were not around for the 14 years of development of the Titan sub, as per a BBC report. 'Titanic' movie director James Cameron, who has completed 33 dives to the wreck of the oceanliner, had told BBC that the deep submergence community had warned OceanGate of safety concerns.

"People keep equating certification with safety and are ignoring the 14 years of development of the Titan sub," Söhnlein told BBC, adding: "Any expert who weighs in on this, including Mr Cameron, will also admit that they were not there for the design of the sub, for the engineering of the sub, for the building of the sub and certainly not for the rigorous test programme the sub went through."

Terming it a tragic loss, Söhnlein said that anyone who partakes in such activities "knows the risk of operating under such pressure and that at any given moment... you run the risk of this kind of implosion". 

When everything is designed, manufactured and tested perfectly, you've got a shape close enough to perfection that can withstand the overall pressure being applied from all directions. In this scenario, the material can “breathe” – shrink and expand as needed with depth. The Titan's implosion means this was not happening.

The implosion itself would have killed everyone within less than 20 milliseconds. In fact, the human brain can't even process information at this speed. As much as the news is devastating, perhaps it is somewhat reassuring the Titan's passengers would not have suffered a terrifying and drawn-out end. (AP)

A video clip of Stockton Rush, who is presumed dead in a 'catastrophic implosion' of the Titan submersible, has gone viral on social media. 

In the clip, Rush says that he'd like to be remembered as an innovator. Sharing a quote 'You're remembered for the rules you break', the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions said: "I have broken some rules to make this. I've broken them with logic and good engineering behind me. The carbon fibre and titanium [materials from which the submersible was made], there is a rule that you don’t do that. Well, I did."

CEO Stockton Rush: "I have broken some rules to make this. (…) The carbon fibre and titanium there is a rule that you don’t do that. Well, I did.“#Titanic #OceanGate #Titan pic.twitter.com/XuUAMuCJ2v

— stonking.com (@stonking) June 22, 2023

Most, if not all, submersibles and submarines operating at depth have a pressure vessel made of a single metallic material with high yield strength. This is typically steel for relatively shallow depths (roughly less than 300m), or titanium for deeper depths.

A titanium or thick steel pressure vessel is usually a spherical shape that can withstand the crushing pressures you might expect at 3,800m – the depth at which the Titanic wreck lies. The Titan, however, was different. It's pressure vessel was made of a combination of titanium and composite carbon fibre. This is somewhat unusual from a structural engineering perspective since, in a deep diving context, titanium and carbon fibre are materials with vastly different properties.

Titanium is elastic and can adapt to an extended range of stresses without any measurable permanent strain remaining after the return to atmospheric pressure. It shrinks to adjust to pressure forces, and re-expands as these forces are alleviated. A carbon-fibre composite, on the other hand, is much stiffer and does not have the same kind of elasticity.

We can only speculate about what happened with the combination of these two technologies, which do not dynamically behave the same way under pressure.

But what we can say almost certainly is that there would have been some kind of loss of integrity due to the differences between these materials. A composite material could potential suffer from “delamination”, which leads to a separation of the layers of reinforcement.

This would have created a defect which triggered an instantaneous implosion due to the underwater pressure. Within less than one second, the vessel — being pushed down on by the weight of a 3,800m column of water — would have immediately crumpled in from all sides. (AP)

One of the company’s first customers has likened a dive he made to the site two years ago to a suicide mission.

“Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other,” said Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman and adventurer from Germany. “You can’t be claustrophobic.”

During the 2 1/2-hour descent and ascent, the lights were turned off to conserve energy, he said, with the only illumination coming from a fluorescent glow stick. The dive was repeatedly delayed to fix a problem with the battery and the balancing weights. In total, the voyage took 10 1/2 hours. (AP)

The Dawood family has issued a statement thanking all involved in the search for the missing submersible. Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, members of a prominent Pakistani business family, were among the five passengers on board. 

“Their untiring efforts were a source of strength for us during this time,” the family said in a statement. “We are also indebted to our friends, family, colleagues and well-wishers from all over the world who stood by us during our need.” 

pic.twitter.com/crxI2EIRzP

— Dawood Foundation (@DawoodTdf) June 22, 2023

When the Titan submersible made its fateful dive into the North Atlantic on Sunday, it also plunged into the murkily regulated waters of deep-sea exploration. It's a space on the high seas where laws and conventions can be sidestepped by risk-taking entrepreneurs and the wealthy tourists who help fund their dreams. At least for now.

“We're at a point in submersible operations in deep water that's kind of akin to where aviation was in the early 20th century,” said Salvatore Mercogliano, a history professor at Campbell University in North Carolina who focuses on maritime history and policy.

“Aviation was in its infancy — and it took accidents for decisions to be made to be put into laws,” Mercogliano said. “There’ll be a time when you won’t think twice about getting on a submersible and going down 13,000 feet. But we’re not there yet.” (AP)

The White House thanked the Coast Guard, along with Canadian, British and French partners who helped in the search and rescue efforts.

“Our hearts go out to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives on the Titan. They have been through a harrowing ordeal over the past few days, and we are keeping them in our thoughts and prayers,” it said in a statement. (AP)

Rear Adm. John Mauger, of the First Coast Guard District, said that the investigation into what happened was already underway and would continue in the area around the Titanic where debris from the submersible was found.

“I know there are also a lot of questions about how, why and when did this happen. Those are questions we will collect as much information as we can about now,” Mauger said, adding that it was a “complex case” that happened in a remote part of the ocean and involved people from several different countries. (AP)

Shahzada Dawood's elder sister Azmeh Dawood told NBC News that her nephew, 19-year-old Suleman Dawood, was terrified of going on the trip and went to please his Titanic-enthusiast dad. 

She said that prior to the trip, her nephew had told a relative that he 'wasn't very up for it', as per the report. 'I am thinking of Suleman, who is 19, in there, just perhaps gasping for breath ... It's been crippling, to be honest,' she told the channel yesterday. 

Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, who were among the passengers of the imploded submersible, were members of a prominent Pakistani family, though media reports said that they were British citizens.

Shahzada (48) was the Vice Chairman of Engro Corp and reportedly a photography enthusiast. His son Suleman (19), was a university student with an interest in science-fiction, as per a report in Pakistan-based Dawn. The newspaper reported that Shahzada's wife Christine, along with their daughter, was on the surface ship at the time of the descent of the submersible. 

Pakistan's Foreign Office today issued a message condoling the death of the passengers aboard Titan.

Our deepest condolences to the Dawood family and the family of other passengers on the sad news about the fate of Titanic submersible in the North Atlantic. We appreciate the multinational efforts over the last several days in search of the vessel.

— Spokesperson ?? MoFA (@ForeignOfficePk) June 22, 2023

The chances of recovery of human remains from the debris site on the seabed are likely to be dim, with a US Coast Guard official terming it an "incredibly unforgiving environment".

On asked about this during a press briefing, US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger said: "We’ll continue to work and continue to search the area, but I don’t have an answer for prospects at this time."

? The submersible carrying five people left from the coast of St John's in Newfoundland, Canada on Sunday morning and lost contact with the surface support vehicle within 1.5 hours of descent.

? A vast search and rescue operation was triggered later that day, with the involvement of US and Canadian Coast Guards.

? Today, the US Coast Guard said that five major fragments of the 22-foot (6.7-meter) Titan were located in the debris field left from its disintegration, including the vessel's tail cone and two sections of the pressure hull

? No mention was made of whether human remains were sighted.

? The US Coast Guard said that the debris field, spotted on the seabed some 1,600 feet (488 meters) from the bow of the Titanic and 2.5 miles (4 km) beneath the surface, is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vehicle, and likely occurred during the descent. 

? A roving robot is collecting more data from the field. 

OceanGate Expeditions, which ran the undersea mission to visit the Titanic and whose CEO Stockton Rush was among those killed in the incident, has issued a statement saying that the five passengers onboard "have sadly been lost."

Here's the full statement:

We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost.

These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans. Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.

This is an extremely sad time for our dedicated employees who are exhausted and grieving deeply over this loss. The entire OceanGate family is deeply grateful for the countless men and women from multiple organizations of the international community who expedited wide-ranging resources and have worked so very hard on this mission.

We appreciate their commitment to finding these five explorers, and their days and nights of tireless work in support of our crew and their families.

This is a very sad time for the entire explorer community, and for each of the family members of those lost at sea.

We respectfully ask that the privacy of these families be respected during this most painful time.

James Cameron, the Academy Award-winning movie director behind “Titanic,” knows about the risks of deep ocean exploration. A seasoned underwater explorer himself, in 2012 he prepared to plummet nearly 7 miles to the world’s deepest known ocean trench.

The US Coast Guard said early today that the submersible appears to have imploded on its expedition to the wreckage of the Titanic on the bottom of the North Atlantic, but a conclusive investigation will take time.

A secret US Navy acoustic detection system recorded 'an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost,' the Navy told the Wall Street Journal.

‘Titanic’ director James Cameron on the ‘catastrophic implosion’ of Titan submersible: “I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship and yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field.' pic.twitter.com/vO8JkCXS5f

— ABC News (@ABC) June 22, 2023

'Titanic' director and submersible maker James Cameron said his sources reported similar information and he knew the submersible was lost from the start of the four-day ordeal, suspecting it imploded at the time the Titan's mother ship lost communications with and tracking of the submersible one hour and 45 minutes into the mission.

'We got confirmation within an hour that there had been a loud bang at the same time that the sub comms were lost. A loud bang on the hydrophone. Loss of transponder. Loss of comms. I knew what happened. The sub imploded,' Cameron said. He added that he told colleagues in an email on Monday, 'We've lost some friends,' and, 'It's on the bottom in pieces right now.' (Reuters)

Movie director and submersible maker James Cameron said he wishes he had sounded the alarm earlier about the submersible Titan that imploded on an expedition to the Titanic wreckage, saying he had found the hull design risky.

Cameron became a deep-sea explorer in the 1990s while researching and making his Oscar-winning blockbuster "Titanic," and is part owner of Triton Submarines, which makes submersibles for research and tourism.

He is part of the small and close-knit submersible community, or Manned Underwater Vehicle (MUV) industry. When he heard, as many in the industry had shared, that OceanGate Inc was making a deep-sea submersible with a composite carbon fiber and titanium hull, Cameron said he was skeptical.

"I thought it was a horrible idea. I wish I'd spoken up, but I assumed somebody was smarter than me, you know, because I never experimented with that technology, but it just sounded bad on its face," Cameron told Reuters in a Zoom interview.

The cause of the Titan's implosion has not been determined, but Cameron presumes the critics were correct in warning that a carbon fiber and titanium hull would enable delamination and microscopic water ingress, leading to progressive failure over time. (Reuters)

A deep-sea submersible carrying five people on a voyage to the century-old wreck of the Titanic was found in pieces from a "catastrophic implosion" that killed everyone aboard, the US Coast Guard said early today, ending a multinational five-day search for the vessel.

A robotic diving vehicle deployed from a Canadian ship discovered a debris field from the submersible Titan on Thursday morning on the seabed some 1,600 feet (488 meters) from the bow of the Titanic, 2 1/2 miles (4 km) beneath the surface, in a remote corner of the North Atlantic, US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger told reporters. 

The five people aboard a missing submersible died in a “catastrophic” event, a Coast Guard official said on Thursday, bringing a grim end to the massive search for the vessel that was lost during a voyage to the Titanic.

“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” OceanGate Expeditions said in a statement. “Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time.”

An unmanned deep-sea robot deployed from a Canadian ship discovered the wreckage of the submersible on Thursday morning about 1,600 feet (488 meters) from the bow of the century-old wreck, 2-1/2 miles (4 km) below the surface, U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger said at a press conference.

“The debris is consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber,” Mauger said. Read Full Reuters Report

The US Coast Guard said on Thursday that an underwater vessel has located a debris field near the Titanic in the search for a missing submersible with five people aboard, a potential breakthrough in the around-the-clock effort. The search for the missing submersible on an expedition to view the wreckage of the Titanic passed the critical 96-hour mark Thursday when breathable air could have run out, a grim moment in the intense effort to save the five people aboard.

In case you’re reading in how, here’s what has happened through the day:

• One of the remote-controlled vehicles located a debris field within the search area, the US Coast Guard said on Twitter. Experts were evaluating the information, the Coast Guard added.
• Guillermo Sohnlein, who co-founded the company behind the submersible, said in a statement that Thursday “will be a critical day in this search and rescue mission, as the sub’s life support supplies are starting to run low.”
• New, high-tech vessels and medical personnel are moving to the search site. That includes a Magellan ROV, a uniquely equipped vessel whose use was pushed for by the Explorers Club group early on in the search.
• Two Royal Air Force (RAF) planes have taken off to fly to St John’s in Canada, carrying specialist equipment and personnel to assist with the international search and rescue effort.

Vessels & specialist equipment from US, UK, Canada, and France have been dispatched to help search for the #Titan.
Using the MarineTraffic playback feature, we can see the vessels' movements over the past 48 hours.#marinetraffic #Titanic #OceanGate pic.twitter.com/cl6RLoPvoS

— MarineTraffic (@MarineTraffic) June 22, 2023

The US Coast Guard have said a debris field was discovered within the search area by a remotely operated vehicle near the Titanic wreck.

A debris field was discovered within the search area by an ROV near the Titanic. Experts within the unified command are evaluating the information. 1/2

— USCGNortheast (@USCGNortheast) June 22, 2023

The daughter of one of the five people inside the submersible missing near the wreck of the Titanic said she continued to hope they will be rescued but said she is comforted by the knowledge that her father, oceanographer Henri Nargeolet, is in the place he loved most.

Sidonie Nargeolet told Reuters on Thursday she was living with "a lot of stress, very mixed emotions" as the desperate search for the missing submersible near the wreck of the Titanic entered a critical phase on Thursday, when air was expected to run out for the five people aboard.

"At times, I have a lot of hope, I am fine, I believe and have a lot of hope. But in others, hope goes away and it is hard to endure, and as more time goes by it gets harder," Nargeolet, 39, told Reuters in the town of La Massana, in the European microstate of Andorra where she lives.

"Sometimes I don't check (the news) because I don't want to hear them saying that they now have very low oxygen. I prefer to listen to positive things, to hope, that they will continue looking for them," she said, adding she felt relieved knowing her father's vast experience underwater. (Reuters)

'You could be 10 or 20 metres away from it and not realise it'

Marine geophysicist Dr Rob Larter explains why finding the missing submersible will be difficult, even with France's specialist robotic equipment.

Live updates: https://t.co/dKmIkD5kNV

? Sky 501 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/qJW7ezpHNK

— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 22, 2023

A Canadian Navy ship carrying a medical team specializing in dive medicine and a hyperbaric recompression chamber that can hold as many as six people has arrived on scene in the Titanic submersible rescue effort, according to an official from the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre Halifax of the Canadian Armed Forces. The medical team and the hyperbaric chamber traveled on the HMCS Glace Bay, which arrived on scene just after 9 am local time Thursday morning, said Lt. Cmdr. Len Hickey, senior public affairs officer, said in a statement.

Le NCSM Glace Bay offre les services d’une équipe médicale spécialisée en médecine de plongée, ainsi qu’une chambre de recompression hyperbare mobile pour six personnes.

— Halifax JRCC CCCOS (@hfxjrcc) June 22, 2023

The Titan submersible went underwater at a time Newfoundland was witnessing its worst winter in 40 years, according to a Facebook post by British billionaire Hamish Harding ahead of the expedition.

“Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023. A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow. More expedition updates to follow IF the weather holds!" Harding wrote on Saturday. 

If the Titan submersible is found, bigger challenges lie ahead, including retrieving its passengers and bringing the vessel to the surface.

Experts say that rescuing people through an underwater sub-to-sub operation is virutally impossible. Further, while robots deployed at the ocean floor can locate the sub, they cannot lift it till the surface. The robots can attach the sub to other vessels and ships that are powerful enough to lift it to the surface.

The Titan, the vessel that went missing in the area of the Titanic wreck in the North Atlantic on Monday (June 19), is classified as a submersible, not a submarine, because it does not function as an autonomous craft, instead relying on a support platform to deploy and return. Read more

US Coast Guard's Rear Admiral John Mauger told NBC's Today show, "We continue to find in particularly complex cases that people's will to live really needs to be accounted for as well. And so we're continuing to search and proceed with rescue efforts."

A NBC report quoted coast guard officials to add that new, high-tech vessels and medical personnel are moving to the search site.

OceanGate Expeditions charges over Rs 2 crore for a seat in the Titan submersible to view the Titanic wreckage.

The expedition costs $250,000 per person, which includes one submersible dive, private accommodations, training and expedition gear.

OceanGate Inc is a US-based company founded in 2009. Its website describes itself as “an ocean exploration venture focused on providing crewed submersible services to enable researchers and explorers to access the oceans’ vast resources”, adding that it plans to evolve methods to lower the costs of such explorations.

Here is all you need to know about the company

Remote-operated robots that are typically used for undersea exploration will be critical in finding the Titan. Designed to scan the sea floor in real time, the ROVs are outfitted with cameras and travel to depths many other vessels cannot.

ROVs have been used for undersea exploration since at least the mid-1980s, according to deep-sea explorer Katy Croff Bell, who is president of Ocean Discovery League. The vessels are expensive to use and their method of data collection can be slow and painstaking, which is partly why scientists know so little about the ocean floor even after years of exploration.

But the ROVs might be the only way to find the Titan after the submersible vanished Sunday on a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic. “ROVs are essential to the search and rescue mission,” Bell said. “Really the only way you’re going to be able to recover anything from the deep sea floor in real time.”

The Titan is steered by a simple, off-the-shelf video game controller – to the shock of gamers worldwide. “It’s meant for a 16 year old to throw it around,” OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush had said.

It’s not the only commercially available equipment onboard the submersible, according to OceanGate Expeditions’ website. “The use (of) off-the-shelf components helped to streamline the construction, and makes it simple to operate and replace parts in the field,” the company said on its website.

Take a look inside the Titan:

Dr. Rob Larter, a marine geophysicist with the British Antarctic Survey, emphasized the difficulty of even finding something the size of the sub — which is about 22 feet (6.5 meters) long and 9 feet (nearly 3 meters) high. “You’re talking about totally dark environments," in which an object several dozen feet away can be missed, he told The Associated Press. "It’s just a needle in a haystack situation unless you’ve got a pretty precise location.”

The area of the North Atlantic where the Titan vanished Sunday is also prone to fog and stormy conditions, making it an extremely challenging environment to conduct a search-and-rescue mission, said Donald Murphy, an oceanographer who served as chief scientist of the Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol. The passengers are also facing temperatures just above freezing.

A French ship carrying a deep-sea diving robot has reached the search area for the missing submersible Titan, the French marine research institute Ifremer. The research vessel Atalante is first using an echo-sounder to accurately map the seabed in order for the robot's search to be more targeted, Ifremer said.

Britain has embedded a navy submariner with the team searching for the submersible, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said. The spokesperson told reporters that an aircraft was also carrying specialist commercial equipment from the United Kingdom to assist with the search. (Reuters)

Wendy Rush, the wife of Stockton Rush, the OceanGate CEO who was piloting the submersible that disappeared Sunday during a dive to the Titanic wreckage, is a descendant of two first-class passengers who died when the ocean liner sank in 1912, archival records show.

According to New York Times, Wendy Rush is a great-great-granddaughter of retailing magnate Isidor Straus and his wife, Ida, two of the wealthiest people aboard the Titanic for its voyage. Straus, born in 1845, was a co-owner of Macy’s department store.

Rush, born Wendy Hollings Weil, married Stockton Rush in 1986, according to a New York Times wedding announcement. Her LinkedIn page says she has participated in three OceanGate expeditions to the Titanic wreckage in the last two years; that she serves as the company’s communications director; and that she is a longtime board member of the company’s charitable foundation. (

Claim: A Facebook post from June 21st claimed the Titan had been found but was empty. The post featured an alleged CNN news story in the screenshot which reported that the OceanGate submersible had been found.

DW Fact check: False.

In the screenshot of the news report featured on the post, the headline says, "Missing OceanGate Submarine Found Empty." The screenshot shared in the viral Facebook post and also reposted on TikTok is a manipulation. The story was not shared by CNN on either its website or on any of its social media accounts. There are also no media reports to corroborate the story.

Also, the report reads "the submarine" was found but without any passengers, and names Wendy Rush, identifying her as the co-founder of OceanGate as the source. However, she herself claims she is herself director of communications and expedition team member for the company, according to her LinkedIn profile, and is the wife of Stockton Rush, CEO of the company and pilot of the expedition. And according to a report from the New York Times, Wendy Rush is a descendant of a couple who died aboard the Titanic in 1912.

If you look closely at the screenshot itself there are also a few things which are not coherent. The screenshot of the CNN news report does not match its design or font. Now it is black and not red as it was previously. Also, the image featured at the bottom of the report is inaccurate and features the Cyclops 1 Submersible, not the missing Titan submersible. (DW)

Dr Ken LeDez, a hyperbaric medicine expert at Memorial University in St John's, Newfoundland, told BBC News that some on board the missing Titan submersible could survive longer than expected.

He pointed out that the usage of oxygen will vary according to how cold the submersible's passengers get, as shivering can use up a lot of oxygen and huddling up can help conserve heat, and how effective they are at conserving oxygen. 'It's not like switching off a light, it's like climbing a mountain - as the temperature gets colder and metabolism falls [it depends] how fast you ascend that mountain,' he said.

Dr LeDez also said that some could survive longer than others.

Simon Boxall, a senior lecturer in oceanography at the University of Southampton in the UK, echoed the thought and said rescue should continue for another day or two. "Although the theory says that they run out of oxygen sometime around midday today UK time, they may well be able to survive longer. We don't know. It depends on the physiology of the people there. It depends on their condition. There are so many unknowns. We have to keep this search going for the foreseeable future — for the next day or two."

Director James Cameron, best known for helming three of the four biggest movies in history — Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water and Titanic — is also an experienced deep sea explorer who has been going on underwater adventures from the 1980s. Over the years, Cameron has made 33 trips to the Titanic wreckage, which lies over 13,000 feet below the surface of the North Atlantic.

In a 2012 interview with The New York Times, Cameron described the deep sea as “one of the most unforgiving places on the earth,” and said that it’s not like you can call for rescue from the bottom of the ocean. In another interview with the NYT, Cameron said that he was driven by a desire to see things that “human beings have never seen before.” Read more

An eerie scene from James Cameron's 1997 film ‘Titanic’ resurfaced on social media as the search for submersible Titan, sent underwater to explore the wreckage of the ship, entered the crucial hour.

Cameron's film begins with researchers investigating the wreckage of the Titanic from the window of their submarine. Commenting on a clip first shared by Twitter use Lucia Briones, social media users have pointed out the similarities between the scene and the current situation concerning the Titan sub.

With time and oxygen running out for the five men, hopefully still alive, inside the #OceanGate #submersible, I can’t help but be reminded of one of the eeriest lines in the movie, #Titanic. This scene has officially become terrifying. pic.twitter.com/ucyrD7T9Pv

— Lucia Briones (@Lucybri83) June 20, 2023

Rear Admiral John Maugher of the US Coast Guard told reporters that the area where the sub went missing is a remote area, but assured that all-out efforts are on to locate the vessel as millions pray that its passengers are found alive.

For any search and rescue operation at sea, weather conditions, the lack of light at night, the state of the sea and water temperature can all play roles in whether stricken mariners can be found and rescued. For a rescue beneath the waves, the factors involved in a successful rescue are even more numerous and difficult. Read more