Just 30 hours of air left on the Titanic Submarine. Rescuers attempting to locate the orca-sized submarine that went missing while on its way to the Titanic, wreck face a massive challenge that will test the limits of technical know-how, according to experts.
Teams around the world were racing against the clock Tuesday to find the vessel and its five-person crew before their oxygen ran out, which is expected in less than a day and a half.
However, it is not easy to scour a 7,600-square-mile (20,000-square-kilometer) area of the North Atlantic to a depth of more than two miles.
“It’s pitch black down there. It’s freezing cold. The seabed is mud, and it’s undulating. You can’t see your hand in front of your face,” Titanic expert Tim Maltin told NBC News Now.
“It’s really a bit like being an astronaut going into space.”
Titan, a 21-foot (6.5-meter) submersible, was carrying three fee-paying guests when it went missing on Sunday: British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani mogul Shahzada Dawood, and Dawood’s son Suleman.
The Titan’s visits are operated by OceanGate Expeditions, which charges $250,000 per ticket.
Must read: OceanGate adviser accuses Biden for ‘holding up’ rescue for missing Titanic submarine
As just 30 hours of air left on the Titanic Submarine, Stockton Rush, the company’s CEO, and French submarine operator Paul-Henri Nargeolet, dubbed “Mr. Titanic” for his repeated dives at the site, are also on board.
On Tuesday, Captain Jamie Frederick of the United States Coast Guard informed reporters that his organization was in charge of the search.
But, he said, it was incredibly difficult, and far beyond what the coast guard would normally tackle.
“While the US Coast Guard has assumed the role of search and rescue mission coordinator, we do not have all of the necessary expertise and equipment required in a search of this nature,” he said.
“This is a complex search effort, which requires multiple agencies with subject matter expertise and specialized equipment.”
Frederick explained that rescuers were using multiple methods as they comb the vast area for the Titan, which lost contact with its mothership just two hours into its dive near the Titanic’s watery grave.
“The search efforts have focused on both surface with C-130 aircraft searching by sight and with radar and subsurface with P3 aircraft, we’re able to drop and monitor sonar buoys.”
Seafloor, water column or surface
So far, the searches have been futile.
A massive pipe-laying vessel with a remotely operated vehicle was expected to be deployed at the Titan’s final known position on Tuesday.
Rescuers would have to look at three different sites, according to Jules Jaffe, who was part of the team that created the optical imaging method used to find the Titanic in 1985.
“It’s either sitting on the seafloor, somewhere in the water column or sitting on the surface,” he told ABC10 in San Diego.
“It could be in the water column. I think that’s probably the most likely place it is.”
Jamie Pringle, a professor of forensic geosciences at Keele University in Britain, said if the mini-sub had settled on the ocean floor, it could be very difficult to spot.
“The bottom of the ocean is not flat; there are lots of hills and canyons,” Pringle said, according to NBC.
Adding to the challenge: the enormous pressure four kilometers under water, around 400 times what it is on the surface.
Such pressures put enormous strains on equipment, and very few vessels can survive these depths.
Nuclear submarines generally operate at just 300 meters, according to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The huge pressure four kilometers beneath the water, about 400 times what it is on the surface, adds to the difficulty.
Such pressures inflict great strain on equipment, and only a few vessels are capable of surviving at such depths.
According to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, nuclear submarines typically operate at a depth of 300 metres.
