The vessel from the company Oceangate disappeared over two days ago – and there is only oxygen for 40 more hours on board.
The increasingly desperate search for the tourist submarine at the Titanic wreck is now also underway below the surface of the water.
This despite the fact that the CEO Stockton Rush in a television interview in November assured that the submarine is safe.
The rescue operation has so far been carried out above the water’s surface – but has so far been fruitless.
But according to John Mauger, commander of the Coast Guard in Boston in the United States, the search for the missing tourist submarine has now shifted to also include an area under the water’s surface. It writes CNN.
France’s Oceanographic Institute is also now sending a ship, the Atalante, which is equipped with a deep-sea robot.
During a press conference on Tuesday evening, Swedish time, the Coast Guard states that the oxygen in the vessel is only enough for about 40 more hours.
The search for the Titanic submarine
Five people were on board when the 6.7 meter long vessel Titan sank into the depths of the Atlantic at the wreck site on Sunday.
But the trip did not go as planned and after an hour and 45 minutes the outside world lost contact with the craft.
It’s about gigantic areas to search in and it’s a race against the clock. On board there is enough oxygen for five people for 96 hours, according to an adviser to Oceangate, which arranges the tours. Those hours are to be counted from Sunday morning American time – which means that the oxygen is expected to run out around lunchtime on Thursday Swedish time.
The eerie interview with the submarine company’s CEO
There is varying information on how much Ocengate’s tours to the Titanic cost. The travelers may have paid between 150,000 and 250,000 dollars (roughly SEK 2.6 million), AP reports. The trips have previously been surrounded by problems, including the tourist submarine not always finding its way to the Titanic wreck.
Stockton Rush, CEO of Oceangate, talked about the safety of the mini-sub in an interview just a few months ago, on November 27, 2022. A journalist from CBS News Sunday Morning then questioned the craft.
– I noticed how many parts of this submarine looked homemade, says the journalist.
But Stockton Rush then assured that the journey in the craft will be safe.
– The pressure chamber is not at all “MacGyver-like”, because that’s where we worked with Boeing and NASA and the University of Washington, he says and continues:
– Everything else can fail. Your propeller may quit. Your lights may go out. You will still be safe.
Now Stockton Rush is stuck at the bottom of the sea along with Shahzada Dawood, one of Pakistan’s richest businessmen, Sulaiman Dawood, Shahzada Dawood’s 19-year-old son, as well as Paul-Henry Nargeolet, French explorer and former soldier in the French navy, and Hamish Harding, British billionaire and CEO of the company Action Aviation in Dubai.