Inside Titanic sub mission with ‘1% chance’ of success as rescuers listen for hull thuds before air runs out on Thursday
RESCUERS have just a one per cent chance of saving the crew on the missing Titanic submersible before oxygen supplies run out on Thursday, experts fear.
Search teams are understood to be listening out for thuds as panicked crew members could be banging on the vessel’s hull more than 12,000ft under the water.
Contact was lost with the £200,000-a-head voyage on Sunday as it headed to the wreckage of the Titanic – with only enough oxygen to last until midday Thursday.
Brit billionaire Hamish Harding has been confirmed as one of the crew members on the missing sub, while it is widely reported French diving expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet and submarine boss Stockton Rush are also on board.
British-based Pakistani tycoon Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son Suleman – who live in a gated home in leafy Surry – are on the lost sub too, according to their family.
The vessel – named Titan – sends texts to communicate with their team on transport vessel the Polar Prince, which remains above water.
Titan is understood to have lost contact with the Polar Prince just one hour and 45 minutes into the expedition.
Every 15 minutes, Titan also sends ‘pings’ to the Polar Prince.
The final of these pings was sent at around 11.30am local time (3pm UK time) on Sunday, directly above the Titanic – which lies at a depth of 12,500ft around 600km off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada
It placed the Titan 11,000ft further underwater than the deepest successful underwater rescue operation to date.
After that, no contact was had with the vessel at all.
It has sparked fears that Titan could be trapped in the wreckage of the Titanic, too deep for rescuers to access.
OceanGate’s sub has the capacity for one pilot and four others – and it went down with an oxygen supply able to last 96 hours.
It means search crews are racing against the clock to find the sub as their air supply is due to run out around midday on Thursday UK time (7am EST).
US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger, who is overseeing the search operation, said US and Canadian ships and planes have swarmed the area, some dropping sonar buoys that can monitor to a depth of 13,000ft.
But former US nuclear submarine commander David Marquet believes there is less than a one per cent chance of the crew surviving “if they are on the bottom”.
He told Good Morning Britain: “Time is running out in terms of their supply of oxygen, which they’re going to want to try and extend.
“If they’re still alive, they’re going to want to try to relax, minimise their oxygen use, minimise all physical activity, they’re not going to want to panic and get excited and they’re going to want to take naps because that’s a good way to minimise your oxygen use.”
He warned the carbon dioxide level could get too high and suffocate the crew.
Speaking to NewsNation, Captain Marquet said a crew member could be banging on the hull in the hope rescuers can hear the thuds while others sleep to lower oxygen use.
But he added experts are fearing for the worst as the sub lost communication, hasn’t returned to the surface and hasn’t launched an emergency device.
Captain Marquet warned it is “too deep” for a military submarines to save them and a highly specialised vessel similar to Titan needs to be rushed over from another part of the world on a plane.
He told GMB: “When you’re under that much water it’s 400 times the pressure that we experience here.
“You can’t transfer them to another vessel, we need to actually somehow hook or claw their vessel and bring it up to the surface, which means we need a ship above them with a two-mile cable.
“Then we need to somehow get the hook onto their vessel and get it back up which means we probably need another vessel down near them, which can get the hook on.”
What we know:
- Frantic rescue mission to find the missing Titan submarine which vanished while exploring the Titanic
- US Coast Guard fear sub only has oxygen to last until 12pm on Thursday
- Five people on board the submarine have all been named – including Brit billionaire Hamish Harding
- OceanGate boss Stockton Rush, French sub-pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet, businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman have been named
- Ships and planes combing the area around the wreck using sonar to find the sub
- US and Canada leading rescue mission with UK teams on standby
- Fears the tourist submarine could be “tangled” in wreck of the Titanic
- Pal of Hamish reveals his final text message talking about bad weather ahead of the mission
- Timeline reveals the last movements of the Titan before she went dark
Britain is “ready to provide assistance” and has submarine rescue capabilities at Clyde naval base that may be of use, Rishi Sunak’s spokesman said today.
No10 added: “Clearly this is a complex mission at significant depth.”
The US Navy runs undersea listening posts which would have detected an “explosive decompression” that experts fear the sub may have suffered.
But American officials may be reluctant to reveal the vessel’s fate as it could give away the sensitivity or location of its ‘TUSC LANT’ spy system.
Early Sunday morning the final picture of the OceanGate sub above water was taken.
Snaps show the vessel in foggy and wet weather being taken out to sea by two dinghies on a barge before it slipped into the water.
It cannot be opened from the inside as it is bolted shut from the outside.
One of the missing passengers has been named as aviator and businessman Hamish Harding.
The 58-year-old is known as one of the leaders of the record-breaking mission to orbit the Earth via both poles in 2019.
His stepson confirmed today that he was one of the crew on board the sub.
Harding posted on Facebook about poor weather conditions before the trip began.
He said: “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.”
French submersible pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 73, is also feared to be on board.
Mr Nargeolet is the Director of Underwater Research Program at Premier Exhibitions, RMS Titanic, Inc.
The diving expert previously spoke frankly of the extreme dangers of deep-sea exploration in an interview.
Titanic OceanGate Submarine News
Everything you need to know about the missing submarine, which vanished near the Titanic on June 18, 2023.
- What happened to the OceanGate Submarine?
- When did it go missing?
- Who is Hamish Harding?
- How deep is the Titanic in the ocean?
- Can the passengers escape the submarine alive?
- Do submarines like this dissapear often and has this happened before?
- Who is taking part in the rescue effort?
- Who is Paul-Henry Nargeolet and what is he known for?
- Who else is missing on the stricken vessel?
- When did the Titanic sink and have people explored the wreckage before?
He said: “If you are 11m or 11km down, if something bad happens, the result is the same.
“When you’re in very deep water, you’re dead before you realise that something is happening, so it’s just not a problem.”
Pakistanis Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman are also on the vessel, according to their family.
They said: “We are very grateful for the concern being shown by our colleagues and friends and would like to request everyone to pray for their safety.”
Mr Dawood is a trustee of a non-profit company called SETI Institute, based in California, it’s understood.
They live in a gated home in Surrey, and a neighbour told The Sun that the house was currently being renovated and that the family had been away for some time.
He described them as a humble couple who threw garden parties for their neighbours having been at the private home for the past eight or nine years.
When asked if they were an adventurous family he said: “I would think this is fairly exceptional, they do travel a lot.
“His business is based in Pakistan and they have lots of holiday.”
He sent his thoughts and prayers to the family and added: “You think of what Shahzada and Suleman must be going through and what the poor family must be going through.”
It’s thought the group have been accompanied by Stockton Rush, the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of OceanGate Inc – the company carrying out the expedition.
Last year he told : “Titan is the only five-person sub capable of going to the Titanic depth, which is half the depth of the ocean.
“There are no switches and things to bump into, we have one button to turn it on.
“Everything else is done with touch screens and computers, and so you really become part of the vehicle and everybody gets to know everyone pretty well.”
The wreckage of the Titanic has sat 12,500ft beneath sea level in dark and icy waters in the North Atlantic Ocean for 111 years.
OceanGate, one of few companies offering trips to see the ruins, confirmed a major search mission has been launched to “bring the crew back safely”.
Tickets for tourists to see the wreckage cost up to £195,000.
OceanGate bills the trip as a “chance to step outside of everyday life and discover something truly extraordinary”.
The vessel weighs over 10,000kg and is powered by electric thrusters, generating a stop speed of three knots.
Unusually, it is steered by a reinforced Xbox-style controller, though there is no GPS system, with crew instead relying on texts from a team above the water.
The company previously revealed it uses Elon Musk’s Starlink to communicate with the vessel, however, it’s not clear what has gone wrong with the network.
A spokesman for OceanGate said: “We are exploring and mobilising all options to bring the crew back safely.
“Our entire focus is on the crewmembers 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.
“We are working toward the safe return of the crewmembers.”
The deepest successful underwater rescue in history was in 1973, when British engineers Roger Mallinson and Roger Chapman were saved after their submersible became trapped on the seabed at 1,575ft.
This operation would be 11,000ft deeper.
A Royal Navy source said they were monitoring the situation but that prospects of a rescue were bleak as the wreck is more than 12,00ft deep.
The source said: “Opportunities and capabilities in that depth of water are few and far between.”
Britain, France and Norway run Nato’s global submarine rescue service, but it can only dive to 2,000ft.
The Nato submarine rescue system is fully “air portable” and can be loaded onto a mothership in a port closest to the sub in distress.
DOOMED VOYAGE
The Titanic sank on its maiden voyage to New York in April 1912, after hitting an iceberg.
More than 1,500 of the 2,200 passengers and crew onboard were killed, and many died within minutes of being thrown into the -2C waters.
The decaying wreck of the 822ft liner was first discovered in 1985 but due to its depth and strong currents even the best underwater cameras have only offered a small snapshot into its colossal remains.
Its bow and the stern that broke apart during the sinking lie more than 2,600ft apart and are surrounded by an unending field of exposed debris.
But last month, the ship’s haunting wreck was revealed as never before in stunningly detailed 3D scans on the ocean floor.
Scientists hope the high-resolution digital images – the clearest view ever of the world’s most famous shipwreck – could shed new light on the disaster.
The British luxury passenger liner took under three years to construct, costing around £1.5million – equating to about £170million today.
Thousands of workers were involved in the project, with some 14,000 men employed during the peak of construction.
The frame was fully formed in just over a year, with the shell plating finished shortly afterwards.
The steamship was released from its dry dock in 1911 and work on the interior began.
Just eight days before its maiden voyage, it was declared seaworthy.
