THE ESSENTIAL
- A tourist submersible that set out to visit the wreck of the Titanic at a depth of almost 4,000 meters has disappeared since Sunday with five passengers on board. read the article
- Rescuers are racing against time to find the submersible, which has a 96-hour battery life. read the article
- The research, which until now focused on the ocean’s surface, is now taking place underwater as well, the US Coast Guard said. Read the summary
Who is OceanGate, the company that offers expeditions to the remains of the Titanic?
OceanGate is an American company founded in 2009 by Stockton Rush and specialized in underwater expeditions.
Since 2021, it has offered tourist expeditions to the Titanic to “follow in the footsteps of Jacques Cousteau and become an underwater explorer.” The operator assures that these explorations also have a scientific objective since they should allow better documentation of the state of the remains thanks to the taking of photographs and videos.
Who are the passengers of the Titan?
Five passengers are aboard the submersible. Among them is British businessman Hamish Harding, 58, who proudly announced Sunday on Instagram his participation in this extreme excursion. The latter is executive director of Action Aviation, a company that markets private jets, based in Dubai.
Former naval officer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, a leading French specialist on the Titanic wreckage, is also on the trip, his family confirmed to BFMTV.
Also on board for this dive at $250,000 per seat, according to the website of its US organizer OceanGate Expeditions, was a prominent Pakistani tycoon Shahzada Dawood, vice president of the Engro conglomerate, with her son Suleman, according to the family.
“For the moment, contact with the submersible device has been lost and there is little information available,” said the family of this great Pakistani fortune in a press release.
France sends a ship and its robot
The French institute Ifremer has diverted its Atalante ship, equipped with a deep-water robot, to the North Atlantic site where the Titan disappeared. It should arrive in the area on Wednesday around 8:00 p.m. (Newfoundland time), according to Secretary of State for the Sea, Hervé Berville.
The French operators should then plunge the Victor 6000 robot towards the wreckage of the Titanic. Qualified as the “flagship underwater intervention vehicle” by Ifremer, it is a remote-controlled robot from the Atalante, by means of an umbilical cord that reaches eight kilometers.
It is trained to work in deep waters up to 6,000 meters, with a battery of observation and management equipment and sampling of sediments or fauna.
The investigation enters its underwater phase
Submersible research has so far focused on the ocean surface. Now they are also taking place underwater, the US Coast Guard said.
“As we continue the search, we are also deploying underwater search capabilities,” US Army Corps Rear Adm. John Mauger, who is leading the investigation, told ABC News’ Good Morning America.
“A commercial ship now at the site has remote controlled vehicles that will give us the ability to search underwater as well,” he said.
The submersible missing since Sunday
Hello everyone and welcome to this direct dedicated to the investigations carried out to find the tourist submersible that went to visit the remains of the Titanic almost 4000 meters deep in the North Atlantic and its five passengers.
With an autonomy of 96 hours, the Titan began its descent this Sunday. Contact with the ship, about 6.50 meters, was lost less than two hours after departure, according to authorities.
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Source: BFM TV
