The US Coast Guard still has no trace of the submersible missing since Sunday in the North Atlantic on a descent towards the wreck of the Titanic, with five people on board, when there are less than 40 hours of oxygen left on board.
During a press conference in Boston, in the Northeast United States, the captain of the US Coast Guard Jamie Frederick admitted that the searches for the Titan, which are carried out with the help of Canada, “have not yielded results” for the moment. , operations continue to detect the submersible and its occupants, American, British and French citizens.
“The search operations have focused both on the surface, with the radars of the C-130 aircraft, and underwater, with aircraft launching buoy sonars,” explained the official, who explained that, “today it was incorporated looking for a new ship and this one has a remote controlled mini-submarine”.
It has already started “a dive at Titan’s last known position, which is close to where the Titanic wreckage is,” and the mission “is still ongoing.” There are also more ships with such mini-submarines on the way.
Working “full time” to gather “all the resources as quickly as possible”, Frederick also explained that the oxygen bills they will still have left is only an estimate: “If they left with 96 hours of air, we think they now have 40 “. or 41 hours of oxygen still available.”
CBS News journalist David Pogue, who traveled to the Titanic aboard the Titan last year, said the vehicle uses two communication systems: text messages exchanged with a surface ship; Is pings safety signals that are emitted every 15 minutes to indicate that the submersible is still working.
Both systems came to a halt about an hour and 45 minutes after Titan submerged on Sunday.
“That means one of two things: either they lost all power or the sub ruptured the hull and imploded instantly. Both are devastating,” Pogue said.
France announced today that the Ifremer institute for ocean sciences has sent a ship, the Atalante, equipped with an underwater robot, the Victor 6000, to search for the submersible.
The Victor 6,000 should reach its destination on Wednesday and will dive to a depth of about 4,000 meters to carry out the search operation.
The French Secretary of the Sea, Hervé Berville, explained that a group of French operators went to the edge of Atlantis to be able to operate the robot, which will dive to a depth of about 4,000 meters.
Berville explained that it was an express request of the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
Communication with the submersible was lost 45 minutes after the start of the dive, on Sunday night (local time), reported the company OceanGate Expeditions, owner of the vessel and organizer of trips to the Titanic wreck.
The remains of the Titanic – which sank after colliding with an iceberg in 1912 – lie at a depth of about 3,800 meters and at an approximate distance of 640 kilometers south of the Canadian island of Newfoundland.
Communication was lost when the boat was some 700 kilometers south of São João da Terra Nova, according to the Canadian Joint Rescue Coordination Center, quoted by the US agency AP.
The submersible had a 96-hour oxygen reserve when it put out to sea around 6 a.m. Sunday (local time), according to David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate, making the operation a time trial.
Source: TSF
