The oxygen reserves of the submersible that disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean with five occupants while visiting the wreck of the Titanic will already be completely depleted.
The Titan would have an oxygen reserve of 96 hours when it put to sea at 6 a.m. Sunday, according to the private company OceanGate Expeditions, but according to the Associated Press, the US Coast Guard conceded that the more optimistic limit could be extended. until 1:00 p.m. (Lisbon time).
The US Coast Guard will maintain an “active search and rescue operation,” Rear Admiral John Mauger told Sky News. “It has been an incredibly complex effort. We remain hopeful,” he added, when asked if it was too late.
The search means were reinforced in the last hours, in a last effort to try to find the five occupants of the Titan alive: the American Stockton Rush, owner of OceanGate; British magnate Hamish Harding, 58; the French Paul-Henri Nargeolet, specialist in the Titanic, 77 years old; British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, 19.
They each paid $250,000 to visit the Titanic wreck, accepting the inherent risks.
The searches will continue in an area of 20,000 square kilometers, including a robot capable of reaching the point where the remains of the Titanic ship are found, at a depth of about 4,000 meters.
Contact with the Titan was lost two hours after departure.
The submersible had a device that would make it return to the surface in an emergency – manually releasing weights that help the device stay underwater, or automatically after 24 hours – but it is not known if this device was activated. Even if this were the case, the occupants would not be able to open the capsule from the inside.
Source: TSF
