Time is of the essence: the five people on board the Titan submersible are running out of oxygen. The rescuers’ hope rests on diving robots that search the seabed in the North Atlantic.
According to calculations, the oxygen on board the missing “Titan” threatens to run out in the course of the day. In the search for the submersible missing near the “Titanic” wreck with five people on board, hopes are now focused on deep-sea diving robots: A French research ship with the diving robot “Victor 6000” is now in use in the search area in the North Atlantic. A Canadian diving robot has also already reached the seabed.
Despite fears about the lack of oxygen on board, the goal of the search crews is still to save the occupants of the submersible alive, US Coast Guard Chief of Operations John Mauger told NBC television. Difficult situations show again and again “that the will to survive also counts”.
The US Coast Guard and the Canadian Coast Guard have been searching an area of around 20,000 square kilometers almost 650 kilometers off the coast of the Canadian province of Newfoundland from the air and on the water for days.
The diving robot “Victor 6000” can dive up to six kilometers deep and thus search the seabed around the “Titanic” wreck at a depth of around 3800 meters. He has powerful searchlights and two gripper arms with which he could attach ropes for a salvage to the “Titan” – if he finds the submersible.
Search could take weeks
After arriving in the search area, the special ship “Atalante” began to measure the seabed in the region with special echo sounders in order to enable a more targeted use of the diving robot. British Antarctic Society expert Rob Larter called Victor 6000 the “best hope” for rescuing those missing aboard Titan. However, it could “possibly take weeks of intensive search” to find the tiny submarine in the huge search area. “An objective assessment of the state of affairs: It doesn’t look good,” Larter said.
It usually takes about two hours for a submersible like Victor 6000 to descend to the depths of the Titanic wreck and just as long for it to surface again, said University College London professor Alistair Greig.
The boat, operated by the company OceanGate Expeditions, set off on a tourist dive trip to the wreck of the sunken Titanic on Sunday. After almost two hours, contact with the escort ship broke off, and since then there has been no trace of the 6.5-meter-long mini-submarine. When launched, the submersible had around 96 hours of oxygen for the five men on board – theoretically enough to date.
But even after that, people would probably first pass out and not die immediately, Kenneth Ledez, a professor of hyperbaric medicine, told the BBC. Even after that, there is still hope of finding the five people alive. Human bodies react very differently to a lack of oxygen.
Aboard the missing mini-sub are OceanGate Expeditions chief Stockton Rush, British entrepreneur and adventurer Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman, and French Titanic expert Paul- Henri Nargeolet.
Pitch black darkness, huge water pressure
The conditions are difficult in the vicinity of the “Titanic”, almost 700 kilometers south of Newfoundland. It’s pitch black and the water pressure is huge. The forces combed an area almost twice the size of the US state of Connecticut, about 26,000 square kilometers, said the US Coast Guard coordinator for the operation, Jamie Frederick.
Submarine specialist sees little chance
Should the submersible be found anyway, the salvage would take a lot of time. “The whole salvage process is complicated enough,” said Jürgen Weber from the Association of German Submarine Drivers in an interview tagesschau24: “A diving robot would have to go down, attaching a steel cable to the submersible and attaching the other end of the cable to the “FADOSS” system, the US Navy’s lifting system.”
According to the expert, only then can the upward winding process begin. “I fear that this time will not be long enough to survive aboard this submersible.”
Doubts about the safety of the submersible
Doubts had recently arisen about the safety of the “Titan”. This was also ensured by statements from the head of the operating company OceanGate, Stockton Rush, in a podcast by the CBS reporter David Pogue, who rode the “Titan” in 2022. “You know, at some point security is a waste,” Rush said. “I mean, if you want to be on the safe side, it’s best not to get up. Don’t get in your car. Don’t do anything.” Rush is among the missing on board.