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THE FINAL HOURS
Fleet of rescue ships launch last-ditch bid to find missing Titanic sub before crew’s oxygen runs out at noon TODAY
THE mission to rescue the missing Titanic mini-sub is entering its final hours — as sounds of banging from deep underwater raised hopes of a last-gasp miracle.
A US Navy CURV21 was among robot subs joining the last-ditch bid to find lost craft Titan in the Atlantic and winch it to the surface.
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Air keeping alive the five on board runs out at 12.08pm today, the US Coast Guard confirmed.
A fleet of rescue ships is racing against time to locate the sub.
Five specialist vessels backed by deep-sea robots and search-and-rescue aircraft were already combing a vast 15,000 square mile zone up to a depth of 2½ miles.
But their number was due to double before the air supply deadline at around noon UK time today.
More on the missing sub
The late arrivals — carrying the world’s most advanced undersea search technology — provide the best hope of an incredible last-gasp rescue.
Experts hope they can end the “needle in a haystack” hunt near the liner’s wreck, 12,500ft under the North Atlantic.
Five people were on board the mini-sub Titan, which went missing on Sunday during a dive to view the Titanic.
US Coast Guard captain Jamie Frederick confirmed deep-sea noises had been heard which were being analysed by sonar experts to establish if they came from the 22ft craft.
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He said: "There is an enormous complexity associated with this case, due to the location being so far off shore and the coordination between multiple agencies and nations.
"There were multiple reports of noises and every one of them is being analysed.
"The noises have been described as banging noises."
However, so far, Captain Frederick said the searches have yielded negative results.
He said: "The noises were heard yesterday and this morning, experts are analysing the data but at the moment it is inconclusive.
"We need to have hope... what I can tell you is we are searching in the right area.
“We have to remain optimistic and hopeful when we are in a search-and-rescue case.”
Carl Hartsfield, another expert involved in the search, told reporters it was very tough to discern what the noises were.
He said: "We have multiple sensors in the area taking the data back to the best people in the world and feeding this back to the team so they can make decisions.
"They have to eliminate potential manmade sources other than the Titanic."
Canada’s CGS Ann Harvey, CGS Terry Fox, Motor Vessel Horizon Arctic and French research ship L’Atalante were all steaming at full speed to join the hunt before dawn.
Sean Leet - the co-founder and Chair of Horizon Maritime Services, the firm supplying Horizon Arctic - said he was dedicated to concluding the search.
He said: "Our equipment is on scene and is helping with the investigation as directed by the US Coast Guard.
"In addition to the Polar Prince, we have mobilised the Horizon Arctic to add vessel support for this mission.
"The people on board the Titan and their families are our focus, we care deeply about their well-being.
"Our critical role remains in a support capacity."
Officials said the ship would have arrived sooner, but had to return to Newfoundland to retrieve deep-sea diving equipment.
The L’Atalante carries the robot Victor 6000, which is capable of reaching depths of 20,000ft.
The robot can dive deeper than other equipment at the site.
Operated by a 25-strong crew, it has arms that can be operated to cut cables or perform other manoeuvres to release a stuck vessel.
While the vehicle could not lift Titan to the surface on its own, it could help to hook it to a ship.
A US Navy CURV21 undersea robot was also due to arrive and was seen as the best chance of saving the crew — if they are found alive.
It can salvage wreckage and craft up to 20,000ft down — and last year pulled off a world record recovery of a Seahawk helicopter at a depth of 19,075ft off Japan. Sonar teams hope they can detect the sub in the icy depths in time for the CURV21 to pull off a rescue.
The unprecedented feat would involve the tethered deep-sea robot attaching its cable to the Titan in pitch darkness near the ocean floor.
It would then need to pull the OceanGate Expedition company’s ten-ton craft aboard a US Navy ship at breakneck speed.
Even if the sub reaches the surface in time, crews will still have to unbolt the Titan’s sealed titanium hull to free the five.
Former Royal Navy Rear Admiral Chris Parry said: “If anything can bring them up, it’s this kit.”
The coast guard had five surface vessels searching for Titan on Wednesday and they expected there to be ten by Thursday, Captain Frederick said.
'FREEZING COLD'
British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, 19, paid £200,000-a-head for the trip.
It was led by OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61 and veteran French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77.
Retired Navy captain David Marquet said it's likely those trapped on the sub are "freezing cold".
He told : "The water entirely surrounding the ship is at freezing or slightly below.
"When they exhale, their breath condenses. There's frost on the inside of the parts of the submarine.
"They're all huddled together trying to conserve their body heat.
"They're running low on oxygen and they're exhaling carbon dioxide."
Two of the trapped men’s wives were on ships at the surface on Wednesday monitoring the operation.
Canadian P-3 sonar search aircraft and Hercules transport planes were also helping efforts to scour the surface.
Five ships already in position included the Polar Prince, from which the Titan was launched.
Rescuers’ worst fear is that the five died instantly when their craft suffered catastrophic “explosive decompression”.
But hopes soared yesterday as it was reported that a Canadian P-3 detected “banging” noises at 30-minute intervals.
That suggested the crew could have been striking the hull of their sub in a desperate bid to reveal their position.
Chris Brown, 61, a friend of missing Hamish, 55, said: “If you made a continuous noise, that’s not going to get picked up, but doing it every 30 minutes, that suggests humans.”
He said it was “just the sort of thing I would have expected Hamish to come up with”.
The Sun told yesterday how Chris, of Harrogate, North Yorks, signed up for a dive but pulled out — questioning if the firm running it was cutting corners.
Experts warned many sounds would be heard as more ships joined the search — including noise from the creaking wreck of the Titanic, which sank in 1912 taking 1,517 lives.
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Communication was lost with the £200,000-a-head voyage just 1 hour 45 minutes into its 12,500ft descent to the ruins of the Titanic on Sunday.
The sub - called Titan - was due to resurface that afternoon but failed to do so, sparking a frantic rescue mission.
But the vessel plunged with a 96-hour oxygen supply - meaning the five crew members on board likely have less than 20 hours of breathable air left.
Rescue teams have, however, been offered a glimmer of hope after banging sounds were detected at 30-minute intervals.
The sounds were detected in the area by a Canadian using sonar gear, though the US Coast Guard did not elaborate on what rescuers believe the noises could be.
Retired United States Navy captain David Marquet told The Sun: "In the military we are trained to make rhythmic, metallic, or interval noises with will differentiate it from natural recurring noise."
Underwater drones have now been redeployed in a bid to locate where the thuds came from, but have so far "yielded negative results".
The US Coast Guard said: "Canadian P-3 aircraft detected underwater noises in the search area.
"As a result, ROV operations were relocated in an attempt to explore the origin of the noises. Those ROV searches have yielded negative results but continue.
"Additionally, the data from the P-3 aircraft has been shared with our U.S. Navy experts for further analysis which will be considered in future search plans."
Another aircraft located a white rectangular object in the water but a ship sent to investigate changed course to look into the banging, reported.
But the US official later it would be more accurate to describe it as "sounds" and "noises" rather than "banging".
US Navy officials have also scrambled a so-called Flyaway Deep Ocean Salave System to the scene, which is able to lift small vessels.
Three support ships also arrived on Wednesday, including The John Cabot which has side scanning sonar capabilities and "is conducting search patterns alongside the Skandi Vinland and the Atlantic Merlin", the US Coast Guard said.
Australian submarine search and rescue expert Frank Owen believes the banging sounds could suggest the sub is near or at the surface.
He told the : ";Onboard this craft is a retired French navy diver.
"He would know the protocol for trying to alert searching forces… on the hour and the half hour you bang like hell for three minutes.
"Below about 180m, the water temperature drops very rapidly.
"That creates a layer that the [sonar signa] bounces off. But if you’re in the same depth water it tends to go quite straight."
Scientist Michael Guillen believes the stranded crew could be using cups to bash the side of the sub.
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Dr Guillen, who went to the Titanic wreck in 2000, told Good Morning Britain: "They have five people, they can make quite a racket by just banging on the side as sound communicates extremely well in water."
Chris Brown, an explorer and friend of Mr Harding, told BBC Breakfast the reported banging sounds has "got them written all over it".
He added it was "just the sort of thing I would have expected Hamish to come up with".
Chris - who signed up for a Titanic trip at the same time as his pal in 2016 - pulled out of the OceanGate programme over safety fears about the quality of equipment and material used.
But he has also saluted his space tourist and explorer pal’s coolness in a crisis, declaring he would do everything possible to survive.
Chris said: "If you made a continuous noise, that's not going to get picked up, but doing it every 30 minutes, that suggests humans.
"I'm sure they're all conserving oxygen and energy, because it's cold and dark down there."
The passengers stuck on the sub alongside Mr Harding are OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British-based tycoon Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman, and French diving expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
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 is understood to have been sent at around 11.30am local time on Sunday, directly above the Titanic.
After that, no contact was had with the vessel at all
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.
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.
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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.
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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?
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