A submersible named Titan, carrying five people on a mission to document the wreckage of the Titanic, which sank more than a century ago, has gone missing in a remote area of the Atlantic Ocean.
In response to this, the Canadian and United States authorities immediately launched search and rescue efforts with the aim to locate the submersible.
According to Canada’s joint rescue coordination center in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the vessel which was part of OceanGate expeditions was reported overdue Sunday night about 435 miles (700 kilometers) South of St. John’s, Newfoundland.
According to Lt. Cmdr. Len Hickey, a Canadian Coast Guard vessel and military aircraft are assisting in the search, led by the U.S. Coast Guard in Boston.
Rear Adm. John Mauger, a U.S. Coast Guard Commander said, that additional resources would arrive in the coming days.
It added that the area is a remote area and it is a big challenge to conduct a search operation in such a place.
According to the coast guard, the submersible’s support vessel, the Canadian research icebreaker Polar Prince, lost contact with the vessel about an hour and 45 minutes after it went down.
The Polar Prince will continue to conduct search operations and the Canadian P8 Poseidon aircraft will resume their surface and subsurface search in the morning.
OceanGate expeditions to the Titanic wreck site include archaeologists and marine biologists.
The company also brings people who pay to come along, known as mission specialists.
They take turns operating the sonar equipment and doing other tasks in the five-person submersible.
According to the coast guard, there is a pilot and four ‘mission specialists” in this submersible.
Currently, rescuers are racing against time to find the missing submersible as the vessel has a limited oxygen supply of only 96 hours for the said expedition.
