Coast Guard provides detailed map showing where rescuers searched for missing Titan submarine
The US Coast Guard has released a new graphic chart detailing their massive search pattern in the hunt for the missing Titanic submarine.
The image, released Wednesday evening, showed the area above the shipwreck, marked with a large red X, and the areas explored by the joint rescue efforts of the Canadian Coast Guard boat John Cabot, the commercial vessels Skandi Vinland and the Atlantic Merlin and a Coast The crew of Guard C-130 also arrived on scene to continue the search.
The search area has now expanded to about 14,000 square miles — twice the size of the state of Connecticut.
The update also stated that various other resources were being mobilized to aid in the increasingly desperate search.
Among them are the Canadian CGS Ann Harvey, the Canadian CGS Terry Fox, the motor vessel Horizon Arctic (ROV), the French research vessel L’Atalante (ROV).
The image shows the area above the shipwreck, marked with a large red X, and the areas explored by the joint rescues
The Canadian military shared footage of the rescue through a video posted to Twitter on Wednesday.
In addition, His Majesty’s Canadian Ship Glace Bay, which has a mobile decompression chamber and medical personnel, Magellan’s Air National Guard C-130 and ROV, will also join the effort.
The Navy is sending subject matter experts and a Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System (FADOSS), a motion-compensated lift system designed to provide reliable deep ocean lifting capability for the recovery of large, bulky and heavy submarine objects such as aircraft or small ships, from Navy Supervisor of Salvage’, according to the press release.
“Expertise and equipment will support the unified command.”
The search for this missing submarine, which lost contact with its mother ship during a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic on Sunday, is under increasing pressure as the Titan’s oxygen supply is expected to run out by Thursday morning.
Billionaire Hamish Harding, French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush and Shahzada Dawood, 48, a UK-based board member of the Prince’s Trust charity, and his son Sulaiman Dawood, 19, are said to be the people trapped in the sub.
They left for the wreck site on Sunday morning and soon lost contact with the surface.
Two submersibles capable of descending 20,000 feet below the ocean’s surface are currently leading the underwater search.
The vehicles are assisted by a fleet of specialized ships that also contain tools that could lift Titan from the seabed – if found.
The time pressure is compounded by the fact that the submersibles can locate Titan, which was on its way to the Titanic’s wreckage 12,500 feet below the surface, but it takes additional specialized tools for the mammoth task of bringing it up.
Hopes for a recovery were slightly raised on Wednesday when a Canadian P-3 aircraft equipped with sonar detected intermittent “popping noises” that experts hope came from Titan’s crew.
The new pattern (above) shows searches completed on Wednesday compared to the search area covered on Tuesday (below)
OceanGate’s Titan submarine went missing shortly after it left for the Titanic wreck on Sunday morning and its oxygen supply was running low
As the search for the missing Titan submarine becomes increasingly desperate, some of the world’s most advanced underwater search equipment has been deployed to scour the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
The Coast Guard chief who is coordinating the search said noises were initially heard during the night and more were detected on Wednesday.
The P-3 is one of several aircraft models that also aid the search by scouring the ocean surface and using sonar equipment for signs of activity on the seafloor.
There is also a range of military and commercial craft at the site, providing a combination of search capabilities, communications tools and rescue equipment should Titan be found.
Ultimately, it’s up to the submarines to keep an eye on Titan if it remains on the sea floor – or gets stuck in the Titanic’s wreckage.
Sean Leet, co-founder of Horizon Maritime Services, the company that owns Titan’s mothership Polar Prince, said on Wednesday that he had never seen advanced search equipment “of that nature move so fast.”
The missing OceanGate submarine, the Titan, lost contact with the mother ship during its descent to the shipwreck on Sunday morning
However, a sonar expert claims that the “thumping” heard by search and rescue vessels at the search site for the missing Titanic tourist submarine is likely “debris” and “junk” from the iconic wreck.
Jeff Karson, professor emeritus of earth and environmental sciences at Syracuse University, told DailyMail.com that the noises heard are likely “wishful thinking” on the part of the Coast Guard.
The US Navy discovered the sounds Wednesday morning after a Canadian P3 search aircraft detected sounds coming from underwater on Tuesday night.
Karson said he won’t be “shocked if that, wherever that noise is, there isn’t a submarine there.”
Speaking to DailyMail.com, he said: “One possibility is that the sounds reverberate around the rubble. And so it’s a more complicated echo.
“It just doesn’t bounce on one thing. It bounces off a lot of things. And it’s like dropping a marble into a can. It rattles around and that would confuse the location.
“The banging, I hear the Coast Guard talking about it. I wonder to what extent this is just wishful thinking?
“Is it really popping or just an unfamiliar sound?” I think that’s a more accurate description now.
‘In previous investigations, looking for lost objects on the seabed, I know that all kinds of crazy noises have been discovered. It’s one more thing we don’t understand about the ocean, our own planet.
“There’s no telling where the sound is coming from or how far away it is. Personally, I’m concerned that the noise is coming from something far from where they should be looking.
But they have to follow up. It’s the best clue right now. Everything is being done. It’s all hands on deck, international ships, everyone is doing their best.’