Frantic search for Titan submarine to 12,500 feet under the ocean

If search teams miraculously find the Titan submarine with all five crew members alive, it would likely represent an unprecedented feat of underwater rescue.

The current record for the deepest underwater rescue ever achieved was 1,575 feet below the surface of the ocean.

Titan, which has been missing since Sunday morning after it embarked on a journey to the wreckage of the Titanic, was heading to a depth of 12,500 feet, or about 2.4 miles.

For context, the operating depth of a U.S. Navy Ohio-class nuclear submarine is about 1,000 feet. A blue whale, the largest animal that ever existed, reaches a maximum depth of about 500 meters.

The US Coast Guard and other agencies have deployed all available equipment to search, but the mission still resembles finding a needle in a haystack.

The OceanGate Titan submarine began its journey at 8 a.m. Sunday morning, about 400 miles southeast of St John’s, Newfoundland, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. It lost contact at 9:45 a.m. but was not reported to the Coast Guard until 5:40 p.m.

The chances of finding the craft if it is stuck at the bottom of the ocean are almost zero, especially at the depths of the Titanic wreck. The hope is that it was able to take off and float somewhere on the ocean surface.

But even that is starting to seem almost impossible.

The submarine was carrying five people: British billionaire and explorer Hamish Harding, 58; UK-based Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son, Sulaiman Dawood, 19; French Navy pilot Paul-Henry (PH) Nargeolet; and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.

At a press conference Tuesday at the US Coast Guard Station in Boston — which coordinates the search and rescue effort — First District Response Coordinator, Captain Jamie Frederick, admitted that rescue was not guaranteed.

He said he didn’t know if they would be able to save the five people on board, even if the craft were found.

The Coast Guard has already searched 7,600 square miles of ocean — a search area the size of Connecticut.

At 12,500 feet underwater, few ships can dive deep enough to find it. The only ones that can search the ocean floor are remote controlled vehicles that are now searching the ocean.

The current record for an underwater rescue was set in 1973, when the submarine Pisces III was rescued after 80 hours at a depth of 1575 feet. The ship was laying telephone cables in the Celtic Sea, about 150 miles off the coast of Ireland.

If teams searching for Titan find the submarine underwater, getting it to the surface is quite another feat, requiring more specialist equipment.

The 21ft submarine has an oxygen supply of up to 96 hours and time is running out to find it

American and Canadian ships and planes stormed the area about 900 miles east of Cape Cod.

Officials also deployed a remote-controlled vehicle (ROV) to search for Titan.

A handful of these can reach depths of up to 20,000 feet and are connected to a ship via an ‘umbilical cord’, allowing the pilot to control it from above using thrusters and transmit images from sonar and camera systems.

Some can lift objects from the sea floor – though few are believed to be capable of lifting a load of Titan’s 21,000 pounds in weight.

The only likely rescue would come from such an unmanned vehicle – essentially an underwater drone.

The US Navy has one that they used to recover a downed F-35 Joint Strike Fighter about 12,400 feet in the South China Sea in early 2022. The US Navy also operates a Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System (FADOSS), which can recover items using a winch from 21,000 feet.

There is also a private two-man submarine called Limiting Factor. In 2019, explorer Victor Vescovo used it to become the first human to reach the deepest point of all five oceans.

Sonar buoys have been dropped into the Atlantic Ocean to listen for the Titan.

Aircraft and ships with similar technology also scan the sea for signs on the surface and below, including the sound of the missing men banging on the hull or screaming for help — an important instruction given in the event of a deep-sea emergency.

A US Navy research vessel deploys the cable-operated Undersea Recovery Vehicle (CURV-21) off the coast of Comodoro Rivadavia, Argentina. The CURV was designed to meet the U.S. Navy’s deep-sea recovery requirements to a maximum depth of 20,000 feet and helped salvage a jet last year

Limiting Factor, a two-man submarine capable of going to the depths where the Titan (pictured off South Georgia) might be. It holds the record for going to the bottom of the five deepest ocean basins in the world

And nuclear submarines could be sent from Britain and the US.

Deep Energy searches the sea floor using cameras commonly used when laying pipes deep underwater.

But experts have said that even if the missing Titan is found on the sea floor, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to save the five people on board. Commander Ryan Ramsey, who served 23 years in the British Royal Navy’s submarine service, is less hopeful and believes there is no chance of rescue.

Cdr Ramsey, who served in the Navy’s submarine service for 23 years, told MailOnline that those on board – including French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet and OceanGate chief executive Stockton Rush – will now face declining oxygen levels, while another expert the crewmembers are at risk of hypothermia.

“There’s no way to save them,” said the naval veteran, who commanded a Royal Navy nuclear submarine. ‘Most rescue systems can only reach 500 m (1,640 ft), not 3,000 m (9,000 ft).