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OceanGate’s Titan submersible has gone out of contact during one of its dives to the wreck of the Titanic, 12,500 feet beneath the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean.
The U.S. Coast Guard is leading the search-and-rescue operation.
The sub was built by Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate and operated by a sister company, OceanGate Expeditions. In an emailed statement, OceanGate Expeditions said it was “exploring and mobilizing all options to bring the crew back safely.”
“Our entire focus is on the crew members in the submersible and their families,” the company said. “We are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep-sea companies in our efforts to re-establish contact with the submersible.”
OceanGate Expeditions says a Titanic dive typically takes 10 hours, and the Titan sub has 96 hours’ worth of life support. In a series of tweets, the U.S. Coast Guard Northeast said contact was lost with the five-person crew about an hour and 45 minutes after Sunday’s dive began.
The Coast Guard said C-130 airplanes and a Canadian P-8 Poseidon patrol aircraft with underwater detection capabilities were taking part in the search.
The Titan submersible’s five-person crew typically includes a pilot and researchers as well as mission specialists who have paid $250,000 to be part of the expedition. Crew members take turns heading down to the Titanic shipwreck site from a mission control ship that sails out to the site from Newfoundland, and then returns to port to pick up the next expedition crew.
OceanGate Expeditions started offering Titanic tours in 2021, and conducted a second round of surveys last year as part of its long-term plan to document the shipwreck’s deterioration and the state of the surrounding ecosystem.
This year’s missions began in May. Five crews have made the trip to Newfoundland during the current expedition season, which was scheduled to end later this month.
The crew members on Titan’s troubled dive weren’t immediately identified, but OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush typically pilots the sub. The BBC said British billionaire businessman/explorer Hamish Harding was reportedly onboard. Harding took a ride on Blue Origin’s suborbital spaceship last year.
In an Instagram update, Harding said he would take part in an attempt to dive to the Titanic — and he suggested that this year’s previous expedition crews weren’t able to get to the shipwreck.
“Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023,” he wrote.
It took several years for OceanGate to build the Titan, one of three submersibles that it operates. Titan has a pressurized hull made of carbon composite and titanium. The hull is equipped with sensors to detect structural stress amid the high pressures of the deep ocean. This year, OceanGate has been using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network for its internet connections.
During the expeditions of the past two years, OceanGate Expedition’s crews captured high-resolution imagery of the wreck of the Titanic, a luxury liner that sank to the ocean bottom in 1912 after striking an iceberg in the midst of its first voyage from Britain to New York.
Titan’s crews also documented the sea life along a previously unexplored undersea volcanic ridge now known as Nargeolet-Fanning Ridge.
Previously: How I steered OceanGate’s Cyclops sub to a discovery
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