Oxygen supplies board Titan, the missing Titanic tourist submersible owned by OceanGate Expeditions, have run out, it has been reported. The vehicle, which was launched on Sunday morning, lost contact with its mothership less than two hours into the trip and has not been seen or heard from since. While Titan began its dive with 96 hours’ worth of oxygen on board, it’s believed that supply has now been exhausted and the likelihood of recovering any of the five men aboard Titan alive has greatly diminished.
British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French submersible pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman are on board the Titan and believed they were taking the trip of a lifetime to see the Titanic up close and personal. Sadly, it seems their dive has ended in disaster.
Earlier on Thursday, the French vessel Atlante arrived at the search area carrying an unmanned submersible called Victor 6000. The robotic vehicle is capable of diving to extreme depths and can use its two mechanical arms to perform complex tasks such as cutting cables or even freeing stuck vehicles.
Titanic sub has 4 hours 30 minutes of oxygen left.
Prayers for them all 🙏#OceanGate #Titan #titanicsubmarine #OceansGate #submarine #titanicsubmersible #Submersible #titanicsub #Titans #TitanicRescue #Titanic pic.twitter.com/qoXaVz2264— Gk Laghari (@GkLeghari) June 22, 2023
Visibility from the vehicle is somewhat limited, with the lights and cameras aboard Victor 6000 only able to see the distance of a small tennis court, per The Independent.
A separate ROV called Juliet is also due to be flown to the area later today. Juliet has already spent more than 200 hours surveying the Titanic wreckage and produced incredible 3D images of what it saw in the debris field at the time. As an Argus Worker XL, Juliet can dive up to 6,000 meters deep, which will allow it to thoroughly investigate the search area.
Further updates from the US Coast Guard and other search parties is expected to be revealed later today.
More to come…
