By gcaptain.com.
A massive search continues in the remote North Atlantic Wednesday for the missing Titan submersible with five people on board as the clock ticks for any remaining chance of survival.
The 21-foot unregulated submersible operated by U.S.-based OceanGate Expeditions has been missing since Sunday after losing contact with its topside support vessel approximately an hour and 45 minutes into its dive to the infamous Titanic shipwreck, located approximately 900 nautical miles East of Cape Cod.
According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the submersible was launched at 8 a.m. that morning and was expected to resurface at 3 p.m., but the vessel never resurfaced. The expedition support vessel Polar Prince reported the overdue submersible Sunday evening at 5:40 p.m. EDT.
Titan comes with an advertised 96 hours of life support. While the U.S. Coast Guard has stressed is only a single datapoint of many that are taken into consideration in the operation, based on that timeline the Titan has until Thursday morning before it runs out of oxygen—assuming a catastrophic incident hasn’t already occurred.
A Unified Command consisting of the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, Canadian Coast Guard and OceanGate Expeditions is now coordinating the massive effort to find the missing submersible and return those on board home safely despite the odds.
During a Coast Guard media briefing Wednesday afternoon, USCG Capt. Jamie Frederick emphasized that the operation remains a search and rescue operation and said on-scene assets would be doubled within the next 24-48 hours, from five vessels to ten.
With that said, here are some of the vessels that are on scene or known to be participating in the search as of now:
Horizon Maritime operates the Polar Prince, a former Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker turned expedition support vessel for OceanGate’s expeditions to the Titanic. The vessel is the one that reported the submersible missing and its has remained on scene throughout the search and rescue operation.
