Search continues for missing submarine with 5 crew members – DW – 06/20/2023

Five passengers were aboard a small submarine that went missing in the North Atlantic while examining the remains of the legendary Titanic, prompting an international search and rescue operation, US and Canadian officials confirmed this Monday (06.19.2023).

The boat was reported lost Sunday about 435 miles off Johns, Newfoundland, according to Canada’s Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The submarine, operated by OceanGate Expeditions, began its descent Sunday morning and lost contact with the surface less than two hours later, the US Coast Guard said on Twitter.

The U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement Monday that “a Canadian research vessel, Polar Prince, is searching for five people after it lost contact with its submarine during a dive about 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) east of the Cape line.”

The Canadian Coast Guard is also participating in the search effort by sending a fixed-wing aircraft and a ship to the search area, he said.

96 hours of autonomy

The OceanGate Expedition uses a submersible named Titan to reach its maximum depth of 4,000 meters (13,100 feet). It has a limit of 96 hours for a group of five.

In a statement cited by CBS News and other media outlets, OceanGate Expeditions said: “Our full focus is on the crew members and their families who may have drowned.”

British billionaire and aviator Hamish Harding posted on his Instagram account on Sunday that he is “finally proud to announce” that he has joined the Oceangate Expedition for the RMS Titanic mission as a mission specialist aboard the Titanic-bound submarine.

It is not known who else was on board. Harding wrote, “The submarine crew includes a pair of legendary explorers, some of whom have made more than 30 dives on RMS Titanic since the 1980s.”

On April 10, 1912, Titanic left the port of Southampton, England, on her maiden voyage to New York, but struck an iceberg and sank five days later. Of the 2,224 passengers and crew on board, nearly 1,500 died.

The remains of the ocean liner were discovered in 1985 at a depth of 4,000 meters in international waters of the Atlantic Ocean, 650 kilometers off the Canadian coast. Since then, treasure hunters and tourists have visited the area.

jc (afp, ap)