A tour submarine goes MIA from the Titanic expedition

By : Samane Jr Marks

Pictured sourced from CNN: The Ocean Gate submersible Titan amid descending

The Ocean Gate submersible tourist Titan carrying 1 operator and 4 Persons goes missing 600 kilometers (about 372.82 miles), southeast of St Johns, New Newfoundland, the rescue search near the Atlantic of Newfoundland begins.

It is believed the submarine lost communication on Sunday for the visit to the wreckage of the Titanic ship 12, 500 feet below sea level. A Canadian Coast and U.S Guard plane and vessels were deployed onsite to aid in the recovery of the missing Titan. The rescue search mission is taking place as a result of lost communication with the submarine. The water-based company, Ocean Gate, is using all its resources to establish communication with the missing tourist sub.

A former U.S Coast Guard Captain, Andrew Norris weighed his thoughts on the momentary situation with a sense of shock and distraught. “It is obviously a very distressing situation. I send my hopes and prayers to the people on board and their families.” He further added by giving a succinct appraisal of the services rendered by the Ocean Gate company and their specialty in this water-based activity.

“The Ocean Gate Company is a standout company amongst its business competitors giving deep ocean submersible tours. It operates with a submersible submarine called Titan, capable of carrying up to 5 people in total. 1 operator and four crew members as a full house. It has the ultimate strength of going deep down to the depths of 13,125 feet above sea level, which makes it the only one to come closer to the Titanic viewpoint on the seabed.”

Norris further touched base on the hurdles likely to be encountered in terms of fully recovering the Titan. “The biggest challenge I could think of is to put together a search operation team down the seabed. If that is what has to happen it is an infinitely more difficult proposition, that will involve finding assets that will manage to operate to those depths and transact arrival to the scene and coordinate the actual rescue itself within the 96-hour window indicated.”

However, there might be a sense of more assets required for deployment, flown to the scene to locate the missing Titan. Andrew further detailed that “Only if it doesn’t surface on its own, which is going to be a more difficult first step. But this kind of sub has a real-time monitoring system which is not for the health of the passengers but for the health of the sub, which provides early warning detection to the pilot, with enough time to arrest the descent and return to the surface, as he quoted from the Ocean Gate website.”

This a developing story reported first on CTV News.ca