OAN’s Sophia Flores
4:24 PM – Tuesday, June 20, 2023
The clock is ticking to find the missing submersible carrying five people who paid to travel to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean to view the underwater wreckage of the famous shipwreck, the Titanic. The submersible, known as the Titan, only has hours of oxygen left for its passengers.
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As of Tuesday night, there was approximately 37 hours of oxygen remaining in the vessel. Search and rescue efforts are in full effect. The United States Coast Guard has already covered 10,000 square miles, which is about the size of Massachusetts. Due to the Titan being the only commercial vessel capable of going that deep underwater, the search has been difficult.
The U.S. Navy is sending search site experts and equipment “designed to provide reliable deep ocean lifting capacity for the recovery of large, bulky, and heavy undersea object,” to further the search. The Navy is now getting involved in finding the missing passengers due to its “deep-water capabilities that the Coast Guard wouldn’t necessarily have.”
The deep-sea vessel lost contact with OceanGate Expeditions an hour and 45 minutes into its dive on Sunday morning.
It is not yet known just what happened to the Titan. Some believe that it is stuck underneath the Titanic, while others believe that the submersible imploded. There is also a chance that the vessel is bobbing at the top of the ocean. With that being best-case scenario for those searching for the Titan, it is still worrisome as those still inside would not be able to get out on their own due to the exit being sealed shut.
Passengers would need to wait for search crews to let them out.
The five people aboard the Titan are Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, Hamish Harding, a British billionaire who has reportedly been on many travel adventures, including a flight to space, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French Titanic expert and diver, Shahzada Dawood, a Pakistani business mogul, and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood.
Each guest paid $250,000 to reserve their spot on the eight-day expedition. Before they took off, passengers signed waivers that described the submersible as an “experimental” vessel “that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death.”
The Titanic, a shipwreck which killed over 1,500 people on April 15th, 1912, is located 3,800m beneath the surface at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
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