Debris field found within search area for missing Titanic sub carrying 5

A debris field has been discovered within the search area for the missing submersible by a remotely operated vehicle near the Titanic in the North Atlantic as the around-the-clock search desperately continues for the five aboard as the vessel’s oxygen supply runs critically low, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard said in an update on Twitter on Thursday morning that “experts within the unified command are evaluating the information.” A news conference was scheduled for 3 p.m. Eastern. The Coast Guard’s public affairs office declined to comment further on the debris.

The tourist expedition, which was en route to view the wreck of the Titanic, went missing Sunday, and experts have said it was designed with a 96-hour supply of oxygen in case of emergencies.

The mission, now an international effort, has been focusing on an area where noises first detected Tuesday were heard again Wednesday by a Canadian aircraft that dropped sonobuoys into the water. Officials have said it’s unclear where the noises — which were described to The Times as a “rhythmic tapping,” like tapping on a hull — are originating and said analysts are reviewing data.

As the window to safely rescue the passengers closes, the search has expanded in size and capacity. On Thursday, the French Research Vessel L’Atalante deployed an underwater robot that can reach the depths of the ocean floor where the Titanic wreck lies. The Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic also launched a remote-operated vehicle to explore to the seafloor.

The tourist submersible Titan is shown on a previous mission. Search-and-rescue operations continue after the sub bound for the Titanic wreck site went missing in the North Atlantic.

(OceanGate)

The search has spanned about 10,000 square miles, an area double the size of Massachusetts, and more than two miles below the surface.

Guillermo Sohnlein, the co-founder of OceanGate Expeditions, which owns and operates the 21-foot submersible, addressed the gravity of the situation in a statement on Facebook on Thursday but said there’s still time for a safe rescue.

“Today will be a critical day in this search and rescue mission, as the sub’s life support supplies are starting to run low,” said Sohnlein, who left the company in 2013. “I’m certain that [co-founder and Chief Executive] Stockton [Rush] and the rest of the crew realized days ago that the best thing they can do to ensure their rescue is to extend the limits of those supplies by relaxing as much as possible. I firmly believe that the time window available for their rescue is longer than what most people think.”

Officials leading the search have maintained optimism in the face of an incredibly complex operation unfolding in a remote area about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Mass. In an interview on NBC’s “Today” show Thursday morning, Rear Adm. John Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard reiterated the effort remains a search-and-rescue mission.

“People’s will to live really needs to be accounted for as well, and so [we] are continuing to search and proceed with rescue efforts,” he said.

Alfred Hagen ventured down in the Titan with one of the passengers who is currently missing. Here’s how he described the trip.

Additional assets are traveling to the scene, including an underwater robot from deep-sea firm Magellan. In a statement on its website, the company, which said it was contacted for assistance by OceanGate early Monday, said it remains “100% focused on supporting the rescue mission to recover the submersible, using our knowledge of the specific site and our expertise operating at a depth considerably in advance of what is required for this incident.”

Several other Canadian vessels also are headed to the site, including coast guard ships and one with a mobile decompression chamber and medical personnel with deep-sea expertise.

While it is unclear whether the debris is connected to the sub, many experts have said they suspect the vessel experienced a “catastrophic event” on the way down to the Titanic. Communication was lost about an hour and 45 minutes into the dive, when the sub was likely around 8,000 feet down, said Jules Jaffe, an oceanographer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

“The question is what was that catastrophic event and how did it impair their ability to control where they were [and] where they were going,” Jaffe said.

The Polar Prince, the research vessel that launched the Titan submersible, and Deep Energy, a Bahamian research vessel, have also been on scene. Canadian and American aircraft are surveying the surface and using sonobuoys for underwater searches.

The sub was reported missing after it lost contact with the Polar Prince, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

The five people confirmed to be aboard are Rush, who was serving as the expedition’s pilot; Hamish Harding, chairman of Action Aviation, a Dubai-based aircraft dealer; Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a veteran and accomplished diver with more than 30 trips to the wreck site; and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and son Suleman. Harding and Nargeolet are members of the Explorers Club, according to the professional society.