June 22, 2023 - Missing Titanic sub crew killed after ‘catastrophic implosion’ | CNN (2024)

Our live coverage of the Titan submersible tragedy has moved here.

Film director James Cameron said Thursday he’s worried that the Titan submersible’s implosion will have a negative impact on citizen explorers.

Some background: Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, which operated the Titan submersible, and who died in the implosion, had spoken about his antipathy to regulations.

“At some point, safety just is pure waste,” Stocktontold journalist David Poguein an interview last year. “I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed. Don’t get in your car. Don’t do anything.”

James Cameron appears on CNN on Thursday, June 22.

James Cameron, director of the hit 1997 film “Titanic,” says news of the Titan submersible’s explosion “certainly wasn’t a surprise.”

Cameron, who has made 33 dives to the wreckage himself, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that when he first heard the news of the Titan incident Monday morning, he connected with his small community in the deep submergence group and found out within about a half-hour that the submersible had lost communication and tracking, simultaneously.

Cameron said he did more digging and got some additional information that seemed to confirm that the submersible had imploded.

He said false-hopes kept getting dangled as search teams looked for the missing passengers over the following days.

He expressed condolences for the families of the passengers.

An undated photo of the OceanGate Titan submersible.

The five passengers on the Titan submersible that was diving 13,000 feet to view the Titanic on the ocean floor died in a “catastrophic implosion,” authorities said Thursday, bookending an extraordinary five-day international search operation near the site of the world’s most famous shipwreck.

The tail cone and other debris were found by a remotely operated vehicle about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, deep in the North Atlantic and about 900 east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

“This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger, the First Coast Guard District commander, told reporters.

Here’s what we know:

The White House thanked the US Coast Guard and international partners for their search and rescue efforts for the submersible that went missing on its way to the Titanic wreckage.

Earlier Thursday, the Coast Guard thanked experts and agencies from all over the world for assisting in the effort, calling it a “huge international” and “interagency” search.

The White House spokesperson also expressed sympathy for the families of the five passengers onboard the submersible.

“Our hearts go out to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives on the Titan. They have been through a harrowing ordeal over the past few days, and we are keeping them in our thoughts and prayers,” the spokesperson said.

From left, Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood, Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Stockton Rush.

The Titan submersible bound for the Titanic that went missing on Sunday with five people on board suffered a “catastrophic implosion,” US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said Thursday.

Now those who knew the passengers are grappling with their tragic loss and some have sent messages of condolences as their legacies are remembered.

Engro Corporation Limited, where Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood was vice chairman, issued a statement on the deaths of Dawood and his son Suleman — who were among the five people on board the Titan submersible.

Dubai-based Action Aviation, the company owned by passenger Hamish Harding released a statement on behalf of his family.

“Today, we are united in grief with the other families who have also lost their loved ones on the Titan submersible,” the statement read. “Hamish Harding was a loving husband to his wife and a dedicated father to his two sons, whom he loved deeply. To his team in Action Aviation, he was a guide, an inspiration, a support, and a Living Legend.”

The statement went on to praise the efforts made to search for the Titan sub.

“We know that Hamish would have been immensely proud to see how nations, experts, industry colleagues and friends came together for the search, and we extend our heartfelt thanks for all their efforts.On behalf of the Harding family and Action Aviation, we would like to politely request privacy at this incredibly difficult time,” it said.

The family of French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet said he will “be remembered as one of the greatest deep-sea explorers in modern history.”

The statement signed by Nargeolet’s children and wife said that they hope people think about Paul-Henri and his work when they think about the Titanic, “but what we will remember him most for is his big heart, his incredible sense of humor and how much he loved his family. We will miss him today and every day for the rest of our lives.”

His stepson, John Paschall, described him as an “incredible stepfather” and someone who was caring and had a great sense of humor. He recalled how his mother and Nargeolot drove across the country to attend his college graduation in 2014 after their flight got canceled.

The US Navy detected an acoustic signature consistent with an implosion on Sunday in the general area where the Titan submersible was diving in the North Atlantic when it lost communication with its support ship, according to a senior Navy official.

The Navy immediately relayed that information to the on-scene commanders leading the search effort, the official said Thursday, adding that information was used to narrow down the area of the search.

But the sound of the implosion was determined to be “not definitive,” the official said, and the multinational efforts to find the submersible continued as a search and rescue effort.

The Wall Street Journal was the first to report about the acoustic signature picked up by the Navy.

Audio of the implosion was picked up by a network of sensors as part of an underwater Navy acoustic listening system, said the official, who declined to go into more detail about the secret system. The network of sensors allowed the Navy to zero-in on a possible location of the noise, providing search teams with a more refined area.

The Navy also helped analyze the audio signatures of banging and other acoustic data that were heard throughout the search efforts. Those were likely some form of natural life or sounds given off by other ships and vessels that were part of the search effort, the official said.

A single vessel, if properly equipped, and remotely controlled vehicles on the seafloor would likely be capable of recovering the wreckage of the Titan submersible, Capt. Mark Martin, a salvage master and deep submergence pilot, said Thursday.

The ship would need a crane with a wire that can reach a depth of 4,000 meters (about 2 and a half miles), which can be found on many vessels involved in offshore gas and oil construction, Martin said in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.

Recovery crews will also need one or two remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, which have already played a key role in the search for signs of Titan, the captain said. The ROVs are large, powerful machines that can be controlled from the vessel above them.

The ROVs will work in concert with the crane to scoop pieces of the sub into large “recovery baskets,” which Martin said look like half of a shipping container made of mesh.

ROVs will pick up pieces with their arms and move them into baskets, or help attach pieces to straps for the crane, which will lift pieces to the surface, he said.

The port bow railing of the Titanic is seen in an undated photo.

James Cameron, who directed the hit 1997 film “Titanic” and has made 33 dives to the wreckage, said he saw some similarities between the Titan tragedy and the sinking of the famous ship it was bound for.

He added, “And with a very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded to take place at the same exact site with all the diving that’s going on all around the world I think it’s just astonishing. It’s really quite surreal.”

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry sent condolences to the Dawood family after OceanGate announced they believe all the individuals on the Titan submersible have been lost.

Prominent Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman were among the five people in the submersible.

BritishForeignSecretaryJames Cleverly also expressed his condolences and said in a tweet that the United Kingdom is closely supporting the families of those who died.

CNN’s Sugam Pokharel and Jessie Gretener contributed reporting to this post.

OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Söhnlein talks with CNN on Thursday, June 22.

OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Söhnlein responded to news of the loss of the Titan crew, including CEO Stockton Rush calling it tragic, during an interview Thursday with CNN.

CNN has previously reported that two former employees, who were not engineers,raised safety concerns about the thickness of the Titan’s hull years ago when it was built.

Söhnlein defended Rush’s approach to designing and deploying Titan and said he was not a “risk taker,” he was a “risk manager.” Sohnlein said he had “complete faith” in Rush and would have gone on the Titanic expedition had he had the chance.

“We won’t know anything until the investigation is complete and all the data is collected, so I’ll reserve judgment on that,” Söhnlein said. “But I’ve known him for 15 years and none of this would change my mind.”

Söhnlein said he hasn’t had an operational role in the company for the last decade, but does have a minority ownership stake and has remained in touch with Rush.

The president of The Explorers Club said the group is heartbroken over the tragic loss of the individuals on the Titan vessel on Thursday.

“Our friends and fellow Explorers Club members Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargeolet are lost, along with Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, while trying to reach the RMS Titanic,” President Richard Garriott de Cayeux said in a statement.

He thanked the many groups involved in the search and rescue mission and the many others around the world “who have mobilized personnel and resources to support the search and rescue.”

He said both Harding and Nargeolet were “drawn to explore” to try to advance science and “for the betterment of mankind.”Garriott de Cayeux added that Rush, who was the CEO and chairman of OceanGate who operated the Titan, was a friend of the club and gave lectures at its headquarters.

“While we did not know Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman personally, their desire to explore as a family would have led them to our doorstep at some point in their futures, where we would have welcomed them,” he said.

Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder walks up to the podium at the start of a press briefing in the Pentagon Briefing Room on Thursday in Washington.

A Defense Department spokesperson said it is “very sad to hear” about the statement by OceanGate that it believes the individuals on the company’s submersible have been lost.

“I was not tracking that statement, so breaking news here in the briefing room and very sad to hear that,” said Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder after CNN’s Natasha Bertrand informed him of the statement at a press briefing.

Ryder said the Defense Department’s focus would be “on supporting the Coast Guard and their efforts as we go forward.”

The Titan submersible — now believed to have suffered a “catastrophic implosion” that killed five people on board — had originally embarked on a journey into the depths of the sea off Canada’s coast.

Titan’s ultimate destination was the Titanic’s wreckage, whichsits at the bottom of the ocean nearly 13,000 feet below the surface southeast of Newfoundland.

As authorities now seek to better understand what went wrong with the sub, they’re dealing with an “incredibly complex operating environment on the sea floor, over two miles beneath the surface,” a US Coast Guard official said Thursday.

Here’s a look at a map of the area:

US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger speaks during a press conference in Boston on Thursday.

US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said teams had the appropriate gear in the search effort for the Titan submersible.

He reiterated the capabilities of the Pelagic remotely operating vehicle used as of Thursday morning.

A spokesperson for Pelagic Research Services confirmed to CNN that its ROV, which was the first to conduct a search for the submersible on the sea floor, found the debris field.

“So we really had the right gear on-site and worked as swiftly as possible to bring all of the capabilities that we had to bear to this search and rescue effort,” Mauger said.

He called it a “huge international” and “interagency” effort.

Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French diver and one of the passengers on the Titan submersible, was an incredible person and highly respected in his field, said his friend Tom Dettweiler, a fellow ocean explorer.

Nargeolet had a distinguished career as a naval officer and worked in many French programs for undersea exploration, Dettweiler said.

The Titanic had become an important part of Nargeolet’s life, he said, adding: “I don’t think he wouldconsider it a necessarily badplace to be buried.”

In this image released on June 20 by the US Coast Guard, a search is conducted for OceanGate's Titan submersible.

Authorities will begin to demobilize the medical personnel and nine vessels involved in the Titanic submersible search over the course of the next 24 hours, US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said Thursday.

Remote operations will continue on the sea floor for an undetermined amount of time, he added.

Mauger said it is “too early” to discuss whether there will be an investigation, which he said would be a decision made outside of the search efforts he was in charge of.

There doesn’t appear to be a connection between the banging noises picked up by sonar earlier this week and where the debris from the Titan vessel was found on the sea floor, a US Coast Guard official said.

The official said that throughout the search effort his team “reacted to the information that we had available to us.” He reiterated that it was a “really complex environment” and that experts are continuously analyzing all aspects of the search.

The wreckage of the Titanic is located about 900 miles off Cape Cod.

Listening devices set up during the search for the Titan submersible did not record any sign of a catastrophic failure, which is believed to have killed the sub’s passengers, Rear Adm. John Mauger said at a news conference Thursday.

A reporter had asked Mauger whether there was any suggestion that a difference in the timing or speed of the rescue effort could have resulted in the occupants being saved.

“The debris field is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” Mauger said.

“We’re going tocontinue to document theinformation there, and understandbased on all the information wehave, the timeline,” Mauger added.

The size of the debris field discovered in the search efforts “isconsistent with that implosionin the water column,” according to an expert speaking at the news briefing on the Titan sub.

The location of the submersible was in an area thatwas approximately 1,600 feet fromthe wreck of the Titanic, which is an area that does not have any Titanic debris, the expert said, noting that it is a smooth bottom per his knowledge.

US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger also noted that it’s too early to tell the timing of the catastrophicimplosion.

“We know that as we’ve beenprosecuting this search over thecourse of the last 72 hours andbeyond, that we’ve had sonarbuoys in the water nearlycontinuously and have notdetected any catastrophic eventswhen those sonar buoys have beenin the water,” he said.

US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger speaks during a press conference in Boston on Thursday.

The debris is consistent with a “catastrophic implosion” of the vessel, Rear Adm. John Mauger,the First Coast Guard District commander announced.

Mauger made the remarks after he was asked about the prospects of recovering crew members of the Titan.

“This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” Mauger said.

“We’ll continue to work and search the area down there but I don’t have an answer for prospects at this time,” he added.

US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said officials will continue to search the area to recover the deceased passengers of the Titanic-bound submersible but doesn’t “have an answer for prospects at this time.”

“This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor,” the official told reporters Thursday when asked during a news briefing about recovering the victims.

“And the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel, and so we’ll continue to work and continue to search the area down there, but I don’t have an answer for prospects at this time,” he added.

Search crews discovered “five different major pieces of debris” identified from the Titan submersible, according to Paul Hankins, the US Navy’s director of salvage operations and ocean engineering.

The nose cone, located outside the pressure hull, was the first piece found, Hankins said at the US Coast Guard news conference Thursday. Then, they found “a large debris field,” which had an end bell of the pressure hull.

Crews found a second, smaller debris field within the first, where the other end of the pressure hull was located.

“We continue to map the debris field and, as the admiral said, we will do the best we can to fully map out what’s down there,” Hankins said.

It will take time to determine a specific timeline of events in the “incredibly complex” case of the Titan sub’s catastrophic failure, US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger told reporters.

Officials are sorting through an “incredibly complex operating environment on the sea floor, over 2 miles beneath the surface,” Mauger said at a news conference in Boston.

He said the remotely operating vehicles searching the floor are “highly capable” and will reveal more information.

Mauger said the Coast Guard will eventually have more information about what went wrong with the sub, and their assessment of the emergency response.

US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger speaks during a press conference in Boston on Thursday.

US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger thanked experts and agencies for assisting with the search for the Titan submersible.

The remotely operated vehicles will remain on sceneand continue to gatherinformation following the discovery of debris from the missing Titanic bound submersible, US Coast Guard’s Rear Adm. John Mauger said Thursday.

One of the ROVs found the debris, as CNN reported earlier.

The debris found on the sea floor was “consistent withthe catastrophic loss of thepressure chamber,” the Coast Guard said.

The remotely operated vehicle (ROV) found the tail cone of the Titan on the sea floor about 1,600 feet away from the bow of the Titanic and other debris nearby, according to Rear Adm. John Mauger,the First Coast Guard District commander.

The debris was analyzed by experts, he said, and the families of the passengers were notified.

From left, Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood, Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Stockton Rush

OceanGate said Thursday that it believes the passengers of the Titanic-bound submersible have “sadly been lost,” according to a statement from the company.

“We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost,” the company said in a statement.

The company added:

“This is an extremely sad time for our dedicated employees who are exhausted and grieving deeply over this loss. The entire OceanGate family is deeply grateful for the countless men and women from multiple organizations of the international community who expedited wide-ranging resources and have worked so very hard on this mission. We appreciate their commitment to finding these five explorers, and their days and nights of tireless work in support of our crew and their families.

This is a very sad time for the entire explorer community, and for each of the family members of those lost at sea. We respectfully ask that the privacy of these families be respected during this most painful time.”

The debris discovered within the search area of the missing Titanic submersible has been assessed to be from the external body of the sub, according to a memo reviewed by CNN.

The search for the crew capsule of the Titan vessel continues, the memo says.

The debris was located on the ocean floor, roughly 500 meters (about a third of a mile) off of the bow of the Titanic, and it was found around 8:55 a.m. ET.

It was discovered by a remotely operated vehicle that was searching the seafloor, according to the US Coast Guard.

The discovery came at an urgent time for the search and rescue effort. Experts say the sub and its five passengers would be reaching the limit of the sub’s roughly 96 hours of life support, having gone missing Sunday morning.

The vehicles used to search the sea floor for the missing Titan submersible are powerful machines that can be piloted through pitch-black darkness by an operator on the surface, Mike Welham, a marine operations specialist and author, told CNN.

One of the remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, involved in the search discovered a debris field, according to the US Coast Guard and the vehicle’s creator, Pelagic Research Services. It is not yet clear if the debris field is related to the missing submersible.

ROVs are very large and powerful, equipped with lights, cameras and technology that make them “purpose built to go to those depths,” Welham told CNN’s Dana Bash on Thursday.

The search vehicle is connected to a vessel that remains on the surface of the water as it drops down to the seabed. Once an ROV reaches deep sea, a pilot on the ship has to get oriented to its precise location.

“They will then begin a search pattern,” Welham explained.

Welham said now that the search team has honed in on a debris field, the ROV will gather more video and try to determine whether the field is new debris related to the sub or part of the Titanic wreck itself.

In this undated photo, a Pelagic Research Services remotely operated vehicle is prepared to assist in the search for the missing OceanGate submersible.

A spokesperson for Pelagic Research Services confirmed to CNN that its remotely operated vehicle, which was the first to conduct a search for the missing OceanGate sub on the sea floor, found the debris field.

The US Coast Guard announced earlier today that a debris field had been found in the search area.

Pelagic Research Services describes itself on its website as “an ocean services company that brings expedition planning, execution and state of the art sub-sea research tools to the ocean community on a global basis.”

The US Coast Guard will go through a verification process to determine whether a debris field found in the search area for the missing Titanic submersible is related to the sub, Maximilian Cremer, the director of the Ocean Technology Group at the University of Hawaii Marine Center, told CNN.

The Coast Guard announced Thursday that a debris field was found using a remotely operated vehicle, but it remains unclear if it is connected in any way to the missing submersible.

Cremer would “not be surprised to find a debris field near the wreck of the Titanic,” he said in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash.

“I would have to see what it actually is,” he continued, adding that he’s unsure if the search vehicle transmits video.

Bash asked Cremer whether he believes it means anything that the US Coast Guard — which is also clearly aware of the debris types typically found on the ocean floor — made a point to share the news about the field.

“I’m sure they’re now going through a verification process to see if it is actually associated with the stricken sub,” he added.

On the sub’s oxygen supply: Bash also asked about the submersible’s oxygen supplies. The sub is now believed to be reaching the limits of its typical 96 hours of life support, having gone missing Sunday morning.

Experts interviewed by CNN have said crew members would realize that remaining calm and conserving energy was critical if they were awaiting rescue.

If there was an issue with the sub, “whatever failure it was,” it’s fair to assume “you would have some excitement and some panic going on for a brief period of time,” Cremer said.

But, he continued, a “strong leader” on board would likely insist that everyone goes into “a sort of hibernation state, and uses as little oxygen as possible.”

A member of the Coast Guard walks by a Coast Guard Cutter in Boston on June 20.

A US Coast Guard briefing at 3 p.m. ET will focus on the findings from a remotely operated vehicle “on the sea floor near the Titanic,” according to news release from the Coast Guard.

Moments ago, the Coast Guard announced a debris field was discovered in the Titanic submersible search area, and authorities are “evaluating the information.”

Here’s who will be a part of the briefing later today:

The briefing will be held at the Coast Guard Base in Boston.

A Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules airplane flies over French research vessel L’Atalante about 900 miles east of Cape Cod during the search for the Titan submersible on June 21.

The US Coast Guard says a debris field was discovered by a remotely operated vehicle near the Titanic submersible search area, and authorities are “evaluating the information,” officials tweeted Thursday.

It is unclear if this debris field is connected to the missing submersible.

The US Coast Guard also has announced a press briefing at 3 p.m. ET.

While life support supplies are now believed to be running low, a co-founder of the company that operates the missing Titanic submersible says he believes the crew’s expertise will extend the “window available” for rescue.

Guillermo Söhnlein made the comments in a statement to CNN. He specified he was speaking on behalf of himself and not the company, OceanGate.

He said OceanGate CEO and co-founder Stockton Rush —who is aboard the sub — and the rest of the crew would have “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.”

Based on the crew members’ expertise, the “window available” for rescue is longer than “what most people think,” Söhnlein said.

Thursday will be a “critical day in this search and rescue mission,” he added.

Time is of the essence: The amount of oxygen on themissing submersible, which has five people on board,is becoming a vital issue, experts have told CNN.

The Titan sub, which begins each trip to explore the wreckage of the Titanic with an estimated 96 hours of life support, has been missing since Sunday morning, setting up Thursday morning as a key target for finding the vessel and those on board.

The 21-foot submersible, with its rudimentary controls and no room for passengers to stretch out, would also have “limited rations” of food and water, according to officials.

A fellow adventurer and retired Navy captain interviewed by CNN have also said the crew would know to conserve oxygen by resting and remaining as calm as possible.

CNN’s Nouran Salahieh contributed to this report.

A Canadian Navy ship carrying a medical team specializing in dive medicine and a hyperbaric recompression chamber that can hold as many as six people has arrived on scene in the Titanic submersible rescue effort, according to an official from the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre Halifax of the Canadian Armed Forces.

The medical team and the hyperbaric chamber traveled on the HMCS Glace Bay, which arrived on scene just after 9 a.m. local time Thursday morning, said Lt. Cmdr. Len Hickey, senior public affairs officer, said in a statement.

“JRCC Halifax continues to assist MRCC (MaritimeRescue Coordination Centre) Boston in support of submarine search efforts,” Hickey said. Additionally, three Canadian Coast Guard Ships — John Cabot, Ann Harvey and Terry Fox — are on scene and can provided equipment and personnel if needed, he added.

CNN’s Laura Ly contributed to this report.

Suleman Dawood, left, and Shahzada Dawood are seen in this undated handout photo.

Pakistani teenager Suleman Dawood who is among five people trapped in the missing Titan submersible is a student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.

The university confirmed to CNN on Thursday that Suleman is a Strathclyde Business School student and has just completed his first year.

A screengrab from a Canadian Armed Forces Operations video released June 21 shows search efforts for the OceanGate Titan submersible.

The search for the missing Titan submersible is now in a critical stage, as rescue teams race to locate the vessel before oxygen supplies run out.

The submersible begins each trip with 96 hours of life support and has been missing since Sunday, setting up Thursday morning as a key target for finding the vessel and those on board. Officials fear the craft’s oxygen supply could run out this morning.

Medical personnel and search vessels with extra capabilities headed to the scene on Thursday, with time running out.

If you’re just reading in now, here’s the latest news this morning:

A British navy submariner and equipment from a UK firm will help the search for the missing Titan submersible, a Downing Street spokesperson said Thursday.

“At the request of US Coastguard, the UK has embedded a Royal Navy submariner to assist the search and rescue effort for the missing submarine,”the spokesperson said, according to UK’s PA Media on Thursday.

Lt. Commander Richard Kantharia “has significant knowledge of submarine warfare and dived operations and so he will obviously be bringing that experience to the search and rescue team,” the spokesperson added. The officer was on exchange with the US Navy and has been seconded to the search and rescue team, according to PA.

A British C-17 aircraft will transport “specialist commercial equipment” provided by deep sea-mapping company Magellan to St. John’s to assist with the search-and-rescue effort, PA also reported.

A spokesperson for Britain’s Royal Air Force told CNN on Thursday: “Following a request overnight from the lead organisation, RAF air transport assets are assisting with the movement of additional commercial equipment. ”

Along with the C-17, an A400 aircraft is transporting specialist loaders and crew, the air force said. Both aircraft departed RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland for Canada earlier on Thursday.

The missing submarine is carrying five people — a British adventurer, a French diver, a Pakistani father and son and the founder of OceanGate Expeditions, the company that operated the tour to the Titanic wreckage.

A massive search operation is underway in an area twice the size of Connecticut for the submersible that went missing Sunday —as officials fear the craft’s oxygen supply could run out this morning.

From Catherine Nicholls in London

A friend of two passengers on board the missing submersible has said he still has hope the vessel will be found.

“I know that the adventurers on board are experienced, very experienced,” said Per Wimmer, an adventurer who was previously signed up for two canceled trips on the Titan.

Wimmer is an acquaintance of Hamish Harding and Stockton Rush, two of the five people on the missing vessel. He said Harding, a British businessman and trained jet pilot, and Rush, the CEO and founder of the company leading the voyage, areboth very experienced adventurers who would know to conserve oxygen.

Wimmer said that the presence of OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush on board the vessel is helpful, as he knows “the ins and outs of how this submersible works.”

Officials fear the sub’s oxygen supply would run out on Thursday, meaning the search is in a critical phase.

New, high-tech vessels and medical personnel are moving to the search site as rescue efforts reach a pivotal moment, a Coast Guard official has said.

Rear Adm. John Mauger told NBC on Thursday that the search and rescue mission will continue with “new capability” arriving.

That includes a Magellan ROV, a uniquely equipped vessel whose use was pushed for by the Explorers Club group early on in the search. It has been questioned whether the Magellan should have been sent to the site much earlier in the search operation.

Mauger said they have been “overwhelmed by all the support that’s been provided by the international community” adding “we made some decisions to prioritize based on gear that was closest to the site and could get there.”

Mauger also said that medical personnel who have “deep sea medical expertise” are moving to the site, and a hyperbaric chamber is also en route.

A remote operated vehicle “has reached the sea floor” and has begun searching for the missing Titanic submersible early Thursday morning, according to the US Coast Guard.

“The Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic has deployed an ROV that has reached the sea floor and began its search for the missing sub,” the US Coast Guard tweeted.

It added that “The French vessel L’Atalante is preparing their ROV to enter the water.”

An undated photo of the OceanGate Titan submersible.

The Titan submersible that went missing en route to the Titanic wreck was designed to return to the surface after 24 hours, according to Aaron Newman, an investor in OceanGate who visited the site on the vessel in 2021.

Titan is held underwater by ballast — heavy weights that helps with a vessel’s stability — built to be automatically released after 24 hours to send the sub to the surface, Newman said.

Crew members are told they can release the ballast by rocking the ship or use a pneumatic pump to knock the weights free, Newman said. If all else fails, he said, the lines securing the ballast are designed to fall apart after 24 hours to automatically send it back to the ocean’s surface.

Titan’s thrusters are powered by an external electrical system, while an internal system powers communications and a heater, Newman said.

Separately, Discovery Channel host Josh Gates, who went on a test dive on the Titan in 2021,said he learned that year that there were four ways for the vessel to shed weight and bring it back up to the surface in the case of an emergency.

There is a computer-controlled weight release, a manual-valve system that injects air into exterior ballast containers, a hydraulic system to drop weights and an ability to detach from the sled attached to the submersible and help move the vessel back to the surface.

Read more here.

David Gallo speaks with CNN on Thursday morning.

Teams searching for the missing submersible “need a miracle” to find it before oxygen supplies run out, a leading deep-sea explorer told CNN.

“The good news there is that miracles can happen,” addedDavid Gallo, the senior adviser for Strategic Initiatives at RMS Titanic Inc.

Gallo is a colleague of French diver Paul-HenriNargeolet, one of the passengers on the sub. He said that Nargeolet, an experienced explorer, would ensure that the banging noises picked up by search teams “cannot be interpreted as anything but human,” if indeed the noises did come from inside the vessel.

Thursday morning was identified as a critical period for the search operation, with oxygen supplies on board the sub understood to be rapidly dwindling.

The chances of future research being carried out at the Titanic wreck have diminished after the Titan sub went missing on its journey to the site, an expert has said.

David Scott-Beddard, the CEO of Titanic exhibition company White Star Memories Ltd, told CNN that the tragedy has “without a doubt” impacted opportunities to visit and study the wreckage.

“The chances of any future research being carried out on the wreck of Titanic is extremely slim. Probably not in my lifetime,” Scott-Beddard told CNN’s “Early Start.”

Concerns have been raised about the low-tech and controversial features of the OceanGate vessel. A formerOceanGatesubcontractorwhoworked on thedevelopmentof the submersible Titan has said some of the construction materials and design choices were considered “controversial”at the time it was being madein 2018.

Enduring appeal: Several research trips were made to the Titanic site after it was discovered in 1985, and many of its artifacts have been controversially recovered and displayed around the world since. But commercial trips like those offered by OceanGate are a far more recent phenomenon.

“Titanic is one of those unreachable, unattainable things for most of us, unless you’ve been working in research and have been lucky enough to dive to the wreck in the past,” Scott-Beddard said, explaining the enduring appeal of the ship. “She sits majestically on the sea bed; (it’s) incredibly rare for a ship that sunk to be sitting upright.”

A bioluminescent jellyfish is shown in an image taken during exploration of the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument area in the Pacific Ocean near Guam and Saipan, on April 24, 2016. The expedition dives ranged from 820 feet to 3.7 miles (250 meters to 6,000 meters) deep.

The submersible vehicle currentlylost at seais part of a relatively new effort enabling tourists and other paying customers to explore the depths of the ocean, the vast majority of which has never been seen by human eyes.

Though people have been exploring the ocean’s surface for tens of thousands of years, only about 20% of the seafloor has been mapped, according to 2022 figures fromthe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Researchers often say that traveling to space is easier than plunging to the bottom of the ocean. While 12 astronauts have spent a collective total of 300 hours on the lunar surface, only three people have spent around three hours exploring Challenger Deep, the deepest known point of Earth’s seabed, according to theWoods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

There’s a reason deep-sea exploration by humans has been so limited:Traveling to the ocean’s depths means entering a realm with enormous levels of pressure the farther you descend — a high-risk endeavor. The environment is dark with almost no visibility. The cold temperatures are extreme.

Many of the factors that could make the vessel so difficult to locate and recover are also the reasons a comprehensive exploration of the ocean floor remains elusive.

“Aquatic search is pretty tricky, as the ocean floor is a lot more rugged than on land,” said Dr. Jamie Pringle, a reader in forensic geoscience at England’s Keele University,in a statement.

Readthe full story here.

A formerOceanGatesubcontractorwhoworked on thedevelopmentof the Titan submersible said whilethe game controllertooperatethe vessel may seemlow-tech, it was actually by design.

OceanGatetried to use as many “off-the-shelf” items as possible to cut down on research anddevelopment as well as costs, Doug Virnig told CNN Wednesday.

“Soif you can take these components off the shelf and incorporate them into aproject like this,where youdon’thave the research and development timelines and expense,that I believe is a wise choice.”

OceanGate’s goal was to research the ocean and not adventure tourism — which was simply a way to fund the research, Virnig said.

He added thatOceanGatehad“gone cutting edge where they needed to,”but they “also incorporated a good bit of conventional wisdom.”

When asked if he thinks if there is a possibility Titan is never found,Virnig said it will eventually be found.

An image from a Canadian Armed Forces Operations video released on June 21 shows search efforts for the OceanGate Titan submersible.

The amount of oxygen on themissing submersible with five people on boardis becoming a vital issue, some experts say, as more advanced equipment is rushed to the North Atlantic Ocean in a complex international search operation now at its most critical juncture.

The Titan submersible begins each trip to explore the wreckage of the Titanic with an estimated 96 hours of life support and has been missing since Sunday morning, setting up Thursday morning as a key target for finding the vessel and those on board.

Banging noisesdetected on Tuesday and Wednesday from underneath the water in themassive search areahave provided hope for survivors — but it’s like finding a needle in a haystack and time is of the essence, experts say.

Inside the 21-foot submersible, with rudimentary controls and no room for its passengers to stretch out, the crew would have had “limited rations” of food and water, officials have said.

As aircraft perform searches from above and remotely operated vehicles probe underwater, the number of assets in the search operation is expected to double in the next day or two, Frederick said Wednesday.

The search area for the missing submersible stretches about two times the size of Connecticut on the surface and goes down as deep as 2-and-a-half miles, according to Frederick.

Read more here.

A formerOceanGatesubcontractorwhoworked on thedevelopmentof the submersible Titan says some of the construction materials and design choices were considered “controversial”at the time it was being madein 2018.

Doug Virnig,who has a background in engineering and operations, worked on the project for abouta yearin an operations role, he told CNN in an interview Wednesday.

He expressed admiration forOceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who he interacted with at work while fabricating parts for the vessel together.

Pressure tests: The company wasworking on making a submersible that could fit five people but still be lightweight, andusedexperimental methods with certain technology,Virnig said.

One examplehe cited wasthe pressure hull on the Titan, whichwasmadeprimarily outofcarbon fiber,which contains light, high tensile material, he said.

“If you have them in a conventional application like an airplane fuselage where they’re under tension, that is a conventional and known application for that material, but under compression, the forces are exactly opposite,” Virnig said.

“So that’s a fairly experimental or unconventional application for that material.”

Virnig saidTitan’s pressure hull had passed tests at the non-profit Woods Hole Institute, which subjected it to the pressurefound at the depth of the Titanic wreck — but the question was how it would perform overtime.

CNN has reached out tothe Woods Hole Institute and OceanGate for comment.

No conning tower: Another controversial choice was not using a conning tower,which is used to get in and out of the pressure hull from the top of the vessel and isfrequentlyused on submarines,Virnig said. But due to the decision toutilizethe carbon fiber pressurehullitpreventedOceanGatefrom includingthe tower, he said.

Equipment is loaded onto the Horizon Arctic as it prepares to aid in search and rescue efforts in the port of St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, on Tuesday.

Marine authorities are racing against the clock to get resources in place to find and retrieve the Titan submersible, which lost contact with its mother ship during a dive to the wreck of the Titanic deep below the North Atlantic on Sunday.

Life support on the missing sub is expected to dwindle soon for the five people onboard, about 96 hours after its deployment.

Here are five key vessels involved in the search effort, either on the scene or on the way, according to the US and Canadian coast guards:

Canadian Coast Guard Ship (CCGS) Terry Fox is seen preparing to depart the port of St. John's in Newfoundland, Canada, on Tuesday.

A massive operation is underway to search for the missing submersible, including an international fleet of ships with highly specialized equipment and technical experts.

Some of those assets have not yet reached the search site, and with time almost running out for oxygen levels onboard the vessel, there are some concerns over how long it is taking to gettheequipment in place.

Ocean explorer Tom Dettweiler told CNN it is a “tremendous effort” to move all the heavy equipment needed and “it has been done as fast as it could be.”

Dettweiler said lifting the vessel would be “a massive effort,” which would have to be “done quite quickly.”

“It’s just we are dealing with a longdistance and difficultconditions.If you think about it, it isvery much like the originalsinking of the Titanic wherethe rescuers just couldn’tget to it in time,” he said.

According to tour operator OceanGate’s website, it takes the Titan about two hours to come back to the surface from the wreck of the Titanic.

Dettweiler said if the submersible is found at depth, it would take some time to bring it to the surface.

This undated photo provided by OceanGate Expeditions in June 2021 shows the company's Titan submersible.

Industry leaders had raised a number of safety concerns about the Titan submersible before its disappearance.

Titan’s operator, OceanGate Expeditions, has also faced a series of mechanical problems and inclement weather conditions that forced the cancellation or delays of trips in recent years, according to court records.

Here’s what we know about those safety fears:

OceanGate CEO and Titan pilot Stockton Rush is seen in 2013, in Seattle.

Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate andone of five people on the submersible missingin the North Atlantic, has cultivated a reputation as a kind of modern-day Jacques Cousteau — a nature lover, adventurer and visionary.

Rush, 61, has approached his dream of deep-sea exploration with child-like verve and an antipathy toward regulations — a pattern that has come into sharp relief since Sunday night, when his vessel, the Titan, went missing.

In another interview, Stockton boasted that he’d “broken some rules” in his career.

“I think it was General MacArthur who said you’re remembered for the rules you break,” Rush said in a video interviewwith YouTuber Alan Estrada last year. “And I’ve broken some rules to make this. I think I’ve broken them with logic and good engineering behind me.”

Ocean exploration: Rush said he believes deeply that the sea, rather than the sky, offers humanity the best shot at survival when the Earth’s surface becomes uninhabitable.

In his eagerness to explore, Rush has often appeared skeptical, if not dismissive, of regulations that might slow innovation.

The commercial sub industry is “obscenely safe” he told Smithsonian Magazinein 2019, “because they have all these regulations. But it also hasn’t innovated or grown — because they have all these regulations.”

Read more about Stockton Rush here.

The search for the missing Titan submersible is now in a critical stage, as rescue teams race overnight to locate the vessel before oxygen supplies run out.

The submersible begins each trip with 96 hours of life support and has been missing since Sunday, setting up Thursday morning as a key target for finding the vessel and those on board.

On Wednesday, the US Coast Guard widened the search area and rerouted some of its equipment to try to pinpoint banging sounds heard during the aerial search in the remote North Atlantic area. Though it didn’t yield any results, the sonar devices from the Canadian P-3 aircraft are being analyzed by the US Navy, officials said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a fleet of ships and specialized equipment has been deployed, including a US Navy deep ocean salvage systemand Canadian Coast Guard ship John Cabot, which has “side scanning sonar capabilities.”

Here’s the latest:

The United States Coast Guard provideda new graphicWednesday night showing the updated search pattern for the Titan submersible.

Search patterns used in the search for the Titan submersible after it went missing 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

The USCG also said the following assets are on their way to the site to assist in the search:

Authorities said the Titan submersible was carrying five people when its mothership lost contact with it on Sunday, about 1 hour and 45 minutes into its descent to explore the Titanic wreckage.

Here’s what we know about the people on board:

Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French diver with decades of experience exploring the Titanic, is on the vessel, according to his family.

Nargeolet serves as the director of underwater research at RMS Titanic Inc., the company that has exclusive rights to salvage artifacts from the ship.According to his biography on the company’s website, Nargeolet completed 35 dives to the wreck and supervised the recovery of 5,000 artifacts. He spent 22 years in the French Navy, where he rose to the rank of commander, the website says.

British billionaire explorerHamish Hardingis on the submersible, his company Action Aviation said in a social media statement.

Harding made headlines in 2019 for being part of a flight crew that broke the world record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe via both poles.In 2020, he became one of the first people to dive to Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean, widely believed to be the deepest point in the world’s oceans. Last year, he paid an undisclosed sum of money for one of the seats on Blue Origin’s space flight.

The family ofShahzada Dawoodand his son,Suleman Dawood, said the two are on board.A family statement said the duo had taken the “journey to visit the remnants of the Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean.”

The Dawoods are a prominent Pakistani business family. Dawood Hercules Corporation, their business, is among the largest corporations in the country, with a portfolio spanning energy, petrochemicals, fertilizers, IT, food and agriculture.

OceanGate CEO and founderStocktonRushis among the five onboard, according to a source with knowledge of the mission plan.

The company did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment about Rush being aboard. According to the company’s social media posts, he has previously piloted “Titan,” the missing vessel.

The missing submersible’s trip to the wreckage of the Titanic was the final expedition of five such tours scheduled for this year, an archived version of the operator’s website said.

OceanGate Expeditions said each eight-day trip is a “unique travel experience” that also helps the scientific community as “every dive also has a scientific objective,” according to an archived version of the itinerary seen by CNN, which is no longer accessible on their website.

Here’s an overview of the itinerary:

Five more expeditions were planned for 2024, according to the archived version of the itinerary.

A submersible, such as the missing Titan vessel, is a type of watercraft — but it has some key differences from the better-known submarine.

Unlike submarines, a submersible needs a mother ship to launch it. The Titan’s support ship was the Polar Prince, a former Canadian Coast Guard icebreaking ship, according to the ship’s co-owner Horizon Maritime.

A submarine can also stay underwater much longer, while submersibles have much fewer power reserves, according to OceanGate, the company operating the Titan expedition, in a webpage seen by CNN that is no longer available.

The Titan has 96 hours of life support capacity, and its dives down to the Titanic wreckage usually last 10 to 11 hours, according to the site — compared to submarines that can stay underwater for months.