What’s the Titanic sub, which charges Rs 2.02 cr for expedition, that has vanished?

The Titanic, they say, was doomed from the start. It met a tragic end. And now in an eerie coincidence, a submarine exploring the wreckage of the world’s most infamous ship has gone missing.

A massive search and rescue operation is underway in the North Atlantic to find the submersible with five people on board. Called Titan, the watercraft lost contact one hour and 45 minutes into its dive on Sunday, according to the United States Coast Guard.

However, all hope is not lost. The sub is likely to have at least 70 hours of emergency oxygen left.

Here’s what we know about the missing vessel and what is likely to have happened.

What is the Titanic submersible, Titan?

Titan is a research and survey submersible that can accommodate five people. These include a pilot, and crew, which could be archaeologists or marine biologists. However, it also carries tourists who can afford a seat – it costs $250,000 (Rs 2.02 crore) for an eight-day trip to the Titanic wreck.

Titan is a Cyclops-class manned submersible, which takes people to the depths of 13,123 feet for site survey and inspection, research and data collection, film and media production, and deep sea testing of hardware and software, according to OceanGate Expeditions, a private company that deploys vessels for deep-sea explorations.

Made of carbon fibre and titanium, the craft is 22 feet in length and weighs about 10,432 kilos and has a speed of 3 knots. It uses four electric thrusters to move around and has a battery of cameras, lights and scanners to explore its environment, according to a report in The Guardian.

Titan is equipped with an integrated platform which the submarine launches from and returns to before and after each dive. According to OceanGate, it is the “largest of any deep-diving submersible” with a technology that provides an “unrivalled view” of the deep ocean.

The vessel has a 96-hour bottled oxygen supply and it can last until Thursday morning.

OceanGate calls the trip to see the Titanic wreckage a “chance to step outside of everyday life and discover something truly extraordinary”. According to its website, apart from the ongoing expedition, it has two more have been planned for June 2024.

Who is on board the vessel?

British billionaire and explorer Hamish Harding had joined the latest expedition to the Titanic.
He wrote in a post on social media that the trip was likely to be the “first and only manned mission to the Titanic” this year due to the harsh weather conditions”.

“The team on the sub has a couple of legendary explorers, some of which have done over 30 dives to the RMS Titanic since the 1980s including PH Nargeolet,” he said. Nargeolet is a French explorer and a pre-eminent expert on the Titanic, who led several expeditions to the ship’s wreckage.

Stockton Rush, the CEO and founder of OceanGate Expeditions, which operated the trip, is also feared to be on board, reports Sky News.

According to a CNN report, a Pakistani father and son were also on the vessel. A statement released by the family Tuesday named Shahzada Dawood and his son, Sulaiman Dawood, as being on the “journey to visit the remnants of the Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean”. Shahzada Dawood is a trustee of the SETI Institute in California and the vice chairman of Dawood Hercules Corporation, part of the Dawood Group.

Where and how did Titan go missing?

The Titan was on the tour of the Titanic wreck, which lies 700 km south of St John’s, Newfoundland in Canada. The research vessel Polar Prince, which is used to transport Titan to the wreckage site, lost contact with the crew of the sub an hour and 45 minutes into its dive on Sunday. The missing craft was last thought to be approximately 1,450 km off the coast of Cape Cod, a peninsula of the US state of Massachusetts.

It is early to predict what could have gone amiss with Titan. Several possibilities have been offered by experts like a power failure or issue with the vessel’s communication system. Some say the sub could have gotten tangled in the wreckage of the Titanic, according to a report in The Guardian.

The ocean floor where the Titanic lies is surrounded by debris from the sinking of the ship more than a century ago. “There are parts of it all over the place. It’s dangerous,” Frank Owen OAM, a retired Royal Australian Navy official and submarine escape and rescue project director told the publication.

But if Titan got stuck or suffered a power outage, it is equipped with drop weights, which can be released in case of an emergency. This will help it create enough buoyancy to take it to the surface, the report says.

What do we know of the rescue ops?

The Boston Coast Guard is leading the rescue operations. The US Coast Guard has sent two C-130 Hercules aircraft to search for the submersible on the surface of the water. It has been joined by a Canadian C-13 and a P8 aircraft equipped with underwater sonar capability, according to a report by the BBC.

The US Coast Guard’s Rear Admiral John Mauger said on Monday that it is a challenge to conduct a search in such a remote area. The rescue teams were “taking this personally” and were doing everything they could to bring those on board “home safe”.

OceanGate Expeditions says it is taking “every step possible” to return the five crew members onboard the missing submersible.

“For some time, we have been unable to establish communications with one of our submersible exploration vehicles which is currently visiting the wreck site of the Titanic… We are deeply grateful for the urgent and extensive assistance we are receiving from multiple government agencies and deep-sea companies as we seek to reestablish contact with the submersible,” it said in a statement.

With inputs from agencies

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