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What we know about the tourist sub that disappeared on an expedition to the Titanic

By Emily Mae Czachor

Updated on: June 23, 2023 / 11:35 PM EDT / CBS News

Five people on board the tourist  submarine that disappeared  on an expedition to explore the  Titanic shipwreck  over the weekend did not survive a "catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber," officials said Thursday.

The announcement came after the U.S. Coast Guard said the  massive search  underway in the North Atlantic had located a debris field on the sea floor, which was confirmed to be pieces of the missing sub .

"The debris field is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel," Rear Adm. John Mauger of the Coast Guard said at a briefing, offering "deepest condolences to the families." A spokesperson for OceanGate Expeditions, the company behind the voyage, told reporters that the passengers, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, "have sadly been lost."

Here's what we know so far about the submersible craft and what led up to this point.

What happened?

A five-person crew on a submersible named Titan, owned by OceanGate Expeditions, submerged on a dive to the Titanic wreckage site Sunday morning, and the crew of the Polar Prince research ship lost contact with the sub about an hour and 45 minutes later, the Coast Guard   said . 

The Coast Guard first alerted mariners about the missing sub Sunday night, saying a "21 foot submarine" with a white hull was overdue and giving its last known position. "VESSELS IN VICINITY REQUESTED TO KEEP A SHARP LOOKOUT, ASSIST IF POSSIBLE," the alert message read.

The sub was lost in an area about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, in the North Atlantic, in water with a depth of about 13,000 feet, which is about level with the depth of the Titanic wreck . Amid growing concern about its  dwindling supply of breathable air , search and rescue efforts by a unified command composed of several international agencies ramped up accordingly.

The five people aboard included an operator — later identified as Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions — and four mission specialists, a term the company uses for its passengers, who paid up to $250,000 for a seat.

For days, the fate of the sub and its passengers was a mystery.

But after the debris was found, a U.S. Navy official said the Navy had detected "an acoustic anomaly consistent with an implosion" shortly after the sub lost contact with the surface Sunday, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reported. The information was relayed to the Coast Guard, which used it to narrow the radius of the search area, the official said.

Such an implosion, under the intense pressure of the depths of the sea , would have destroyed the vessel almost instantly, experts explained.

"in a fraction of a second, it's gone," Will Kohnen, chairman of the professional group the Marine Technology Society Submarine Committee, told the Reuters news agency. 

"It implodes inwards in a matter of a thousandth of a second," Kohnen said. "And it's probably a mercy, because that was probably a kinder end than the unbelievably difficult situation of being four days in a cold, dark and confined space. So, this would have happened very quickly. I don't think anybody even had the time to realize what happened." 

The Coast Guard is leading the investigation into the incident, and the National Transportation Safety Board  said Friday  it will assist.   

Who were the passengers aboard the sub? 

CBS News confirmed that the five people aboard the submersible were  Hamish Harding , a 59-year-old British billionaire, business owner and explorer; British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman; French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who had made multiple dives over the years to explore the Titanic; and Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, who was serving as pilot.

Just ahead of the Coast Guard briefing Thursday afternoon, a statement issued by OceanGate spokesperson Andrew Von Kerens offered condolences to the families of the Titan crew and recognized that all five people on board the submersible were believed to be dead.

"These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world's oceans," the company said in the statement. "Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew."

When the Coast Guard confirmed the sub's likely implosion on Thursday, Mauger said they were communicating with consulates general in both the U.K. and France.

The Dawood family, of the large Pakistan-based global business conglomerate Dawood Group, issued a statement Tuesday confirming their family members were on the expedition.

"Please continue to keep the departed souls and our family in your prayers during this difficult time of mourning," the Hussain and Kulsum Dawood family said Thursday in a statement through the Dawood Foundation. "We are truly grateful to all those involved in the rescue operations. ... The immense love and support we receive continues to help us endure this unimaginable loss."

Nargeolet, a renowned French explorer and former diver for the French Navy who was part of the first expedition to visit the Titanic wreck in 1987, was returning for another dive aboard the Titan submersible. 

In a  Facebook  post on Monday, Rory Golden, an explorer who became the first Irish diver to visit the Titanic wreckage in 2000, said he was part of the voyage but was not on the submersible that went missing.

Search and rescue efforts

Authorities  said  early Thursday morning that a Canadian vessel, Horizon Arctic, had deployed a  remotely operated underwater vehicle that reached the sea floor . The ROV ultimately located what the Coast Guard originally described as a debris field on the sea floor, which included identifiable pieces of the sub, authorities confirmed that afternoon.

"This morning, an ROV, or remote operated vehicle, from the vessel Horizon Arctic, discovered the tail cone of the Titan submersible approximately 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic on the sea floor," said Mauger at a news briefing. "The ROV subsequently found additional debris. In consultation with experts from within the unified command, the debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber."

"Upon this determination, we immediately notified the families," he added. "On behalf of the United States Coast Guard and the entire unified command, I offer my deepest condolences to the families. I can only imagine what this has been like for them and I hope that this discovery provides some solace during this difficult time."

Mauger said authorities were "still working to develop the details for the timeline involved with this casualty and the response," and referenced the "incredibly complex operating environment along the sea floor, over two miles beneath the surface."

Paul Hankins, an undersea expert for the U.S. Navy, explained during the news conference that crews discovered "five different major pieces of debris that told us that it was the remains of the Titan." These pieces included, initially, the nose cone, which was outside of the pressure hull. 

"We then found a large debris field," Hankins said. "Within that large debris field, we found the front end bell of the pressure hull. That was our first indication that there was a catastrophic event."

A second, smaller debris field was located shortly after, and the debris found there "comprised the totality of that pressure vessel," Hankins said. 

"The debris field is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel," he said, adding that the team will continue to map the debris field area.

Asked by a reporter what the prospects were for recovering the passengers, Mauger said, "This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor, and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel. 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."

Discovering the Titan debris came after multiple agencies from the U.S. and Canada spent days scouring thousands of square miles of open ocean in search of the missing sub.

The U.S. Coast Guard announced Wednesday that  underwater noises were detected  in the search area and that searches involving ROVs were  focusing on the area where the noises were heard .

On Wednesday, three more vessels had arrived to join the search, including one with side-scan sonar capabilities designed to create images of large sections of the sea floor, the Coast Guard said in a  tweet . That vessel began conducting search patterns alongside at least two others, as multiple military and other agencies worked together under a unified command. 

Frederick said Wednesday there were five "surface assets" involved in the search , and another five were expected to join the operation within the next 24 to 48 hours. He said the team also had two ROVs "actively searching," with several more due to arrive to join the search Thursday.

The Coast Guard  said  it had C-130 aircraft searching for the sub, and that the Rescue Coordination Center Halifax was assisting with a P-8 Poseidon aircraft, which has underwater detection capabilities. Canadian P-3s were also involved in the operation and deployed sonar buoys.

Just after midnight Wednesday, officials said  aircraft had detected underwater noises  in the search area, and underwater search operations were relocated as a result, though the origin of the noises remained unknown. The sounds were picked up several times Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, according to the Coast Guard. 

"With respect to the noises, specifically, we don't know what they are, to be frank with you," Frederick said. "The P-3 detected noises, that's why they're up there, that's why they're doing what they're doing, that's why there are sonar buoys in the water."

News of the vanished submersible and subsequent rescue mission originally broke Monday morning. At the time, Lt. Jordan Hart of the Coast Guard in Boston told CBS News that personnel there were leading the rescue mission, and focusing on waters off Newfoundland in eastern Canada. 

The Boston Regional Coordination Center was managing the rescue operation, as the location of the Titanic shipwreck falls within the Boston coordination center's territory, according to a  map  of jurisdictions along the East Coast of North America.

That combined search area grew to about twice the size of the state of Connecticut, and the subsurface search extended down as far as 2 and a half miles deep, Frederick said, stressing that the search and rescue teams were dealing with an incredibly complex set of circumstances.

"We also have to factor in the ever-changing weather conditions, currents and sea states that expand the search area every hour," he said earlier in the week. "There's an enormous complexity associated with this case due to the location being so far offshore and the coordination between multiple agencies and nations. We greatly appreciate the outpouring of support and offers to provide additional equipment."

What caused the noises?

Frederick acknowledged that the sounds detected underwater by Canadian aircraft could have been caused by multiple sources. 

Following the discovery of the sub debris on the sea floor, a U.S. Navy source told CBS News that the implosion would be inconsistent with banging noises heard at 30-minute intervals. Those noises, the official said, are now assessed as having come from other ships in the area.

Carl Hartsfield, an expert in underwater acoustics and the director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which is on-site at the search area as a consultant, explained that it can be challenging to differentiate between "human sounds" and "nature sounds" coming from beneath the surface.

"The ocean is a very complex place, obviously, human sounds, nature sounds, and it's very difficult to discern what the sources of those noises are at times," Hartsfield said. 

Before the sub was found, Chris Roman, an associate professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, told CBS News that, technically, it was possible that sounds from inside a submersible could have been detected, but that wasn't the only potential source of the noise.

"Sound travels very efficiently underwater. If people were intentionally making noises within the sub, it's very likely they could be detected with a sound buoy, and that position can be translated into a new search area," Roman said. But he also noted that, as Frederick mentioned in his briefing, "there's a lot of other things in the ocean that make noises."

The submarine

The unique submersible craft that disappeared was owned by OceanGate Expeditions , a company that deploys manned submarines for deep sea exploration and has in the past advertised this particular sub's voyages to carry tourists down to the wreckage of the RMS Titanic for $250,000 per seat. 

More than a century after the Titanic sank in April 1912, the wreck lies on the ocean floor about 400 miles southeast of the Newfoundland coast. 

OceanGate said recently on its website and on social media that its expedition to the shipwreck was "underway," describing the seven-night trip as a "chance to step outside of everyday life and discover something truly extraordinary." In addition to one ongoing expedition, the company had planned two others for the summer of next year, according to the site. 

Because of the sub's oxygen capacity, it can only be fully submerged for a portion of the weeklong voyage. The sub has emergency oxygen and a 96-hour sustainment capability if there's an emergency aboard, Mauger said.

In a statement Monday after news broke of the missing sub, OceanGate confirmed the missing submersible was theirs and that a rescue operation had been launched to find and recover it. The company said it was "exploring and mobilizing all options to bring the crew back safely." 

"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," said Andrew Von Kerens, a spokesperson for OceanGate. "We pray for the safe return of the crew and passengers, and we will provide updates as they are available."

Inside the Titan

Dubbed the Titan, OceanGate's deep sea vessel, was said to be the only five-person submersible in the world with the capabilities to reach the Titanic's depth, nearly 2 and a half miles beneath the ocean's surface, CBS "Sunday Mornings" correspondent David Pogue reported last year. 

BBC News reported that the vessel typically carries a pilot, three paying guests and another person described as a "content expert" by the company.  OceanGate's site says the Titan, weighing around 23,000 pounds, has the ability to reach depths of up to 4,000 meters — over 13,000 feet — and has about 96 hours of life support for a crew of five people.

Last summer, Pogue accompanied the Titan crew on the journey from Newfoundland to the site where the Titanic as lost. Several dive attempts had to be canceled when weather conditions indicated it may not be safe. At the time, he described the Titan as a one-of-a-kind submersible craft made from thick carbon fiber and coated on both ends by a dome of titanium. 

In 2018, a former employee of OceanGate Expeditions, submersible pilot David Lochridge, voiced concerns about the safety of the Titanic tour sub and filed a lawsuit against the company . 

Lochridge, who was fired by OceanGate and sued by the company for allegedly disclosing confidential information in a whistleblower complaint to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said in a court filing that the Titan would carry passengers as deep as 4,000 meters even though that depth had never been reached in a sub with its type of carbon fiber hull. According to his claim, he learned the vessel was built to withstand a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, although OceanGate planned to take passengers to 4,000 meters.  

Lochridge was not the only skeptic. The same year his complaint was filed, other industry leaders approached OceanGate with questions about the safety of its submersible. William Kohnen, president and CEO of Hydrospace Group, outlined his concerns in a 2018 letter to OceanGate, originally published by The New York Times, that warned of potentially "catastrophic" issues with the "experimental" sub, which was not certified. Kohnen told CBS News on Wednesday that although he did not send it, the letter was leaked to OceanGate and prompted the company to "amend a number of details that made sure the public knew" the submersible had not received its certification.

"The letter to Oceangate was meant as a professional courtesy to the CEO expressing industry concerns that the company was not following a traditional classification route for the certification of the submersible," Kohnen said. "The industry operates along an established and dynamic set of safety regulations and protocols that have served the submersible industry worldwide."

Ahead of his planned dive last summer, Pogue recalled signing paperwork that read, in part, "This experimental vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, emotional trauma, or death." 

Space inside the submarine was similar to the interior of a minivan, and, with just one button and a video game controller used to steer it, the vessel "seemed improvised, with off-the-shelf components," Pogue said.

On his voyage, the  sub was lost for a few hours , Pogue said.

"There's no GPS underwater, so the surface ship is supposed to guide the sub to the shipwreck by sending text messages," he reported at the time. "But on this dive, communications somehow broke down."

You may remember that the @OceanGateExped sub to the #Titanic got lost for a few hours LAST summer, too, when I was aboard…Here’s the relevant part of that story. https://t.co/7FhcMs0oeH pic.twitter.com/ClaNg5nzj8 — David Pogue (@Pogue) June 19, 2023

Were conditions right for the dive?

G. Michael Harris, founder of RMS Titanic, Inc. — a company that salvages artifacts from the Titanic wreckage — told CBS News on Tuesday evening that Titanic expeditions are generally conducted within a "three-month weather window" between the end of June and September, when the ocean waters are at their calmest.

Harris, who has led several expeditions to the wreckage site, questioned why the Titan's dive was conducted as early as Sunday.

"Right now, it's really early in the season. I'm not sure why OceanGate went out this soon," Harris said.

Harris also noted that when he conducts diving expeditions, he uses a transponder system, something that he believed the Titan likely did not have.

"It's a net that we navigate in so that we know where we are at all times on the wreck of the Titanic," Harris said. "We're in constant communication with the vessel up top."

Harris said the Titan was "put on a sled and dumped in the water and their only navigation is from the support ship up top."

"I don't adhere to that myself, personally," Harris said. 

Harris noted that he has worked with Nargeolet, who is listed as director of underwater research for RMS Titanic, for the past 30 years, describing him as an "all-around good guy."

Who was Hamish Harding?

Harding, the first of the passengers to be publicly identified, had previously posted on social media about joining the Titanic shipwreck expedition.

In a post shared to his  Facebook  page on Saturday, Harding wrote: "I am proud to finally announce that I joined OceanGate Expeditions for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic."

I am proud to finally announce that I joined OceanGate Expeditions for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist... Posted by Hamish Harding on  Saturday, June 17, 2023

"Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023," Harding's Facebook post continued. "A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow. We started steaming from St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada yesterday and are planning to start dive operations around 4am tomorrow morning. Until then we have a lot of preparations and briefings to do."

That post was Harding's most recent social media update related to the submarine trip. It included multiple photographs of him, including one that showed Harding signing his name on a banner that read "Titanic Expedition Mission V" and another that pictured the submersible vessel itself.

Richard Garriott de Cayeux, president of The Explorers Club, where Harding helped found the board of trustees, said they had spoken just a week earlier about the expedition. 

"When I saw Hamish last week at the Global Exploration Summit, his excitement about this expedition was palpable. I know he was looking forward to conducting research at the site," he said in a letter to club members after the sub's disappearance.

Harding was a veteran adventure tourist who also  traveled to space  aboard a Blue Origin rocket last year. Two years ago, he made it to the deepest part of the ocean, traveling with U.S. explorer  Victor Vescovo  to the floor of the Mariana Trench, 35,876 feet below the sea surface. That trip, in a $48 million submersible, earned both explorers the Guinness World Record for the  longest distance traveled  at the deepest part of the ocean by a crewed vessel.

"It was potentially scary, but I was so busy doing so many things — navigating and triangulating my position — that I did not really have time to be scared," Harding told  The Week  after that excursion.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on Monday, June 19. Reporting contributed by Emmet Lyons, Roxana Saberi, Alex Sundby, Aimee Picchi, Aliza Chasan, Li Cohen, Caroline Hinson, Anna Noryskiewicz, Analisa Novak and other CBS News staff.

• Newfoundland
• United States Coast Guard

Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She covers breaking news, often focusing on crime and extreme weather. Emily Mae has previously written for outlets including the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.

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Missing Titanic submersible live updates: Texts show OceanGate CEO dismissed concerns

Five people, including the company CEO, were aboard the sub when it imploded.

All passengers are believed to be lost after a desperate dayslong search for a submersible carrying five people that vanished while on a tour of the Titanic wreckage off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

The 21-foot deep-sea vessel, operated by OceanGate Expeditions , lost contact about an hour and 45 minutes after submerging on Sunday morning with a 96-hour oxygen supply. That amount of breathable air was forecast to run out on Thursday morning, according to the United States Coast Guard, which was coordinating the multinational search and rescue efforts.

Latest headlines:

Rcmp to investigate the deaths aboard titan sub, us taxpayer cost for search and rescue may be $1.5 million, expert says, oceangate ceo claimed sub was safer than scuba diving, texts show.

• OceanGate co-founder defends development of submersible
• Sub's carbon-fiber composite hull was the 'critical failure,' James Cameron says
• Probe seeks answers on why Titanic sub imploded
• Navy likely detected sound of the implosion on Sunday: Official
• All lives believed to be lost: OceanGate

Officials with Canada's Transportation Safety Board said at a press conference Saturday that they have begun speaking with people on board the Polar Prince, which launched the ill-fated Titan submersible.

The Polar Prince returned to its port, St. John's, Newfoundland, on Saturday morning.

"I would say that we've received full cooperation," TSB Director of Marine Investigations Clifford Harvey said. "It's been a really good interaction thus far and is really getting full cooperation with all the individuals involved."

In addition, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said they are "examining the circumstances" of the deaths on board Titan, and will launch a full investigation if "the circumstances indicate criminal, federal or provincial laws may possibly have been broken."

-ABC News' Matt J. Foster

A defense budget expert estimates once the U.S. military participation concludes, the cost for the search and rescue mission of the five passengers on board the Titan submersible will cost the U.S. around $1.5 million.

Mark Cancian, a senior advisor with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, came up with the estimate based on aircraft sorties, cross referencing the U.S. Department of Defense cost numbers, Coast Guard Cutter costs and flying hour costs. He said some costs have already been set aside in various budgets, with resources simply diverted to the site.

He emphasized that these are strictly well-informed guesses.

A spokesperson for the Coast Guard's District 1 in Boston would not give an estimate of costs so far, saying, "We cannot attribute a monetary value to Search and Rescue cases, as the Coast Guard does not associate cost with saving a life."

-ABC News' Jaclyn C. Lee

US Coast Guard to lead sub investigation

The U.S. Coast Guard will be the organization leading the investigation into the OceanGate sub incident.

The NTSB announced the news on Friday via Twitter, noting it will "contribute to their efforts."

A Las Vegas father and son told ABC News OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush pressured them for months into taking two seats on the now failed mission to the Titanic, making bold claims about the vessel's safety.

Financier Jay Bloom shared text messages between himself and Rush where Rush dismissed concerns from Bloom and his son Sean about taking the trip on the Titan submersible.

"While there's obviously a risk it's way safer than flying in a helicopter or even scuba diving," Rush texted.

"He sort of had this predisposition that it was safe," Bloom told ABC News. "And anybody who disagreed with him, he felt it was just a differing opinion."

Bloom added that Rush flew out to Las Vegas in a homebuilt plane to convince him to attend the voyage aboard the submersible.

"He flew it all the way to Vegas. And I was like, 'This guy is definitely down to take risk,'" Bloom said.

-ABC News' Sam Sweeney

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Missing Titanic Submersible ‘Catastrophic Implosion’ Likely Killed 5 Aboard Submersible

Pieces of the missing Titan vessel were found on the ocean floor, about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, the Coast Guard said. OceanGate Expeditions, the vessel’s operator, said, “Our hearts are with these five souls.”

• Share full article

Coast Guard Says Debris of Submersible Has Been Found

The u.s. coast guard said parts of the titan submersible found on the ocean floor indicate a “catastrophic implosion” of the vessel..

This morning, an ROV or remote-operated vehicle from the vessel Horizon Arctic discovered the tailcone of the Titan submersible approximately 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic on the seafloor. The ROV subsequently found additional debris. In consultation with experts from within the unified command, the debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber. Upon this determination, we immediately notified the families. This is a incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the seafloor, and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel. This was a incredibly complex case, and we’re still working to develop the details for the timeline involved with this casualty and the response.

Daniel Victor ,  Jesus Jiménez and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs

After days of searching, no hope of finding survivors remains. Here’s the latest.

The five people aboard the submersible that went missing on Sunday were presumed dead on Thursday, after an international search that gripped much of the world found debris from the vessel near the wreckage of the Titanic. A U.S. Coast Guard official said the debris was “consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel.”

On Sunday, a secret U.S. network of acoustic sensors picked up indications of a possible implosion in the vicinity of the submersible around the time communications with it were lost, a senior Navy official disclosed on Thursday. The search continued because there was no immediate confirmation that the Titan had met a disastrous end, according to a second senior Navy official. Both officials spoke anonymously to discuss operational details.

However, the revelation is likely to raise further questions about a vast, multinational dayslong search and rescue effort that has ended in failure.

Those presumed lost onboard were Stockton Rush, the chief executive of OceanGate, the company that operated the submersible, who was piloting. The four passengers were a British businessman and explorer, Hamish Harding ; a British-Pakistani businessman, Shahzada Dawood, and his teenage son, Suleman ; and a French maritime expert, Paul-Henri Nargeolet , who had been on over 35 dives to the Titanic wreck site. ( Read more about the lives that were lost .)

Here’s what else to know:

A remote-controlled vehicle had located the debris from the Titan, including the submersible’s tail cone, about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic on the ocean floor, according to Admiral Mauger.

Leaders in the submersible craft industry warned for years of possible “catastrophic” problems with the vehicle’s design. They also worried that OceanGate Expeditions had not followed standard certification procedures .

OceanGate has provided tours of the Titanic wreck since 2021 — for a price of up to $250,000 per person — as part of a booming high-risk travel industry . The company has described the trip on its website as a “thrilling and unique travel experience.”

The Titan squeezed five passengers into a tight space with no seats, only a flat floor and a single view port 21 inches in diameter. Here’s a closer look at the craft .

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Secret Navy sensors detected a possible implosion around the time the Titan’s communications failed.

The U.S. Navy, using data from a secret network of underwater sensors designed to track hostile submarines, detected “an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion” in the vicinity of the Titan submersible at the time communications with the vessel were lost on Sunday, two senior Navy officials said on Thursday.

But with no other indications of a catastrophe, one of the officials said, the search was continued.

The data from the sensors was combined with information from airborne Navy P-8 surveillance planes and sonar buoys on the surface to triangulate the approximate location of the Titan, one of the officials said. The analysis of undersea acoustic data and information about the location of the noise were then passed on to the Coast Guard official in charge of the search, Rear Adm. John Mauger.

Because there was no visual or other conclusive evidence of a catastrophic failure, one of the officials said, it would have been “irresponsible” to immediately assume the five passengers were dead, and the search was ordered to continue even though the outlook appeared grim. Both of the Navy officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details.

It was not immediately clear how widely the Navy’s acoustical analysis was disseminated among the search team, nor why the Navy had not made it public earlier. The Navy’s acoustic analysis from the secret sensor network was first reported by The Wall Street Journal .

Search Vessels Around the Titanic Wreckage

Polar Prince

newfoundland

North Atlantic

the Titanic

Skandi Vinland

Deep Energy

The Canadian vessel

Horizon Arctic deployed

a remote-operated vehicle

that discovered a debris field.

The Titanic wreckage

sits on the ocean

floor, approximately

12,500 feet down.

North Atlantic Ocean

that discovered a debris field

containing remains of the Titan.

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The director and deep-sea explorer James Cameron points to flaws in the Titan submersible’s design.

“We’ve never had an accident like this,” James Cameron, the Oscar-winning director of “Titanic,” said on Thursday.

Mr. Cameron, an expert in submersibles, has dived dozens of times to the ship’s deteriorating hulk and once plunged in a tiny craft of his own design to the bottom of the planet’s deepest recess.

In an interview, Mr. Cameron called the presumed loss of five lives aboard the Titan submersible from the company OceanGate like nothing anyone involved in private ocean exploration had ever seen.

“There’ve never been fatalities at this kind of depth and certainly no implosions,” he said.

An implosion in the deep sea happens when the crushing pressures of the abyss cause a hollow object to collapse violently inward. If the object is big enough to hold five people, Mr. Cameron said in an interview, “it’s going to be an extremely violent event — like 10 cases of dynamite going off.”

In 2012, Mr. Cameron designed and piloted an experimental submersible into a region in the Pacific Ocean called the Challenger Deep. Mr. Cameron had not sought certification of the vessel’s safety by organizations in the maritime industry that provide such services to numerous companies.

“We did that knowingly” because the craft was experimental and its mission scientific, Mr. Cameron said. “I would never design a vehicle to take passengers and not have it certified.”

Mr. Cameron strongly criticized Stockton Rush, the OceanGate chief executive who piloted the submersible when it disappeared Sunday, for never getting his tourist submersible certified as safe . He noted that Mr. Rush called certification an impediment to innovation.

“I agree in principle,” Mr. Cameron said. “But you can’t take that stance when you’re putting paying customers into your submersible — when you have innocent guests who trust you and your statements” about vehicle safety.

As a design weakness in the Titan submersible and a possible cautionary sign to its passengers, Mr. Cameron cited its construction with carbon-fiber composites. The materials are used widely in the aerospace industry because they weigh much less than steel or aluminum, yet pound for pound are stronger and stiffer.

The problem, Mr. Cameron said, is that a carbon-fiber composite has “no strength in compression”— which happens as an undersea vehicle plunges ever deeper into the abyss and faces soaring increases in water pressure. “It’s not what it’s designed for.”

The company, he added, used sensors in the hull of the Titan to assess the status of the carbon-fiber composite hull. In its promotional material , OceanGate pointed to the sensors as an innovative feature for “hull health monitoring.” Early this year, an academic expert described the system as providing the pilot “with enough time to arrest the descent and safely return to surface.”

In contrast to the company, Mr. Cameron called it “a warning system” to let the submersible’s pilot know if “the hull is getting ready to implode.”

Mr. Cameron said the sensor network on the sub’s hull was an inadequate solution to a design he saw as intrinsically flawed.

“It’s not like a light coming on when the oil in your car is low,” he said of the network of hull sensors. “This is different.”

A senior U.S. Navy official said that the Navy had, through acoustic analysis, “detected an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost.” The official said that the identification was “not definitive,” the information was immediately shared with the search effort, and that the decision was made to continue searching to “make every effort to save the lives on board.”

Christina Goldbaum and Emma Bubola

Shahzada Dawood, Executive, 48, and Son, 19, Die Aboard Submersible

Shahzada Dawood, a British Pakistani businessman who was among the five people aboard a submersible journeying deep into the Atlantic to view the Titanic, was killed when the vessel imploded during its descent to the ocean floor, the authorities said Thursday. He was 48.

His 19-year-old son, Suleman, who was with him on the Titan submersible, was also killed.

Mr. Dawood was the vice chairman of Engro Corporation, a business conglomerate headquartered in the Pakistani port city of Karachi that is involved in agriculture, energy and telecommunications. His family is known as one of the wealthiest business families in the country.

His work focused on renewable energy and technology, according to a statement from his family.

Mr. Dawood was born on Feb. 12, 1975, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He studied law as an undergraduate at Buckingham University in Britain and later received a master’s degree in global textile marketing from Philadelphia University, now part of Thomas Jefferson University. In 2012, he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

His son was a business student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and had just completed his first year, a spokesman for the school said. Like his father, he was a fan of science fiction and enjoyed solving Rubik’s Cubes and playing volleyball, according to a statement from Engro.

“The relationship between Shahzada and Suleman was a joy to behold; they were each other’s greatest supporters and cherished a shared passion for adventure and exploration of all the world had to offer them,” the family’s statement said.

The pair’s shared passion for science and discovery, friends and family said, led them to embark on the expedition to the wreck of the Titanic.

Travel and science were “part of his DNA,” said Ahsen Uddin Syed, a friend of the elder Mr. Dawood who used to work with him at Engro.

A lover of “Star Trek” and “Star Wars,” Mr. Dawood was also fond of nature and often traveled to faraway places and shared pictures of his adventures, Mr. Sayed said.

His Instagram profile is like a memory book of his love of travel and nature; it is blanketed with photos of birds, flowers and landscapes, including a sunset in the Kalahari Desert, the ice sheet in Greenland, penguins in the Shetlands and a tiny bird in London with the caption “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

“Don’t adventures ever have an end?” Mr. Dawood wrote in a Facebook post last year from a trip to Iceland, quoting Bilbo Baggins from “The Fellowship of the Ring.” “I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.”

Khalid Mansoor, another former colleague of Mr. Dawood’s, said that Mr. Dawood was a passionate champion of the environment. He was also a trustee at the SETI Institute, an organization devoted to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

In his role at Engro, the company statement said, Mr. Dawood advocated “a culture of learning, sustainability and diversity.” He was also involved in his family’s charitable ventures, including the Engro Foundation, which supports small-scale farmers, and the Dawood Foundation, an education-focused nonprofit.

“Shahzada’s and Suleman’s absence will be felt deeply by all those who had the privilege of knowing this pair,” his family’s statement read.

Mr. Dawood is survived by a daughter, Alina, and his wife, Christine.

Salman Masood contributed reporting.

Sam Roberts

Stockton Rush, Pilot of the Titan Submersible, Dies at 61

Stockton Rush, the chief executive and founder of OceanGate and the pilot of the Titan submersible, was declared dead on Thursday after his vessel was found in pieces at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, near the rusting wreck of the R.M.S. Titanic. He was 61.

Mr. Rush oversaw finances and engineering for OceanGate, a privately owned tourism and research company based in Everett, Wash., which he founded in 2009. In 2012, he was a founder of the OceanGate Foundation, a nonprofit organization that encouraged technological development to further marine science, history and archaeology.

Mr. Rush first looked skyward for adventure. In 1981, when he was 19, he was believed to be the world’s youngest jet-transport-rated pilot.

If the sky was the limit, though, it was too confining for Mr. Rush.

“I wanted to be the first person on Mars,” he told Fast Company magazine in 2017.

Ineligible for Air Force pilot training because of poor eyesight, he said, he abandoned his dream of becoming an astronaut. Interplanetary travel didn’t seem economically viable in the foreseeable future. But he saw potential in underwater travel, and he said he was willing to take on risk and bend the rules to achieve his goals.

“I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed,” he said in an interview with “CBS News Sunday Morning” last year. “Don’t get in your car. Don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question. I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules.”

Richard Stockton Rush III was the scion of one of San Francisco’s most famous families. He was descended on his father’s side from two signers of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush and Richard Stockton.

He was born on March 31, 1962, in San Francisco. His father is chairman of the Peregrine Oil and Gas Company in Burlingame, Calif., and the Natoma Company, which manages apartment and other investment properties in and around Sacramento. His grandfather was the chairman of the shipping company American President Lines. Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco was named for his grandmother.

The Davies family’s inherited wealth was derived from Ralph K. Davies, who began at Standard Oil of California as a 15-year-old office boy and rose to become the youngest director in the company’s history.

Stockton, as Mr. Rush was known, graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from Princeton University in 1984. He received a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business in 1989.

During summer breaks, he served as a DC-8 first officer, flying out of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for Overseas National Airways. The year he graduated, he joined the McDonnell Douglas Corporation as a flight test engineer on the F-15 program and was named the company’s representative at Edwards Air Force Base on the APG-63 radar test protocol.

Before founding OceanGate, he served on the board of BlueView Technologies, a sonar developer in Seattle, and as chairman of Remote Control Technologies, which makes remotely operated devices. He was also a trustee of the Museum of Flight in Seattle from 2003 to 2007.

In 1986, he married Wendy Hollings Wei l, a licensed pilot, substitute teacher and account manager for magazine publishing consultants. She became the director of communications for OceanGate.

Her grandfather, Richard Weil Jr., was president of Macy’s New York, and she was the great-great-granddaughter of the retailing magnate Isidor Straus and his wife, Ida, two of the wealthiest people to die when the Titanic sank.

The aging Mr. Straus, a co-owner of Macy’s, refused to board the lifeboat while younger men were being prevented from boarding. Ida Straus, his wife of four decades, declared that she would not leave her husband, and the two were seen standing arm in arm on the Titanic’s deck as the ship went down.

Information on Mr. Rush’s survivors was not immediately available.

In his CBS News interview, Mr. Rush acknowledged that it was prudent while exploring the ocean at depths of thousands of feet to avoid fish nets, overhangs and other hazards. But, he said, safety concerns could also be a drag on a swashbuckling career in which risk paid returns not only in profits but also in unforgettable experiences.

“It really is a life-changing experience, and there aren’t a lot of things like that,” he told Fast Company. “Rather than spend $65,000 to climb Mount Everest, maybe die, and spend a month living in a miserable base camp, you can change your life in a week.”

His trips in the Titan brought him the adventure he craved.

“I wanted to be sort of the Captain Kirk,” he said. “I didn’t want to be the passenger in the back. And I realized that the ocean is the universe. That’s where life is.”

Jacey Fortin

The Coast Guard says it found five major pieces of debris on the ocean floor.

The Titan submersible that vanished in the North Atlantic on Sunday appeared to have suffered a “catastrophic implosion,” the U.S. Coast Guard said on Thursday, and offered its condolences to the families of the five people who were on board.

Debris from the vessel, which vanished while descending to view the wreck of the R.M.S. Titanic, was found on the ocean floor on Thursday morning, about 1,600 feet from the bow of the shipwreck, Rear Admiral John Mauger of the Coast Guard said at a news conference on Thursday afternoon.

The debris was “consistent with catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber” of the submersible, he added.

Asked about the possibility of recovering the bodies of the victims, Admiral Mauger said that he did not have an answer. “This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor,” he said.

Chances for the survival of the five passengers had begun to look grim by midweek, but rescuers had said that they were holding out hope that the Titan could be out there somewhere.

But on Thursday morning, a remotely operated vehicle discovered a debris field on the ocean bottom. Paul Hankins, a salvage expert for the U.S. Navy, said there were “five major pieces” that appeared to be parts of the Titan, a 22-foot-long vessel owned by OceanGate, including a nose cone, the front end of the pressure hull and the back end of the pressure hull.

It was too early to tell exactly when the vessel imploded, Admiral Mauger said. The implosion “would have generated significant broadband sound down there that the sonar buoys would have picked up,” he added, but listening devices in the area did not hear any signs of such a catastrophic failure.

Some underwater banging noises were picked up by searchers earlier this week, but they did not appear to have had any relation to the submersible, Admiral Mauger said. Previously, the Coast Guard had said that they repositioned their search efforts around where those noises were detected.

“I know there’s a lot of questions about how, why, when this happened,” Admiral Mauger said, adding that the authorities had those same questions. “That’s going to be, I’m sure, the focus of future review,” he said. “Right now, we’re focused on documenting the scene.”

Daniel Victor

The five people on board included the chief executive of the company that operated the submersible, a Guinness World Record-holding explorer, a man who dived to the Titanic more than 35 times, and a father-and-son duo. Read more about the lives that were lost here .

Alex Williams

Hamish Harding, an Explorer Who Knew No Bounds, Dies at 58

Hamish Harding, an aviation tycoon and ardent explorer, made it his quest to probe the heavens as well as the depths, landing him a place in Guinness World Records and ultimately leading him to a fateful plunge to the wreckage of the Titanic some two and a half miles below the surface of the North Atlantic.

The submersible craft in which he was traveling with four others lost contact with its mother ship on Sunday. After a five-day multinational search across an area the size of Massachusetts, the U.S. Coast Guard said Thursday that all five had been killed when the vessel, belonging to OceanGate Expeditions, suffered “a catastrophic implosion.”

Mr. Harding was 58.

Passengers had paid up to $250,000 each for the privilege of plunging nearly 13,000 feet below the surface for a glimpse of the remains of history’s most storied oceanic tragedy. The R.M.S. Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in 1912, four days into its maiden voyage, about 400 miles off Newfoundland. More than 1,500 people died.

At the outset of the tour, Mr. Harding saw the opportunity as an unlikely stroke of good fortune. “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years,” he wrote in a social media post on Saturday, “this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023.”

He described himself as a “mission specialist” on the expedition.

Mr. Harding seemed to presage his own fate in a 2021 interview after a record-setting plunge to Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the ocean in the Mariana Trench.

At nearly 36,000 feet below the western Pacific Ocean, deeper than Mount Everest is tall, that four-hour, 15-minute voyage took him nearly three times further down than the Titanic site. That expedition, with the American explorer Victor Vescovo, earned two citations by Guinness World Records, for the longest distance traversed at full ocean depth by a crewed vessel and the longest time spent there on a single dive.

As Esquire Middle East magazine pointed out at the time, only 18 people had ever journeyed to the bottom of the Challenger Deep, as opposed to the 24 astronauts who had orbited or landed on the moon and the thousands who successfully had scaled the peak of Mount Everest.

Mr. Harding knew the risks. “If something goes wrong, you are not coming back,” he told The Week, an Indian newsmagazine. But in business, and in his life of adventure seeking, he seemed to embrace them.

A pilot licensed to fly both business jets and airliners, Mr. Harding started the first regular business jet service to the Antarctic in 2017, in partnership with the luxury Antarctic tourism company White Desert. The service landed its first flight, a Gulfstream G550, on a new ice runway known as Wolf’s Fang.

A lifelong space buff, he traveled to Antarctica in 2016 with Buzz Aldrin, the Apollo 11 astronaut and the second man to walk on the moon. At 86, Mr. Aldrin became the oldest person to reach the South Pole. Four years later, Mr. Harding took a similar journey with his son Giles, who at 12 became the youngest person to accomplish that feat.

In 2019, Mr. Harding set off on another record-setting venture with a former astronaut when he and the former International Space Station commander Col. Terry Virts completed the fastest circumnavigation of the world over both the North and South Poles in a Qatar Executive Gulfstream G650ER long-range business jet.

In June 2022, Mr. Harding finally got to experience the wonder of being an astronaut himself, soaring some 60 miles aboard the New Shepard spacecraft, from Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin space tourism company, to the edge of outer space.

“Once the liquid hydrogen/oxygen booster rocket gets the capsule to the edge of space, 350,000 feet above the earth,” he said in an interview last year with Business Aviation Magazine , “the sky above you is totally, completely black, even right next to the sun.”

Despite a life of dramatic quests that seemed drawn from boys’ adventure books, Mr. Harding was by nature “an explorer, not a thrill seeker,” Colonel Virts said in an interview with the BBC .

Mr. Harding apparently agreed. In discussing the Challenger Deep mission, he emphasized science, not derring-do.

“As an explorer and adventurer, I want this expedition to contribute to our shared knowledge and understanding of planet earth,” he said in the Esquire interview. He spoke of collecting samples from the ocean floor “that could contain new life forms and may even provide further insights into how life on our planet began.”

“And in searching for signs of human pollution in this remote environment,” he continued, “we hope to aid scientific efforts to protect our oceans and ensure they flourish for millennia to come.”

George Hamish Livingston Harding was born on June 24, 1964, in Hammersmith, London.

He was always drawn to the skies, and beyond. “I was 5 years old when the Apollo landing took place,” he said in the Business Aviation interview. “I vividly remember watching the event on an old black-and-white TV set with my parents in Hong Kong, where I grew up.”

“This event set the tone of my life in a way,” he continued. “We sort of felt that anything was possible after that, and we fully expected there to be package holidays to the moon by now.”

At 13, he became a cadet in the Royal Air Force flying Chipmunk trainer airplanes. He earned his pilot’s license in 1985 while an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge, where he studied chemical engineering and natural sciences.

In the 1990s, he built a career in information technology, rising to managing director of Logica India, a company based in Bangalore. He used the money he made in that industry to found Action Group, a private investment company, in 1999. He started Action Aviation in 2002.

His survivors include his wife, Linda; his sons, Rory and Giles; a stepdaughter, Lauren Marisa Szasz; and a stepson, Brian Szasz.

In the Business Aviation interview, Mr. Harding said that the Titanic dive, initially scheduled for last June, had been delayed because “the submersible was unfortunately damaged on its previous dive.” Instead, that summer he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with 20 family members and friends.

When asked about the risks of his boundary-pushing ventures, Mr. Harding, who was the chairman of the Middle East chapter of the Explorers Club, said, “My view is that these are all calculated risks and are well understood before we start.”

“I should add that I do not go out seeking these opportunities,” he continued. “People tend to bring them to me, and I keep saying ‘Yes!’”

Anushka Patil

The implosion “would have generated significant broadband sound down there that the sonar buoys would have picked up,” Mauger said. Listening devices in the area, which were dropped Monday, did not hear any signs of such a catastrophic failure, he reported earlier.

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs

The underwater banging noises that were picked up by the authorities earlier this week do not appear to have had any relation to the site of the submersible’s wreckage. “There doesn’t appear to be any connection between the noises and the location on the sea floor” where the debris was found, Mauger said. Previously, the Coast Guard had said that they repositioned their search efforts around where those noises were detected.

Jesus Jimenez

Asked about the prospect of recovering the bodies of the victims, Mauger said he did not have an answer. “This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor,” he said.

“I know there’s a lot of questions about how, why, when this happened,” says Admiral Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard, adding that the authorities have those same questions. “That’s going to be, I’m sure, the focus of future review. Right now, we’re focused on documenting the scene.”

Mauger said it was too early to tell when the vessel imploded. Remote operations will continue on the sea floor, he said.

Where the Titan submersible was found — 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic — and the size of the debris field indicates that the vessel imploded, according to Carl Hartsfield, an expert with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. There does not appear to be any indication that it collided with the wreckage.

The authorities found “five major pieces of debris” that indicated they were from the Titan, including a nose cone, the front end of the pressure hull and the back end of the pressure hull, said Paul Hankins, a salvage expert for the U.S. Navy. He said that finding these pieces of debris indicated there was a “catastrophic event.”

Mauger said that officials are still working to come up with a timeline of events.

The debris found today was “consistent with catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber” in the submersible, Mauger said.

Debris from the Titan submersible, including its tail cone, was found on the ocean floor on Thursday morning, about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, said Rear Admiral John Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard.

In a few moments, Rear Adm. John Mauger and Capt. Jamie Frederick of the U.S. Coast Guard will provide updates on findings from the sea floor near the Titanic.

The announcement by the company that all five passengers on the submersible are believed to be dead appears to cap an international search that stretched across several days and gripped much of the world. Even as the chances of survival looked grim, rescuers had said they were holding out hope that the Titan could be out there somewhere, hopes that appear to have been dashed by the discovery of debris.

“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” the company said. “Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time.”

OceanGate said in a statement that “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.”

Jacey Fortin and Eric Schmitt

Here is why the U.S. Coast Guard led the search effort.

It would be a tall order for any agency: finding a submersible vessel that could be more than two miles below the surface of the ocean and hundreds of miles away from land.

But the United States Coast Guard was the best trained and equipped agency for the task, government officials and outside analysts said.

Most Americans are familiar with Coast Guard operations closer to home — from interdicting drug smugglers to assisting recreational boaters — but the maritime force has long been dedicated to search and rescue efforts at sea, including those in international waters.

For the past week, the Coast Guard oversaw an armada of vessels, aircraft and specialists from North America and Europe to find the Titan. International agreements divide the ocean into regions and offer guidance about which nations and agencies take primary responsibility for search and rescue in each. The site of the Titanic wreck is in an area generally assigned to the Coast Guard , even though it is closer to the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, than that of the continental United States.

Beyond that, the U.S. Coast Guard is considered “the premier maritime search and rescue agency in the world,” said Aaron C. Davenport, a senior researcher at the Rand Corporation and 34-year veteran of the service.

Chris Boyer, the executive director of the National Association for Search and Rescue, a nonprofit advocacy group, called the Coast Guard “the best prepared and the best choice, given the circumstances.” He added that while the United States Navy also had underwater rescue capabilities and was participating in the search, it was more focused on defense than on this type of mission.

The disappearance of the Titan, which vanished while descending to view the wreck of the Titanic, presented a unique challenge. The small, privately owned vessel was sealed shut from the outside, and rescuing people from it far below the surface would have been very difficult, Mr. Boyer said.

The Coast Guard handles thousands of rescues every year, but many are comparatively straightforward, like finding a lost fishing boat, according to Robert B. Murrett, a retired Navy vice admiral who is now deputy director of the Syracuse University Institute for Security Policy and Law.

“This one’s a little bit different because of the water depth involved, and the nature of the vehicle,” Professor Murrett said.

Even so, he said, the Coast Guard is adept at coordinating search efforts involving different agencies from different countries.

The search for the Titan was “an incredibly complex operation,” Rear Adm. John Mauger, a Boston-based Coast Guard commander, told reporters on Thursday.

“We were able to mobilize an immense amount of gear to the site in just a really remarkable amount of time, given the fact that we started without any sort of vessel response plan for this or any sort of pre-staged resources,” he said.

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs ,  Jenny Gross and Anna Betts

OceanGate was warned of potential for ‘catastrophic’ problems with its Titanic mission.

Years before OceanGate’s submersible craft went missing in the Atlantic Ocean with five people onboard, the company faced several warnings as it prepared for its hallmark mission of taking wealthy passengers to tour the Titanic’s wreckage.

In January 2018, the company’s engineering team was about to hand over the craft — named Titan — to a new crew who would be responsible for ensuring the safety of its future passengers. But experts inside and outside the company were beginning to raise concerns.

OceanGate’s director of marine operations, David Lochridge, started working on a report around that time, according to court documents, ultimately producing a scathing document in which he said the craft needed more testing and stressed “the potential dangers to passengers of the Titan as the submersible reached extreme depths.”

Two months later, OceanGate faced similarly dire calls from more than three dozen people — industry leaders, deep-sea explorers and oceanographers — who warned in a letter to its chief executive, Stockton Rush, that the company’s “experimental” approach and its decision to forgo a traditional assessment could lead to potentially “catastrophic” problems with the Titanic mission.

A spokesman for OceanGate declined to comment on the five-year-old critiques from Mr. Lochridge and the industry leaders. Nor did Mr. Lochridge respond to a request for comment.

The United States Coast Guard said on Twitter that a debris field was found in the search area by a remote-operated vehicle. Experts are evaluating the information, the Coast Guard said.

The Coast Guard said it would hold a news conference at 3 p..m. Eastern time in Boston to address findings from a remote-operated vehicle deployed by the Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic on the sea floor near the Titanic.

Jenny Gross

Another remotely controlled deep-sea vehicle is en route to the search area.

A remotely operated vehicle that can reach 6,000 meters (about 19,700 feet) below the surface of the ocean was en route to join the search for the missing Titan submersible in the North Atlantic, the Explorers Club, a New York-based organization that counts two of the missing passengers among its members, said on Thursday.

The vehicle, owned by Magellan, a deepwater seabed-mapping company, was being transported from Britain to St. John’s, Newfoundland, where it was expected to land early afternoon local time on Thursday. Two other remotely controlled vehicles are already at the search site around the wreckage of the Titanic. The Titan was on a voyage to visit the shipwreck when it disappeared on Sunday.

Magellan’s vehicle has been to the wreckage of the Titanic — which sits at a depth of about 12,500 feet — more than any other vehicle and has mapped the site , including the surrounding debris, Richard Garriott de Cayeux, president of the Explorers Club, said in a statement. It has manipulator arms that can attach lifting cables directly to a submersible, and “may prove invaluable” to the ongoing search and rescue efforts, Mr. Garriott de Cayeux said. Magellan did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Garriott de Cayeux said that other club members with experience diving to similar depths had a sense of what the passengers on the Titan may be facing.

“While the planned life support supply depletes, we believe crew conservation and the near freezing temperatures could prolong life support by some time and the crew knows this,” he said in the statement.

“While the situation is very difficult, we can all be grateful and hopeful as the very best people are on the job,” Mr. Garriott de Cayeux said.

Derrick Bryson Taylor

The University of Strathclyde in Glasgow confirmed on Thursday that Suleman Dawood, the 19-year-old man who is on board the missing submersible along with his father, is a business student at the school. He recently completed his first year, a spokesman for the university said.

“We are deeply concerned about Suleman, his father and the others involved in this incident,” the spokesman said. “Our thoughts are with their families and loved ones and we continue to hope for a positive outcome.”

In discussing the amount of oxygen left on the Titan, Rear Adm. John Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard said on Thursday that “people’s will to live really needs to be accounted for, as well.”

Rear Adm. John Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard speaks to TODAY about the latest efforts to rescue the five people on board the missing submersible Titan as it runs low on oxygen. “People’s will to live really needs to be accounted for, as well,” he says. pic.twitter.com/6FJ3w1Z0Ty — TODAY (@TODAYshow) June 22, 2023

The search for the missing submersible was well underway as of Thursday morning. The Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic has deployed a remotely operated vehicle that has reached the sea floor, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Twitter.

The French vessel Atalante is also preparing to deploy its remotely operated vehicle.

Victoria Kim

Photos from an early test of the Titan show how the submersible is deployed.

OceanGate Expeditions , the company behind the Titan submersible missing in a remote part of the North Atlantic since Sunday, conducted tests of its craft in early 2018 outside a marina at its headquarters in Everett, Wash.

It was one of the first saltwater test dives of the vessel, made of carbon fiber and titanium, that was billed as the largest submersible of its type in the world. The company said at the time that the Titan was meant to dive far deeper than its earlier submersibles, and was made out of different material.

The company announced plans to take visitors to the Titanic wreckage in 2017, as its co-founder and chief executive Stockton Rush emphasized the rarefied nature of the experience. “Since her sinking 105 years ago, fewer than 200 people have ever visited the wreck, far fewer than have flown to space or climbed Mount Everest,” he said in a news release at the time. Mr. Rush is on board the missing submersible.

The Titan’s lighter weight and launch and recovery platform would make it “a more financially viable option for individuals interested in exploring the deep,” the company said in a 2018 news release.

But even before the April 2018 saltwater test, experts inside and outside the company had begun warning of potentially “catastrophic” problems that could result from what they said was the company’s “experimental” approach.

Coast Guard searches for 5-person crew aboard submersible that went missing on dive to Titanic wreck

The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for a missing Canadian research submersible that disappeared Sunday after it went to explore the wreck of the Titanic .

The 21-foot submersible and its five-person crew, from the Canadian research vessel Polar Prince, started a dive Sunday morning, the Coast Guard said. But the Polar Prince lost contact with the vessel after an hour and 45 minutes.

The missing submersible — which is named Titan, according to T he Associated Press — is part of an OceanGate Expeditions tour exploring the Titanic wreckage, 900 nautical miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The private company charters trips to explore the wreckage with its research teams.

Rear Adm. John Mauger, the commander of the Coast Guard district leading the search, said authorities received a call for help from OceanGate on Sunday afternoon after the crew lost contact and the submersible missed its return time. He said the Coast Guard immediately launched a surface and aerial search to find or recover the submersible and any survivors.

"We really brought all assets that we have available to us to bear on finding the submersible and the people in it," Mauger said. "We understand from the operator of the submersible that there is a 96-hour reserve capacity on there, and so that gives us some time to effect a search. But when something happens on the high seas, it gets complicated quickly."

One of the missing crew members is Hamish Harding, the billionaire owner and chairman of Action Aviation. A post Sunday on Harding's Instagram account said he was joining OceanGate’s expedition "as a mission specialist" — typically a one-time crew member who pays a fee to join the effort.

The fees from those crew members “underwrite the mission, the participation of the science team, and their own mission,” OceanGate’s website says.

The company said it was working with numerous government agencies to aid in the rescue.

“Our entire focus is on the crew members in the submersible and their families, we are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to reestablish contact with the submersible,” OceanGate said in a statement.

Mauger said the Coast Guard has brought in technical experts, dropped sonar buoys to listen for underwater noise and reached out to other government agencies and private contractors for aid and "to really better understand what an undersea search and rescue effort would look like."

Coast Guard officials said at a news conference Monday afternoon that they have deployed two C-130 aircraft for an aerial search and that the sonar buoys can listen to a depth of 13,000 feet.

The New York National Guard is providing a third C-130, and the Canadian Coast Guard provided a C-130, as well as a P8 Poseidon aircraft that has underwater detection capabilities.

The Coast Guard said it is also relying on commercial boat operators that were already in the nearby waters, as well as OceanGate’s mother ship, Polar Prince, for help.

Mauger added at the news conference that the Coast Guard is working to expand its capabilities to include an underwater search, as well.

OceanGate’s submersibles have shorter power cycles than submarines, and they are tied to mother ships (the Polar Prince in this instance) when they are operating far from land. Submarines, by contrast, can typically travel long distances independently and use ports as home bases.

OceanGate’s expeditions include a 10-day trip with 18 dives off a larger boat to a maximum depth of 12,800 feet, according to the company. People may pay as much as $250,000 to join the exploration, The New York Times reported last year .

OceanGate's website says that during visits to the Titanic site, its teams collect images, videos and laser and sonar data for scientific study, document the condition of the wreck and gather information about the flora and fauna using the sunken ship as their maritime home.

Considered the world’s most famous shipwreck, the Titanic was an opulent 883-foot ocean liner. Thought to be “unsinkable,” it shocked the world in 1912 when it struck ice in the Atlantic Ocean and sank. More than 1,500 people died.

The wreckage was discovered in 1985, about 350 miles off Newfoundland . Surrounded by debris, the ship’s two main pieces are around 2,000 feet apart, according to a full-size scan that was released this year .

Continued fascination with the Titanic has sparked a tourism industry around it and its sinking, particularly after the release of the eponymous 1997 film by the director James Cameron.

Phil McCausland is an NBC News reporter.

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Titanic tourist submersible: desperate search for sub missing with five onboard

French expert and British explorer believed to be among five onboard submersible missing in north Atlantic since Sunday

• Explainer: what is the Titan tourist sub and what might have happened to it?

Search and rescue teams were racing against time on Monday to find a tourist sub that went missing in the north Atlantic while on a dive to the wreck of the Titanic.

The US Coast Guard said “a small submarine with five persons onboard” had gone missing in the vicinity of the Titanic wreck and that the vessel had the capacity to be submerged for 96 hours, but it was unclear whether it was still underwater or had surfaced and was unable to communicate.

The submersible was reported overdue on Monday but contact was lost 1 hour 45 minutes into its dive on Sunday afternoon, the coast guard said.

A British explorer and a French military veteran and submarine expert were believed to be among those onboard the Titan, a deep diving submersible operated by underwater tourism company Oceangate.

Rear Admiral John Mauger, first district commander of the US coast guard, overseeing the search-and-rescue operation, told a press conference late on Monday afternoon that “we are doing everything we can do” to find the sub and its occupants.

US and Canadian ships and planes swarmed the area about 1,450km east of Cape Cod, some dropping sonar buoys that can monitor to a depth of almost 4,000m, the US Coast Guard said, but the search was “complex” because crews did not know if the vessel had surfaced, meaning they must scour both the surface and the ocean depths of nearly 13,000 feet.

“We’re making the best use of every moment of that time. What we’re focused on is finding those five people,” Mauger said.

David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate, said the submersible’s 96-hour oxygen supply started at roughly 6am Sunday. In an email to the Associated Press, Concannon said officials were working to get a remotely operated vehicle that could reach a depth of 6,000m to the site as soon as possible.

Despite the wreck of the Titanic resting south-east of the coast of Newfoundland, Canadian authorities told the Guardian the search efforts were under the jurisdiction of the US Coast Guard’s Boston fleet.

OceanGate Expeditions , the company that offers the visits to the wreck, which lies on the ocean floor at a depth of almost 4,000m and about 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, has been running expeditions since 2021.

A statement on the company’s website on Monday read: “Our entire focus is on the crew members in the submersible and their families. We are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to re-establish contact with the submersible.”

One of those believed to be on board is Paul Henry Nargeolet, a former French navy commander, a deep diver and a submersible pilot. As director of underwater research for E/M Group and RMS Titanic, Inc, he is widely considered the leading authority on the wreck site and it is possible he was in charge of the submersible on the dive, with four passengers alongside.

Nargeolet has led several expeditions to the Titanic site and supervised the recovery of 5,000 artifacts, including the recovery of the “big piece”, a 20-tonne section of Titanic’s hull.

British businessman Hamish Harding, a well-known aviator and explorer who is one of the tiny group of tourists who have been to space, was booked on the trip. His stepson, Brian Szasz, posted on Facebook his “thoughts and prayers” as “his submarine has gone missing” and then later deleted the post.

Harding, 58, posted on Instagram on Saturday: “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023. A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.” In a previous post he described himself as “a mission specialist” on the trip.

The RMS Titanic, a British passenger liner which had been marketed as “unsinkable”, sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912. It had been en route from Britain to the US when it was holed by an iceberg. The lives of 1,514 of the 2,224 passengers and crew were lost and the Titanic became perhaps the most famous civilian shipwreck of all time. The wreck itself was not found until the 1980s .

OceanGate started taking small crews of “citizen scientists” in a five-person mini sub two years ago. A ticket costs $250,000.

According to the company’s website, Oceangate had an eight-day, seven-night expedition to the wreck planned for 12-20 June. A maximum of six visitors were scheduled to depart and return to St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.

Since 2021, the Bahamas-based OceanGate Expeditions has ferried about 60 paying customers and 15-20 researchers to the wreck.

“We started the business and it was this idea of researchers and wealthy people,” OceanGate founder Stockton Rush told the Guardian in January . “Is there a way to match those people who wanted to have an adventure travel experience with researchers who need funding and a sub?”

• The Titanic
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Missing Titanic submersible live updates: Search expands 'exponentially'; more sounds heard

Editor's note: This page reflects the news on the missing submarine from Wednesday, June 21. For the latest updates on the missing submersible and the massive rescue efforts, read our live updates page for Thursday, June 22 .

Rescue efforts were expanding and underwater noises were detected in the search for the missing submersible carrying five passengers to the Titanic wreckage site , a Coast Guard official said Wednesday.

An expert submariner from the British Royal Navy, a team of French specialists on remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and more ships and underwater vessels were joining the search, said Capt. Jamie Frederick, the First Coast Guard District response coordinator, in a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

The search was growing "exponentially" across a surface area roughly two times the size of Connecticut and 2.5 miles deep, he said.

"There is an enormous complexity associated with this case, due to the location being so far offshore and the coordination between multiple agencies and nations," Frederick said.

The 22-foot submersible lost contact with its support ship Sunday about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive. On board are a British adventurer, two members of a prominent Pakistani business family, a Titanic expert and the CEO of OceanGate, the Washington state-based company that operates the vehicle.

Five vessels on the ocean's surface were searching for the submersible, called Titan, and five more were expected to join the effort, Frederick said. Underwater, two ROVs were searching and "several more'' were on the way and expected to arrive by Thursday morning to scan the sea floor, he said. Aircraft also were searching throughout the day.

“The equipment that is onsite and coming is the most sophisticated in the world and certainly capable of reaching those depths,” said Sean Leet, chief executive of Horizon Maritime, a Canadian company that co-owns the research vessel that launched the Titan.

The U.S. Navy said early Wednesday afternoon that a special deep-water salvage system capable of hoisting up to 60,000 pounds had reached St. John’s, Canada, and could be used to lift the Titan to the surface, though it may not be ready for another 24 hours. The Titan weighs 20,000 pounds

Search ships were redirected Tuesday after "multiple" aircraft detected underwater noises in the area. Navy acoustic analysts were studying the sounds, which were heard again Wednesday, he said.

"We don't know what they are," Frederick said. "The good news is, we’re searching in the area where the noises were detected."

Less than a day's supply of oxygen and limited rations

Frederick said there are "limited rations" aboard the vessel, and experts feared it had less than a day's supply of oxygen left. Any decision about changing the search and rescue mission to a recovery mission would involve discussions with family members, Frederick said.

"When you're in the middle of a search and rescue case, you always have hope," he said.

The news comes as more information emerged about experts' attempts to warn OceanGate about the perils of its operations. Documents show an employee warned there might be safety problems posed by the way the experimental vehicle was developed, and leaders in the submersible craft industry told the company its approach to the enterprise could have a "catastrophic'' outcome.

Documents in a federal court in Virginia that oversees matters involving the Titanic's sinking also show the Titan had problems from its very first voyage in the summer of 2021, including issues with its electrical system and battery. Some of those were solved along the way, while others required a trip cancelation, the documents said.

A detailed visual look at sub: Maps, graphics show last location, depth and design

Banging noises an 'encouraging sign,' though a small one

There’s a good chance the banging noises heard by search crews came from the submersible, according to Nikolas Xiros, professor of naval architecture and marine engineering at the University of New Orleans.

Xiros told USA TODAY that’s good news and bad news. If the noises came from the Titan, it might mean people on board are trying to communicate. However, Xiros said that because sound can travel long distances and doesn’t move in a straight path underwater, it might not help narrow down the submersible’s position very much.

“This is an encouraging sign, a small one, but still an encouraging sign,” Xiros said.

There’s also a chance the sounds came from another source, such as the Titanic itself, Xiros said. If they came from the missing submersible, they could have been made by the occupants banging a metal tool or object against the side of it.

The people on board may be facing increasingly dangerous conditions. Xiros said in addition to oxygen possibly running out, the vessel has probably lost power, meaning it’s dark and cold inside. Xiros said at the depths the Titan can go, it could be barely above freezing.

“If a lack of oxygen doesn't get them,'' he said, "what's going to get them is going to be hypothermia.”

On "CBS This Morning" early Wednesday, U.S. Coast Guard First District Commander Rear Adm. John Mauger said there are "a lot of metal and different objects in the water around the site." He added: "We don't know the source of that noise, but we’ve shared that information with Navy experts to classify it."

Submersible company pushed limits, and that's what clients wanted

Even as he declared the Titan submersible “pretty much invulnerable,’’ OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush made it clear he wasn’t against taking risks or breaking some rules.

His company’s expeditions to the Titanic wreckage site catered to thrill-seekers, and wealthy ones at that, with a voyage costing $250,000.

Lawsuits, experts’ warnings and a reporter’s first-person account are now shedding light on the extreme danger of a trip nearly 2½ miles in depth to the bottom of the ocean aboard the experimental Titan, where five people – including Rush – hope to get rescued before possibly running out of oxygen Thursday morning.

But that won’t keep extreme adventurers from pursuing their next thrill, such as tourist space travel, analysts say.

OceanGate employee warned company passengers may be in danger

David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations, wrote an engineering report in 2018 that said the craft under development needed more testing and passengers might be endangered when it reached "extreme depths," according to a lawsuit filed that year in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

OceanGate sued Lochridge that year, accusing him of breaching a nondisclosure agreement, and he filed a counterclaim alleging he was wrongfully fired for raising questions about testing and safety. The case was settled on undisclosed terms several months after it was filed.

Lochridge’s concerns primarily focused on the company’s decision to rely on sensitive acoustic monitoring – cracking or popping sounds made by the hull under pressure – to detect flaws, rather than a scan of the hull. Lochridge said the company told him no equipment existed that could perform such a test on the 5-inch-thick carbon-fiber hull.

— The Associated Press

Underwater noises detected in search area

A Canadian aircraft heard "underwater noises in the search area," the U.S. Coast Guard announced on Twitter early Wednesday. The noises prompted remotely operated vehicle operations to search for the origin of the noises.

"Those ROV searches have yielded negative results but continue," the Coast Guard said. "Additionally, the data from the P-3 aircraft has been shared with our U.S. Navy experts for further analysis which will be considered in future search plans."

Three vessels arrived on the scene Wednesday morning, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Twitter. "The John Cabot has side-scanning sonar capabilities and is conducting search patterns alongside the Skandi Vinland and the Atlantic Merlin," the Coast Guard said. Side-scan sonar is used to detect and image objects on the sea floor, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Search crews were facing winds gusts up to 30 mph and ocean swells up to 7 feet, the Coast Guard said.

It's 'most people's biggest fear': The missing Titanic sub and why we can't look away

The news came after crews detected "banging" and "acoustic feedback" sounds Tuesday while searching for the Titan submersible, according to an internal memo sent to Department of Homeland Security leadership obtained by Rolling Stone and CNN .

A Canadian aircraft heard the banging sounds every 30 minutes, according to the memo. Additional sonar was deployed and the banging could still be heard four hours later. The internal update did not say what time the banging was heard or exactly how long it lasted.

What does it look like inside the missing submersible?

Titan is about 8 feet high, 9 feet wide, 22 feet long and weighs 23,000 pounds, according to the OceanGate website. Images posted to the website show people seated on the ground in the small, open space with their legs crossed. Science writer David Pogue previously said the vessel has about as much room as a minivan.

Previous versions of the website, accessed by USA TODAY through the Internet Archive, said passengers are advised to "restrict your diet before and during the dive to reduce the likelihood that you will need to use the facilities." Passengers might assist with a variety of tasks on the submersible, the website says, including sonar operation, taking photos or videos and helping the pilot with communications between the sub and the surface.

OceanGate operates three five-person submersibles and says it has completed at least 14 expeditions and more than 200 dives in the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, according to the website. Unlike submarines, which are fully autonomous, submersibles have limited power reserves, so they require a support ship that can launch and recover them.

How much oxygen is left in the submersible?

Frederick said the Titan had "about 40 hours of breathable air left" around 1 p.m. ET Tuesday, meaning its oxygen supply could run out by Thursday morning.

An underwater robot had started searching in the vicinity of the Titanic, he said, and there was a push to get salvage equipment to the scene in case the sub is found. Besides that, three C-130 aircraft and three C-17 transport planes from the U.S. military have been aiding the search, and the Canadian military said it provided a patrol aircraft and two surface ships.

Red flags raised: Reporter who rode Titanic submarine says there were 'many red flags'

Still, the remote location − 900 miles east of Cape Cod and up 13,000 feet below the sea − makes the pursuit "an incredibly complex operation,'' Frederick said. As of Tuesday, 10,000 square miles had been searched. The Coast Guard in Boston was combing the ocean surface and below water using tools including sonar technology and aircraft.

The carbon-fiber and titanium submersible had a 96-hour oxygen supply when it took to sea at about 6 a.m. Sunday, according to David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate Expeditions, the deep-sea exploration company that owns the vessel. The watercraft was lost contact with its support ship, the Canadian research icebreaker Polar Prince, about an hour and 45 minutes after submerging.

Organ failure, hypothermia possible concerns

Dr. Albert Rizzo, chief medical officer of the American Lung Association, said those aboard the submersible would be experiencing organ failure as oxygen levels dip and less oxygen flows to the brain, leading to weakness, confusion and loss of consciousness. Anxiety, fear, speech and a faster heart rate can increase the amount of oxygen a person uses, he said.

The submersible's ability to filter out carbon dioxide also is concerning if it is compromised, said Dr. Alexander Isakov, Emory University emergency medicine physician and a former diving medical officer with the U.S. Navy. Life-threatening hypothermia is a concern, too, he said. The submersible's ability to maintain a comfortable temperature is essential amid the extreme cold of the ocean's depths.

— Nada Hassanein

Where could the missing submersible be?

Jim Bellingham, a Johns Hopkins University expert on deep-sea operations, told USA TODAY there are three possible locations for the submersible: floating on the ocean's surface after an electrical failure or some other mishap; drifting in the water column − anywhere between the surface and the bottom − because it became buoyantly neutral; or on the sea floor, perhaps tangled with something that won't let it float to the surface.

The first one is by far the best position, Bellingham said, because even though it would be difficult to spot the Titan amid ocean waves, "the Coast Guard is just awesome at this. They have amazing capability to see something pretty small in the ocean."

Missing Titanic submersible: Maps, graphics show last location, depth and design

Report: Experts warned OceanGate of 'catastrophic' outcome

OceanGate was warned its approach to the enterprise could have a "catastrophic'' outcome, according to a 2018 letter written by leaders in the submersible craft industry obtained by The New York Times .

The letter was addressed to OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush − who is on board the missing vessel , according to the company − by members of the Marine Technology Society, an organization that advocates for ocean technology and education.

The more than 30 signatories said they were apprehensive about the company's “experimental” approach to its planned exploration of the Titanic wreckage and about the vessel's design, believing they could lead to safety problems that would hurt the industry as a whole.

The letter also says OceanGate's claim that its watercraft design meets or surpasses safety standards is "misleading to the public and breaches an industry-wide professional code of conduct we all endeavor to uphold.''

Who is on the passenger list of the missing submersible?

• Stockton Rush, 61, CEO of OceanGate, who co-founded the company in 2009.
• Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 73, a French maritime explorer and director of the Underwater Research Program at Premier Exhibitions, RMS Titanic Inc., the only company with exclusive rights to recover the artifacts from the Titanic wreck.
• Hamish Harding, 58, a British explorer, private jet dealer and chairman of Action Aviation, a global sales company in business aviation.
• Shahzada Dawood, 48, a member of one of Pakistan’s most prominent families.
• Suleman Dawood, son of Shahzada Dawood.

— Isabelle Butera, USA TODAY

Where is the Titanic wreck located?

The Titanic lies about 370 miles off Newfoundland, Canada , in the North Atlantic. The submersible was traveling to the wreckage site of the Titanic about 2½ miles below the surface.

Contributing: Jorge L. Ortiz, Claire Thornton, Thao Nguyen and Francisco Guzman, USA TODAY

Titanic Tourist Submarine: Debris Field Found on Sea Floor Near Shipwreck

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Manori Ravindran

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UPDATE (June 22): A debris field has been found in the search area around the Titanic shipwreck, the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed on Thursday.

The debris was discovered by a remote-operated vehicle (ROV) commandeered by the Horizon Arctic. The U.S. Coast Guard has scheduled a press briefing at 3 p.m. EST to provide a full update on the findings and what they may signal about the fate of the Titan submersible.

The frantic search for the vessel, which went missing on Sunday almost two hours into its dive to see the Titanic, reached mission critical on Thursday as the five crew members reached the final hours of their estimated air supply overnight.

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The vessel has a 96-hour air supply that, in theory, ran out around 12 p.m. U.K. time on Thursday, although a captain involved in the operation said that wasn’t “a hard and fast number.”

Elsewhere, Paramount Global-owned U.K. broadcaster Channel 5 revealed plans to air a fast-turnaround documentary on the search for the Titan . The ITN-produced “Titanic Sub: Lost at Sea” will air on Thursday evening U.K. time.

UPDATE (June 21): Banging sounds have been detected in a search area for the missing Titanic tourist submersible. Following reports in CNN and Rolling Stone that cited internal U.S. government memos, the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed that a Canadian aircraft has detected “underwater noises.” This marks the first breakthrough in what’s now been a three-day search and rescue operation for the truck-sized submersible that lost contact on Sunday about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive to see the Titanic wreck. The Titan’s air supply is projected to run out in less than 24 hours, as per the BBC. There are five people confirmed on board.

On Tuesday, the crew onboard were named. They include British businessman Hamish Harding; British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman; former French Navy diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet; and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.

Search teams are believed to be focusing on the surface of the ocean and the seabed; experts indicate it’s very unlikely that the vessel could be somewhere in between. The crew is bolted inside, meaning they require outside help in order to open the submersible.

EARLIER: An underwater vessel used to take tourists to the wreckage of the Titanic has gone missing, with a search and rescue operation now underway to locate the craft.

The submersible, which is roughly the size of a truck, went missing in the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday with five crew members on board. Government agencies and deep-sea specialists are assisting with the operation.

The craft is understood to be the Titan, built by Washington-based exploration company OceanGate Inc. The Titan is designed to take five people to a depth of 4,000 meters. The structure has a life support span of 96 hours (four days) for five people, according to OceanGate’s website. Each round-trip journey to the Titanic wreckage can take up to 10 hours.

The difference between a submersible and a submarine is that the former is not as powerful, and sometimes relies on another vessel that remains on the surface. The Titan, for example, used a tugboat called the Polar Prince.

The Titanic lies at around 3,800 meters in the North Atlantic seabed, off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The cruise ship sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg — a story that became almost universally known thanks to James Cameron’s blockbuster 1998 movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

OceanGate first launched its Titan voyages in 2019. Seats on board cost up to $250,000 per head. One of its major safety features is a real-time health monitoring system, which was designed to analyze the effects of changing pressure on the vessel, and provide early warning signs of abnormalities to the pilot.

In a statement shared with the BBC, OceanGate said: “Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families. We are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to re-establish contact with the submersible.”

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What to know about the missing Titanic tourist submarine

The search and rescue is a race against the clock, with the small vessel only carrying a few days’ worth of oxygen and fuel.

»Update: The pilot and four passengers of a missing submersible that disappeared en route to the wreckage of the Titanic are believed to be dead, the expedition company said Thursday .

A search effort for a missing submarine carrying five people to view the Titanic wreckage is underway.

“Titan,” a 21-foot submersible — a smaller, less-powerful type of submarine that launches from a mother ship — began its annual dive taking a group of marine experts and paying tourists to the wreck site Sunday. But Titan lost contact after about an hour and 45 minutes.

Now, the search and rescue is a race against the clock, with the small vessel only carrying a few days’ worth of oxygen and fuel. The U.S. Coast Guard in Boston is leading a joint search with Canadian rescue teams.

Discourse about the missing vessel has ranged from confusion to conspiracy theories. But, Greg Williams, the Independence Seaport Museum ’s Submarine Becuna manager, says submarines have gone missing and faced dangerous situations for many years.

Here’s what you need to know.

Who does the Titanic tours?

A group called OceanGate Expeditions runs the tours of the Titanic wreckage, which have been taking place annually since 2021.

The private company, based out of Everett, Wash., was formed in 2009 with a focus on increasing access to ocean exploration. It is recognized as a pioneer in deep-sea tourism. In May, the company shared the first full-sized digital scan of the wreck site .

While OceanGate’s trips to see Titanic wreckage have included archeologists and marine experts, they are also open to general clients, who can pay $250,000 to participate.

In a 2017 interview with Fast Company , CEO Stockton Rush said he wanted to use the Titanic voyages as proof of robotic technology for oil and gas companies.

According to OceanGate’s website, the company also provides equipment and staff for scientific research projects.

In response to Titan going missing, OceanGate said in a statement it is cooperating with the search and “exploring and mobilizing all options to bring the crew back safely.”

What went wrong?

It’s unclear.

When the submersible lost communication with the control crew, the mothership — located about 400 miles south of St. John’s in Newfoundland — called in the Coast Guard.

Who’s on the submarine?

The five passengers on Titan include clients, a diving expert, and OceanGate CEO Rush himself, multiple news outlets confirmed.

The clients do not necessarily have maritime experience but receive training according to OceanGate.

British businessman Hamish Harding said on his social media he would be joining the voyage. Harding previously went into space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.

Harding’s post added that diver PH Nargeolet was scheduled to be on the trip, too. Nargeolet is a Titanic expert who has participated every year according to OceanGate ’s archived web page.

A well-known Pakistani father-son duo is also aboard, according to their family.

“As of now, contact has been lost with their submersible craft and there is limited information available,” the family of Shahzada and Suleman Dawood said in a statement shared with news outlets.

» READ MORE: A Philadelphia University graduate is among the missing Titanic submarine group

Shahzada is a graduate from Philadelphia University according to his personal biography.

Days into the search, multiple news outlets confirmed with OceanGate the CEO was aboard.

The CEO and founder is a longtime advocate for deep-sea tourism. He also shares a tie to Pennsylvania.

According to The New York Times, Rush is a descendant of two signers of the Declaration of Independence: Benjamin Rush and Richard Stockton. Benjamin Rush was also the founder of the College of Physicians here in Philadelphia.

How big is the search effort?

According to the Coast Guard, the search zone covers roughly 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Mass. and stretches 13,000 feet deep. The conditions are reportedly choppy and foggy.

“It is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area,” Coast Guard District 1 Rear Admiral John Mauger said during a news briefing. “But we are deploying all available assets to make sure that we can locate the craft and rescue the people onboard.”

The Coast Guard said it is searching on and below the surface, using sonar technology. No acoustics from the vessel have been detected.

How much time is left?

According to OceanGate’s web archive, a Titanic dive typically takes about 10 hours.

Titan began its descent Sunday morning with about four days of emergency capability.

Authorities estimated Tuesday morning that the vessel’s supply was down to two days’ worth.

Has this ever happened before?

Yes. According to CBS correspondent David Pogue, when he traveled on an OceanGate Titanic expedition last summer, the ship’s control room lost contact one-way with the submersible for about three hours, citing technical difficulties.

“The difference this year is that it seems like they lost contact with the ship,” Pogue told NPR . “They can’t even reach the sub and that’s really scary.”

According to Williams of the Independence Seaport Museum, missing submarines are not new, but are somewhat rare in modern history.

The U.S. Navy’s Submarine Force has lost 65 submarines in its 123 years, the vast majority during World War II Williams said. It’s unclear how many non-U.S. military submarines have faced issues over time.

Williams said the exact cause of some sunk submarines is unknown since there were no survivors.

“Post-war submarine losses in the U.S. Navy have been significantly less,” he said.

Among the most notable post-war losses was the USS Thresher, a vessel lost in 1963 while performing deep-diving tests east of Cape Cod.

Williams said that a chain of malfunctions led Thresher to slowly sink and eventually implode. It prompted the Navy to implement a safety program that holds its submarines to rigorous standards. Since the program’s implementation, Williams said, the Navy has only lost one submarine.

But vessels like OceanGate’s Titan aren’t necessarily held to the same standards.

According to NPR , a waiver voyagers had to sign before boarding says Titan has not been approved or certified “by any regulatory body.”

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OceanGate Titanic sub search: Coast Guard confirms 'debris field' is missing tourist sub

The Coast Guard announced Thursday that an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) has found a "debris field" in the search for the missing OceanGate Titan submarine. The discovery was made after ROVs were scanning the Atlantic Ocean floor.

Covered by: Fox News, Bradford Betz , Greg Norman , Anders Hagstrom , Lawrence Richard , Michael Ruiz , Andrew Wulfeck , Megan Myers and Chris Pandolfo

incoming update…

Coverage for this event has ended.

Canadian Armed Forces and JRCC offer condolences following 'tragic loss' of Titan crew

The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre and the Canadian Armed Forces released a statement on Twitter offering their "sincere condolences to the family and friends of the crew of the Titan for their tragic loss."

After a weeklong search, the OceanGate's Titan was found to have imploded, killing its five passengers.

"A truly unfortunate outcome concluding great efforts and cooperation between countries, militaries and partners," the joint statement read. "As this operation is transitioning to recovery and salvage, MRCC Boston no longer requires rescue services."

JRCC and the Canadian military contributed to the massive, international search for the OceanGate vessel.

"All JRCC rescue assets will return to base to regenerate search and rescue capability and prepare for future search and rescue events," they continued. 

An effort to potential recover and salvage the wreckage of the Titan "is currently being discussed," they said.

OceanGate CEO seen on 2021 video admitting to breaking some rules to build doomed submersible

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, one of five passengers killed on a fatal mission to the Titanic wreckage this week, once admitted on camera to "breaking some rules" to build the tourist submersible.  

In comments to Mexican travel vlogger Alan Estrada in 2021, Rush evoked General MacArthur saying, "You’re remembered for the rules you break." 

"I’ve broken some rules to make this. I think I’ve broken them with logic and good engineering behind me," Rush said. 

Missing Titan submersible found: see the key vessels that aided the desperate search

The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed Thursday that a debris field found approximately 1,600 feet from the Titanic wreckage was from a submersible’s catastrophic implosion that killed all five men aboard. 

The discovery effectively concluded a search for the missing Titan submersible that lost contact with its surface ship roughly an hour and 45 minutes after descending to the Titanic.

The loss of contact with the submersible sparked an international rescue operation as authorities scrambled to locate the vessel before air supply levels were expected to run out early Thursday. Read about some of the key vessels and equipment that were involved in search efforts.

US Navy detected Titan sub implosion with top secret acoustic system day vessel went missing

The U.S. Navy detected what it suspected may have been an implosion within hours of the Titan submersible descending into the ocean to visit the Titanic wreckage. 

A U.S. defense official said the Navy began listening for the Titan immediately after the vessel lost communication with the mother ship, approximately an hour and 45 minutes into its mission Sunday morning.

The official said the Navy’s top secret acoustic detection system picked sounds that were consistent with either an explosion or an implosion near where the Titan was found on Thursday. 

Faith leaders react to 'catastrophic' loss of Titan sub: 'Every day is gift from God'

The search for Titan, the missing OceanGate submersible, came to a tragic end on Thursday when search-and-rescue teams discovered a "debris field" on the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic, where the crew was headed before losing contact with their surface vessel Sunday morning, as Fox News Digital reported earlier this afternoon.

"The debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber. Upon this determination, we immediately notified the families," U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger told reporters. 

"On behalf of the United States Coast Guard and the entire unified command, I offer my deepest condolences to the families."

Faith leaders reacted to the difficult and sad news.

Explorers Club, OceanGate and Pakistan FM respond after missing Titanic submarine found

The search for a missing tourist submersible carrying five men came to a tragic end Thursday after rescue officials discovered debris from the imploded vessel near the wreckage of the Titanic. 

Reactions poured in on social media shortly after the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed the debris field officials had found was the Titan submersible they had been searching for since Sunday. 

'Titanic' director James Cameron breaks silence on submarine disaster

"Titanic" director James Cameron  is speaking out after the search for the missing OceanGate Titan submersible came to a tragic end Thursday.

Cameron, 68, found the tragic story of the sub eerily similar to what happened to the infamous ship in 1912.

"Well, I've been down there many times," Cameron told ABC News on Thursday. "I've made 33 dives and I've actually calculated that I've spent more time on the ship than the captain did back in the day."

Explorer who raised safety concerns about Titan sub calls catastrophe 'absolutely heartbreaking'

Josh Gates, a veteran explorer who previously raised concerns about the OceanGate sub before it was discovered imploded Thursday, called the catastrophe "an absolutely heartbreaking conclusion to the mission."

"Condolences to the families of PH Nargeolet, Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood, & Stockton Rush."

The search for the missing Titanic tourist submersible took a tragic turn Thursday when the U.S. Coast Guard said a debris field found at the bottom of the ocean near the Titanic and the critical 96-hour mark passed when the vessel's oxygen supply was expected to run out.

The Coast Guard confirmed Thursday that the missing submersible imploded near the wreckage of the Titanic, killing all five passengers on board.

US Coast Guard confirms debris field found is missing tourist submersible: 'catastrophic loss'

Rear Admiral John Mauger, the First Coast Guard District commander speaks during a press conference updating about the search of the missing OceanGate Expeditions submersible, which is carrying five people to explore the wreck of the sunken Titanic, in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., June 22, 2023. (Reuters)

The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed Thursday that a debris field is the missing Titanic tourist submersible that was carrying five passengers. All five on board are presumed dead.

Rear Admiral John Mauger, First Coast Guard District commander, said a remote operate vehicle from the Vessel Horizon Arctic discovered the tail cone of the Titan submersible approximately 1600 feet from the bow of the Titanic.

" The debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber. Upon this determination, we immediately notified the families on behalf of the United States Coast Guard and the entire unified command," Mauger said.

OceanGate confirms passengers on board missing submersible 'have been lost'

OceanGate Expeditions, the company behind the missing Titanic tourist submersible confirmed Thursday afternoon that the passengers on board are believed to have "sadly been lost."

"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," OceanGate said in a statement.

"These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans. Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew."

"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 statement came after the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed Thursday that a " debris field " has been found in the search for the missing submersible.

Explorers Club says ‘debris field’ found may belong to missing Titanic tourist submersible

The Explorers Club told its members Thursday that a “debris field” found during a search of the missing Titanic tourist submersible “may be the landing frame and a rear cover of the tail instrument compartment” of the vessel lost on previous dives.

“We hear there may be additional debris, but no updated visuals of the submersible,” Richard Garriott wrote in an email to Explorers Club members. “We will all be watching the Coast Guard press conference for official news of the rescue. We are not the source for search and rescue. Any official updates should come from the Coast Guard.”

The U.S. Coast Guard was expected to give a 3 p.m. press conference to provide an update on the search for the missing submersible.

The Explorers Club is an international society of adventurers that included Hamish Harding, a U.K. aviator and millionaire who was one of five passengers on board the submersible that went missing Sunday.

Former OceanGate tourist calls his 2021 Titanic sub trip a 'kamikaze operation'

Arthur Loibl, a former passenger on the Titan, was one of the first passengers to descend to the Titanic in a mini-submarine operated by OceanGate Expeditions. (Armin Weigel/picture alliance via Getty Images)

A former OceanGate Expeditions customer who took a trip to see the Titanic wreckage two years ago described the dive as a "kamikaze operation."

An international search and rescue operation is ongoing for five crew members on OceanGate's Titan sub, which went missing Sunday on a planned deep sea tourist expedition. Arthur Loibl, a retired German businessman and adventurer who went on the same trip in 2021, shared his experience with OceanGate in an interview with The Associated Press.

"You have to be a little bit crazy to do this sort of thing," Loibl said. 

He explained that the idea of touring the Titanic wreckage came to him on a trip to the South Pole in 2016. At the time, a Russian company was the only service offering videos for half a million dollars.

Washington state-based OceanGate announced its own Titanic operation a year later and Loibl seized the opportunity. He chartered a dive with OceanGate in 2019, paying a whopping $110,000, but that dive was canceled because the first submersible didn't survive testing.

In 2021 he went on a voyage that was successful along with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush and French diver and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet — who are now missing — along with two men from England.

"Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other," Loibl told the AP. "You can’t be claustrophobic."

OceanGate's sub experienced technical difficulties on the dive, Loibl said. He described how lights were turned off to conserve energy during the 2.5-hour descent and ascent, with the only illumination coming from a glow stick.  

The dive was repeatedly delayed to fix a problem with the battery and the balancing weights. In total, the voyage took 10.5 hours.

Debris found in submarine search area, connection to the Titan unconfirmed

Around noon E.T., the Coast Guard announced that "A debris field was discovered within the search area by an ROV near the Titanic" and "Experts within the unified command are evaluating the information."

The Coast Guard is holding a press conference to reveal more about the discovery at 3 p.m. ET.

The five passengers on board the missing submarine have been identified as OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French mariner Paul-Henry Nargeolet, British businessman and explorer Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, and Dawood's son Sulaiman Dawood. 

"Rush oversees OceanGate’s financial and engineering strategies and provides a clear vision for development of 4,000 meter (13,123 feet) and 6,000 meter (19,685 feet) capable crewed submersibles and their partner launch and recovery platforms which make OceanGate Inc the leading provider of crewed submersibles for charter and scientific research," OceanGate’s website says. 

The submarine began its journey to the Titanic on Sunday morning with 96 hours of oxygen on board, according to OceanGate’s website. 

Operators then lost contact with the vessel about 1 hour and 45 minutes into its descent. 

On Tuesday, around 1 p.m. ET, the U.S. Coast Guard estimated that there were about 40 to 41 hours of "breathable air" still available inside the vessel.  

By the Coast Guard’s estimate, that means oxygen would have run out inside the Titan sometime Thursday morning.

Coast Guard announces 3 p.m. ET press conference following 'debris field' discovery

Equipment that was flown in by U.S. Air Force transport planes is loaded onto the offshore vessel Horizon Arctic on June 20, before its deployment to the search area. (Reuters/David Hiscock)

The Coast Guard has scheduled a press conference for 3 p.m. ET in Boston, Massachusetts following the announcement that an underwater "debris field" has been found in the search for OceanGate's missing Titan submarine, which vanished Sunday with five people onboard.

"The Coast Guard is scheduled to hold a press briefing to discuss findings from the Horizon Arctic’s remotely operated vehicle near the Titanic," it said in a press release.

Around five hours ago, the Coast Guard said the Horizon Arctic's ROV "reached the sea floor and began its search for the missing sub."

The Titan submarine vanished Sunday morning with five people onboard: OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French mariner Paul-Henry Nargeolet, British businessman and explorer Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman Dawood. 

The Titan lost contact with its surface vessel, the Polar Prince, around 1 hour and 45 minutes into its dive Sunday morning, about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and around 400 miles southeast of St John's, in Canada's Newfoundland.

The U.S. Coast Guard is heading a unified command that involved commercial assets, research vehicles and military counterparts from Canada, France and the United Kingdom.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Canadian pilots picked up repeated sounds during their search.

Fox News' Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.

Coast Guard says 'debris field' found by underwater robot in search for missing Titan sub

An undated photo of the missing OceanGate Titan submarine. (OceanGate/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The Coast Guard has announced Thursday that a "debris field was discovered within the search area by an ROV near the Titanic. 

"Experts within the unified command are evaluating the information," it added.

Underwater remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) were deployed Thursday morning to search the Atlantic Ocean floor for OceanGate's Titan submarine, which vanished Sunday morning with five passengers onboard.

The Coast Guard earlier said the "Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic has deployed an ROV that has reached the sea floor and began its search for the missing sub."

The French vessel L'Atalante also deployed their ROV, it added.

The oxygen inside the Titan was estimated by the Coast Guard to run out on Thursday morning. 

What is an ROV? Deep-sea tech used in Titanic submarine search

BOSTON – As an international search-and-rescue mission to find the missing OceanGate Titan sub took place this week involving militaries and commercial assets, authorities and subject matter experts have repeatedly referred to remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).

"The acronym Remotely Operated Vehicle, the original use is underwater robot that is completely operated by a human operator," explained Dr. Brendan Englot, an expert on undersea robotics at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. "The analogy might be like the kind of person who operates a piece of construction equipment or a shipping crane – a very high-stakes, high-precision remote operation task, [and] highly trained operator."

Advanced ROVs are "kind of like a drone," he said, except they are controlled manually.

Experts say that ROVs are the best bet to attempt a rescue of the OceanGate Titan submersible, which vanished Sunday during a dive toward the Titanic shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean, about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

On board are OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush; British businessman turned adventurer Hamish Harding, father-and-son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, who are members of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest families; and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a former French navy officer and leading Titanic expert.

Former submarine commander says it’s ‘devastating news’ that U.S. Navy crane hasn’t been deployed

An undated photo of the now-missing OceanGate Titan submarine. (OceanGate/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Capt. David Marquet, a former U.S. Navy submarine commander, told Fox News’ ‘America’s Newsroom’ Thursday that it is “devastating news” that a Navy deep-sea recovery crane system hasn’t been deployed yet in the search for the missing OceanGate Titan sub. 

Marquet spoke after Fox News’ Mike Tobin, reporting from St. John’s, Newfoundland – where the search effort is based out of – said the Navy FADOSS system has arrived in the Canadian maritime province but the latest information he received is that a ship hasn’t been selected yet to mount it. 

Attaching that Navy crane to a ship takes 24 hours, according to Tobin. 

“The Navy has a system called FADOSS – it stands for Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System -- and it’s designed to be flown there,” Marquet said. “The airplanes that arrived [in Newfoundland] a couple days ago I had thought that it was already on a ship on its way out there. 

“That is the system – it's a big cable on a spool, it would go down and that would be able to pull the submarine up pretty rapidly, maybe half an hour, maybe an hour once it’s found,” Marquet continued. “In the absence of this system, we need a really heavy duty [remotely operated vehicle] ROV which may be able to grapple onto the mini sub and then sort of piggyback it up to the surface.” 

Who is on the OceanGate Titanic sub?

The five missing passengers, from left to right: Sulaiman Dawood, Shahzada Dawood, Stockton Rush, Paul-Henry Nargeolet and Hamish Harding. (Engro Corporation, REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton, @OceanGateExped/Twitter, Felix Kunze/Blue Origin via AP, Ocean Gate/ Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The search for the missing OceanGate Titan submarine is in the middle of its fifth day.

It has not been heard from since and its current whereabouts remain unknown.

For the first time Thursday, the search is including underwater robots that are combing the floor of the Atlantic Ocean for Titan.

The U.S. Coast Guard tweeted this morning that the Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic has deployed a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) "that has reached the sea floor and began its search for the missing sub." 

"The French vessel L'Atalante has just deployed their ROV," the Coast Guard added around 8 a.m. ET.

It described weather conditions at the search site as having winds at 14 mph with gusts of up to 19 mph. 

"Sea state is 4-5ft swells with an air temp of 50°f," the Coast Guard also says.

OceanGate co-founder says 'time window' for Titanic sub rescue may be longer than people think

The Titan submersible, operated by OceanGate Expeditions to explore the wreckage of the sunken Titanic off the coast of Newfoundland, dives in an undated photograph. (OceanGate Expeditions via Reuters/Reuters Photos)

A co-founder of OceanGate Expeditions spoke out and gave reason to hope the five-man crew of the missing Titan submersible can still be rescued, including CEO Stockton Rush. 

Guillermo Söhnlein founded OceanGate with Rush in 2009 to offer pricey deep-sea tours to the extremely wealthy in manned submersibles capable of diving up to 13,123 feet. Söhnlein left the company in 2013, turning it over to Rush and reducing his role to a minority shareholder, but the two have kept in touch and last spoke a couple of weeks before the ill-fated Titanic expedition. 

In a statement posted on Facebook, Söhnlein broke his silence about the missing crew and encouraged the public and the media to remain hopeful for the crew's rescue and avoid speculation about what happened.

"For the past three days, I have watched from afar as hundreds of dedicated professionals worked tirelessly to find and rescue the crew of the research submersible, Titan, with which communication was lost during its science expedition to the wreck of the Titanic. The pilot is my co-founder and friend, Stockton Rush," Söhnlein wrote.

"Today will be a critical day in this search and rescue mission, as the sub's life support supplies are starting to run low. I'm certain that Stockton 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," he said.

Coast Guard commander responds to criticism of delay in getting equipment to Titanic search site

Equipment that was flown in by U.S. Air Force transport planes is loaded onto the offshore vessel Horizon Arctic, before its deployment to the search area of a missing OceanGate Expeditions submersible which had been carrying five people to explore the sunken Titanic, in the port of St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, on June 20, 2023. (Reuters/David Hiscock)

Rear Admiral John Mauger told NBC's 'Today' Show Thursday morning that the unified command in charge of the search for the missing OceanGate Titan submarine "made some decisions to prioritize" which equipment could be used "based on gear that was closest to the site."

His comments come after Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) tweeted earlier this morning that "I am still hearing reports that the US Government unnecessarily delayed the deployment of proper search & recovery equipment from reaching the Titanic, and now time is running out."

Richard Garriott, the president of the Explorers Club, also tweeted earlier this week that the Magellan underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) "is en route (should have been accepted sooner)."

"We have been really overwhelmed by all of the support that has been provided by the international community with regard to this complex search and rescue effort," Mauger said Thursday when asked about the criticism. "And so when we notified of the missing submersible and brought together the unified command without a pre-planned response plan, without pre-staged gear, we really had to start from scratch and bring all of the capability that was available to bear on this problem. And so we made some decisions to prioritize based on gear that was closest to the site and could get there."

"And so now right now we have the ROVs operating on the bottom floor that have the ability to search and have the ability to attach rescue lines. We have medical personnel moving into the site as well with deep sea medical expertise and a hyperbaric chamber as well so we are going to continue with the search and rescue efforts," he added.

Coast Guard: Search of sea floor for missing OceanGate Titan sub is ongoing

The Victor 6000 -- an unmanned French robot which can dive up to 6,000 meters -- is searching for Titan. (Ifremer handout via EYEPRESS)

The U.S. Coast Guard tweeted Thursday that the Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic has deployed a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) "that has reached the sea floor and began its search for the missing sub." 

It is the first time during the search that a vessel is combing the floor of the Atlantic Ocean for the Titan submarine.  

"The French vessel L'Atalante has just deployed their ROV," it also said.

Previous search efforts have involved the use of aircraft and sonar. 

The oxygen inside the Titan is estimated by the Coast Guard to run out on Thursday morning. 

OceanGate says on its website that the sub has 96 hours of life support for a five-person crew. 

The cause of the sub’s disappearance remains unknown and more ships have been arriving throughout the week at the search site. 

OceanGate Titan sub expected to run out of oxygen imminently

The missing OceanGate Titan submarine is expected to run out of oxygen by Thursday morning, according to Coast Guard estimates.

In a statement issued Wednesday night, the Coast Guard said the sub "was launched at 8 a.m. EDT [Sunday] and expected to resurface at 3 p.m., but one hour and 45 minutes into their dive, they lost contact with the Polar Prince."

On OceanGate's website, it lists the Titan sub as having 96 hours of life support for a crew of five passengers. 

The vessel has vanished in the Atlantic Ocean after diving down to view the wreckage of the Titanic.

The Coast Guard also said Wednesday night that "Underwater sounds have been detected in the search area, resulting in the redirection of remotely operated vehicle (ROV) operations to explore the origin. 

"These recordings have been shared with the U.S. Navy for analysis to help guide future search efforts," the Coast Guard added.

The source of these sounds has not been confirmed.

The Coast Guard also said an area twice the size of Connecticut has been searched so far, 900 nautical miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

On Thursday morning, the Canadian Coast Guard's Ann Harvey and "Motor Vessel Horizon Arctic (ROV) have arrived on scene and are conducting search patterns in search of submersible," the Coast Guard announced.

Wife of Stockton Rush descended from Titanic passengers who died in 1912: report

Isidor and Ida Straus died in the Titanic disaster. Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/OFF/AFP via Getty Images

The wife of Stockton Rush, the OceanGate CEO who went missing Sunday while surveying the Titanic wreckage, is a descendant of two passengers who died on the Titanic, according to a report.

Stockton’s wife Wendy Rush is a direct descendant of Isidor and Ida Straus, who were among more than 1,500 people who died when the iconic vessel struck an iceberg and sank into the sea during a voyage through the Atlantic in 1912, according to the New York Times. 

The Straus couple were two wealthy first-class passengers who had been married for more than 40 years.

Survivors recalled Ida Straus refusing a spot on a lifeboat when the ship began to sink. Instead, she chose to remain with her husband in their final moments, the Times reported. 

Their story was included in James Cameron’s fictional 1997 blockbuster “Titanic,” depicted as an elderly couple who chose to remain in bed together as their room filled with water, per the report.

OceanGate Expeditions promo video for Titanic sub tourism describes landing 'on the seabed'

A 2022 promotional video from OceanGate Expeditions, the company behind the missing Titanic tourist sub, features testimonials from previous explorers, including one who notably describes when the submersible landed on the seabed, kicking up sediment.  

"We landed on the seabed, saw that little mist of sediment come up," says one passenger. "It was quite a feeling because we knew that we were close to an object and we had come down on an almost perfect descent the entire dive."

'Deep Energy' vessel, owned by NYSE-listed company, assisting missing Titanic sub search and rescue

Publicly traded TechnipFMC has sent one of its pipelay vessels to help in the urgent search and rescue mission to locate the submersible that recently went missing while taking five people down to see the Titanic shipwreck.

The company’s vessel, called Deep Energy, started doing remotely operated vehicle (ROV) operations on Tuesday in the area where the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and others are searching for the OceanGate Expeditions -owned Titan submersible, according to a USCG press release. It had reached the scene the same day, something a TechnipFMC spokesperson confirmed to FOX Business.

US Coast Guard search for missing Titanic tourist sub ongoing, with new assets en route

The U.S. Coast Guard says more equipment and personnel were en route as officials raced against the clock to find the missing Titanic tourist submersible before its oxygen supply ran out early Thursday morning.

The following assets are en route and expected to arrive at St. John's Wednesday evening: Canadian CGS Ann Harvey, Canadian CGS Terry Fox, Motor Vessel Horizon Arctic (ROV), French Research Vessel L’Atalante (ROV), His Majesty's Canadian Ship Glace Bay, Air National Guard C-130, and an ROV from Magellan.

USCG says "underwater sounds" detected in the search area have resulted in the redirection of ROV operations to explore the origin and have been shared with the U.S. Navy for analysis.

Deep-sea expert worries 'banging' is 'optimistic' as Titanic sub may have already run out of air

As military and civilian fleets scour the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New England and Canada for signs of the missing  OceanGate Titan submersible , people around the world are hoping that sounds picked up Tuesday are evidence the international crew is still alive.

Dr. Jeff Karson, professor emeritus of earth and environmental sciences at Syracuse University, worries that efforts to triangulate the location of unidentified sounds picked up by search-and-rescue crews on Tuesday and Wednesday could take too long – and divert resources to the wrong place if the source turns out to be something other than trapped crew members banging on the hull of the ship.

"I'm worried that there are bogus sounds out there and sounds that are inadvertently drawing the search away from the area that needs to be investigated," Karson said. 

Diver who was almost on missing Titanic tourist sub wants Bezos Apollo gear used in the search

A lawyer and veteran diver who nearly boarded the missing Titanic tourist submersible is drawing attention to a decade-old video showing the retrieval of Apollo 11 rocket engines from a depth greater than the wreckage of the Titanic. 

The video, shared by David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate Expeditions, shows  Bezos Expeditions  recovering the Apollo 11 rocket engines at a depth of 14,000 feet. The wreckage of the Titanic, meanwhile, is at a depth of approximately 12,600 feet. 

Missing Titanic sub passenger belongs to same Explorers Club as Jeff Bezos, Josh Gates, Buzz Aldrin

Hamish Harding, one of five passengers who are on board the  missing Titanic tourist submersible , belongs to an international society of adventurers that includes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, famed astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and veteran explorer Josh Gates. 

Harding, a British millionaire, known for his exploratory escapades across the globe, is a founding member of the Board of Trustees of The Explorers Club. A resident of Dubai, he also chairs the club’s  Middle East  Chapter. 

Missing Titanic sub 'did not perform well,' says explorer who nixed documentary over safety concerns

Veteran explorer Josh Gates, who hosts a TV series investigating myths and legends around the world, revealed on Twitter Wednesday that the missing OceanGate sub "did not perform well" when he went on a dive aboard the vessel himself.

The 21-foot deep-sea submersible vanished Sunday morning during an attempt to reach the shipwrecked Titanic, which sank in the Atlantic on the way to New York from England in 1912.

Gates, who hosts "Expedition Unknown" on Discovery, had gone with Stockton Rush, the OceanGate CEO who is now among five missing along with the Titan sub, on a test dive before the vehicle's first visit to the Titanic site.

Missing Titanic submarine search equipment is ‘finest in the world,’ Horizon Maritime says

The equipment being used in the search for a missing Titanic tourist submersible is among the "finest" and " most capable in the world ," according to Sean Leet, chief executive of Canadian Horizon Maritime company.

The Canadian-based company is the co-owner of the Polar Prince, the ship that was chartered to take the Titan submersible to the Titanic wreckage before it went missing while descending. 

Leet gave his assessment of rescue efforts during a Wednesday afternoon press conference, less than a day before the submersible’s oxygen supply is expected to run out. 

US Coast Guard releases photo of search area for missing Titanic tourist submersible

Aerial footage from the U.S. Coast Guard shows the Bahamian research vessel, Deep Energy, helping search for the submersible Titan on Tuesday, June 20, 2023.

The missing submersible lost contact with its mother ship on Sunday while descending to the wreck of the Titanic. Rescue officials say their oxygen supply is expect to run out by Thursday morning.

OceanGate CEO explains why he didn't want to hire '50-year-old White guys' to pilot subs

OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush, who is aboard the missing submersible, once explained why he preferred not to hire "50-year-old White guys" with military experience to pilot his company's vessels. 

Rush said he valued captains who were "inspirational" over experience, noting that "anybody can drive the sub," which is controlled with a $30 video game controller.  

"When I started the business, one of the things you'll find, there are other sub-operators out there, but they typically have gentlemen who are ex-military submariners, and you'll see a whole bunch of 50-year-old White guys," Rush told Teledyne Marine in a 2020 Zoom interview.

Expedition Unknown host Josh Gates says he had 'safety concerns' with OceanGate Titanic sub

Josh Gates, the host of a variety of TV adventure shows, tweeted Wednesday, "To those asking, Titan did not perform well on my dive. 

"Ultimately, I walked away from a huge opportunity to film Titanic due to my safety concerns w/ the @OceanGate platform," he added. "There's more to the history and design of Titan that has not been made public -- much of it concerning."

Gates tweeted that he "had the unique opportunity" to dive in the now-missing OceanGate Titan sub with company CEO Stockton Rush "in preparation for its maiden mission to Titanic."

"I pray for a positive outcome to the rescue efforts of those aboard, including fellow Explorers Club member Hamish Harding," he said.

The Titan submarine remains missing Wednesday afternoon after it vanished during a dive to the Titanic wreckage site on Sunday.

Rush and Harding are two of the five passengers onboard the Titan that are missing.

Coast Guard says missing sub search is still search and rescue mission

U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick said Wednesday that the ongoing search for the missing Titan submarine is still a "search and rescue mission."

"We are smack dab in the middle of search and rescue and we'll continue to put every available asset that we have in an effort to find the Titan and the crew members," he told reporters in Boston, Massachusetts.

"I don't know whether it's operable or whether it's sitting on the ocean floor or whether it's in the sea column or whether it's in the surface. You know, it's all speculation," Frederick later said. "And we're just we're just not in the business of speculation. We're in the business of searching and we're putting everything we can with the data."

He also indicated that the Coast Guard isn't sure when the search effort will be suspended.

"You know, the Coast Guard prosecutes search and rescue cases on a daily basis. And sometimes we don't find what we're looking for. And you have to you have to carefully consider all of the factors. And there are a lot of factors to consider," he said. "And then after you consider all of those factors, sometimes you're in a position you have to make a tough decision. We're not there yet, but if we continue to search, potentially we could be at that point. But again, we're not there yet. And that's a discussion that we will have with the family long before I'm going to discuss that here publicly."

Investigators say 'banging' noises reported but not confirmed to be missing OceanGate Titan sub

U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick told reporters Wednesday that the Coast Guard isn't sure what the underwater noises a Canadian P-3 aircraft picked up in the Titan search area are.

"We don't know what they are," he said. "The good news is what I can tell you is we're searching in the area where the noises were detected and we'll continue to do so."

The Coast Guard posted on Twitter early Wednesday morning that a "Canadian P-3 aircraft detected underwater noises in the search area."

The Coast Guard said the detection of the underwater sounds in the designated search area prompted investigators to deploy a remotely operated vehicle to relocate and investigate the origin of the unusual noises.

"It was my understanding that the P-3 had heard some noises today as well," Frederick revealed.

The noises were described as "banging noises" by Carl Hartsfield of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

"This is a search and rescue mission 100 percent," Frederick also said. "We are smack dab in the middle of search and rescue and we'll continue to put every available asset that we have in an effort to to find the Titan and the crewmembers."

Coast Guard says search for missing Titan sub remains 'incredibly complex'

Coast Guard officials speak Wednesday, June 21 about the search for the OceanGate Titan submarine. (Fox News)

U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick says the search for the missing OceanGate Titan submarine remains a "incredibly complex search operation requiring both surface and subsurface elements."

"The location of the search 900 miles east of Cape Cod and 400 miles southeast of Saint John's, makes it exceptionally difficult to mobilize large amounts of equipment quickly," he said.

"We currently have five surface assets searching for the Titan, and we expect ten total surface assets to search in the next 24 to 48 hours," Frederick continued.

He said the surface search has now covered an area twice the size of the state of Connecticut.

"We also have to factor in the ever changing weather conditions, currents and sea states that expand the search area every hour," Frederick also said.

The OceanGate Titan submarine vanished Sunday morning during a dive to visit the wreckage of the Titanic.

"Again, our thoughts and prayers are with the crew of the Titan and their loved ones," Frederick said. "We will continue to work as hard and as quickly as possible in an effort to locate them."

Former OceanGate passenger says everyone on Titanic mission was informed how ‘dangerous’ it was

A former passenger who visited the Titanic wreck site onboard OceanGate’s now-missing Titan submersible craft says everyone involved in the deep sea journey was "intimately informed" how much of a "dangerous mission" it was. 

Fred Hagen spoke to "Fox & Friends" Wednesday morning as the Coast Guard estimates there is less than 24 hours of oxygen remaining in the Titan, which vanished Sunday on an expedition to visit what remains of the Titanic. 

"There were safety protocols in place. I know there is a big controversy now that there has been a catastrophe, people are second-guessing and wondering why there weren’t backup systems," said Haden, a businessman and explorer from Pennsylvania. "We were all told – intimately informed – that this was a dangerous mission that could result in death and injury. So that was well understood.

"We were versed in how the sub operated, we were versed in various protocols – but it’s not a safe operation inherently," he added. "And that is part of research and development and exploration and experimentation." 

Hagen also said, "If the Wright brothers had crashed on their first flight, they would have still left the bonds of earth and they would have crashed. They had no backup system and Stockton Rush is a visionary who is trying to democratize the depths, trying to open up the ocean, and that was not possible without risk." 

Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, is one of the five people currently missing aboard the vessel.

Weather forecast for final hours as rescue crews work to find Titan submarine

The weather forecast for the OceanGate Titan submarine search area. (FOX Weather)

The expected weather for the remaining workweek does not appear to be a factor in search and rescue efforts for the missing OceanGate Titan submarine.

While there are a few chances of scattered showers over the next few days, the FOX Forecast Center expects both wind and seas to have minimal impacts.

The Coast Guard's 1st District, located in Boston, said the weather on scene saw winds at 23 mph with gusts up to 30 mph. The sea state includes 6- to 7-foot swells with an air temperature of 50 degrees.

As the Northern Hemisphere enters summer, weather features from both the west and the south can impact the region but fortunately, there a no major low-pressure systems on the horizon.

In fact, a ridge of high pressure is expected to remain in control leading to the search region being free of disruptive weather and tropical cyclone concerns.

The closest tropical cyclone activity is expected to remain over 1,000 miles away in the Caribbean and central Atlantic over the next five days.

The USCG has not stated how long they expect search and rescue efforts to last and so far have not come across any signs of the missing vessel.

New assets 'on-scene' in missing Titanic sub search after Canadians pick up 'underwater noises'

Search and rescue teams have been sweeping an area of the Atlantic Ocean the size of Connecticut in the search for the missing OceanGate Titan sub, which vanished during an attempt to dive to the wreck of the Titanic 400 miles south of Newfoundland, Canada. (US Coast Guard)

BOSTON – Three new vessels arrived "on-scene" in the Atlantic Ocean Wednesday morning to join search and rescue efforts for the missing OceanGate Titan sub as the estimated oxygen supply on board continues to dwindle.

The U.S. Coast Guard said the new vessels bring additional tools to scan the ocean floor as they race against the clock to save the five people onboard: OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British businessman Hamish Harding, father-and-son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, who are members of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest families, and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a former French navy officer and leading Titanic expert.

"The John Cabot has side-scanning sonar capabilities and is conducting search patterns alongside the Skandi Vinland and the Atlantic Merlin," the Coast Guard said.

The John Cabot is a Canadian coast guard vessel, the Atlantic Merlin is a Canadian remotely operated vehicle (ROV), and the Skandi Vinland is a commercial ROV, authorities said. Several additional assets were still headed toward the search area.

Coast Guard sets 1 p.m. ET press conference, gives update on weather conditions for Titan search

This file image provided by OceanGate shows the Titan submersible descending into the ocean. (OceanGate Expeditions)

The U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday it is holding another press conference at 1 p.m. ET. regarding the search for OceanGate's missing Titan submarine.

In a tweet, it said in the search area for the missing Titan submarine, "winds [are] at 23mph with gusts up to 30mph." 

"Sea state is 6-7ft swells with an air temp of 50°f," it added.

The search for the missing Titan submarine is now in its fourth day.

The Coast Guard on Tuesday afternoon estimated there were about 40 hours of oxygen remaining onboard the Titan.

By their estimates, the vessel will run out of "breathable air" by Thursday morning eastern standard time.

The Titan disappeared Sunday after diving down to the Titanic wreck site in the northern Atlantic Ocean.

OceanGate on its website says the Titan is equipped with 96 hours of life support for five crew members.

Less than 24 hours left of 'breathable air' onboard OceanGate Titan

There are now less than 24 hours of oxygen onboard the missing OceanGate Titan submarine, according to an estimate from the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard said Tuesday afternoon that there were just 40 hours left of "breathable air" inside the vessel.

By their estimate, it should run out by Thursday morning eastern standard time.

The vessel launched its journey Sunday with 96 hours of oxygen onboard.

So far, the search of an area greater than the size of the state of Connecticut has turned up no signs of Titan, according to the Coast Guard.

A Canadian aircraft deployed to assist with rescue efforts has picked up "underwater noises" in the vessel's search area, the Coast Guard also said.

"Canadian P-3 aircraft detected underwater noises in the search area," the USCG in the Northeast region announced on Twitter early Wednesday morning.

The Coast Guard said the detection of the underwater sounds in the designated search area prompted investigators to deploy remotely operated vehicle to relocate and investigate the origin of the unusual noises.

Though the search efforts "yielded negative results," the USCG said the operation continues.

Fox News' Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.

U.S. Coast Guard announces additional assets to assist search effort for missing Titan sub

The U.S. Coast Guard announced additional assets were en route to assist in the search and rescue operation for the OceanGate Titan submersible that went missing during a visit to view the wreckage of the Titanic.

“This is a complex search effort which requires multiple agencies with subject matter expertise and specialized equipment which we have gained through the unified command,” said Capt. Jamie Frederick, the response coordinator from the First Coast Guard District.

The U.S. search effort remains in close coordination with Canadian forces, the captain emphasized.

Frederick added: “While the Coast Guard has assumed the role of Search and Rescue Mission Coordinator, we do not have all of the necessary expertise and equipment required in a search of this nature. The Unified Command brings that expertise and additional capability together to maximize effort in solving this complex problem.” 

The 21-foot submersible, with five people on board, lost contact approximately 900 nautical miles East of Cape Cod, Massachusetts on Sunday, June 18. 

The assets include: 

• Canadian CGS John Cabot
• Canadian CGS Ann Harvey
• Canadian CGS Terry Fox
• Canadian CGS Atlantic Merlin (ROV) 
• Motor Vessel Horizon Arctic 
• Commercial Vessel Skandi Vinland (ROV) 
• French Research Vessel L’Atalante (ROV) 
• His Majesty's Canadian Ship Glace Bay (mobile decompression chamber and medical personnel) 

Canadian aircraft 'detected underwater noises' in area where sub went missing: US Coast Guard

Search patterns used in the search for 21-foot submersible Titan after it went missing 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, June 20, 2023. (U.S. Coast Guard)

The U.S. Coast Guard revealed a Canadian aircraft "detected underwater noises" in the area where an OceanGate submersible went missing days earlier.

"Canadian P-3 aircraft detected underwater noises in the search area," the U.S. Coast Guard said late Tuesday evening.

The USCG said remotely operated vehicles (ROV) operations were subsequently relocated.

"As a result, ROV operations were relocated in an attempt to explore the origin of the noises," the statement continued, although "those ROV searches have yielded negative results."

The USCG added: "Additionally, the data from the P-3 aircraft has been shared with our U.S. Navy experts for further analysis which will be considered in future search plans."

The missing OceanGate submersible was equipped with a four-day oxygen supply when it initially left port around 6 a.m. Sunday, according to David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate Expeditions, which oversaw the mission.

As of Tuesday morning, a total of 10,000 square miles have been searched, according to the Coast Guard.

Explorers Club President Richard Garriott says members have 'cause for hope' amid sub search effort

Richard Garriott, President of the Explorers Club, released a statement late Tuesday evening regarding the ongoing Titanic search and rescue mission, expressing optimism that the passengers of the missing OceanGate submersible will be found.

U.K. billionaire Hamish Harding, one of the tourists aboard the missing sub, is a founding member of the Explorers Club and on its board of trustees.

“Members of the Explorers Club far and wide rallied today to make sure the Titanic expedition search and rescue team is fully aware of the capabilities and experience club members and affiliates are ready to provide, in particular the UK-based Magellan’s 6,000 meter certified ROVs, which have been at the Titanic site many times,” Garriott said.

“We are so grateful for the U.S. Coast Guard, and other international teams and commercial operators doing everything they can to help find the Titanic expedition submersible,” he continued.

Garriott then said members have “cause for hope” amid the ongoing search effort.

OceanGate’s Titan submersible has been missing since Sunday morning.

Missing sub's rescue unlikely in frightening human drama, say experts: 'The math is not great'

Deep-sea vehicle industry insiders say the combination of the enormous depth, the lack of communication and the rapidly dwindling window of opportunity make rescue of the five people aboard the OceanGate highly unlikely.

The OceanGate submersible was bringing its passengers to see the wreckage of the Titanic, about 12,500 below sea level, when it went missing on Sunday. 

Titanic exhibition producer spoke with CEO of OceanGate before tourist sub went missing

Tom Zaller, president and CEO of Imagine Exhibitions and producer of Titanic: The Exhibition, sat down with Fox News Digital on Tuesday to discuss ongoing efforts to search for the Titan, a tourist submersible that disappeared on its way to visit the wreckage of the Titanic. 

Zaller, who has visited the  Titanic wreckage  on another vessel, said had spoken with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush before he and four other people on board went missing.

'Gallows humor' and 'mood swings': Ex-Navy psychologist describes likely experience on missing sub

Uncertainty, panic and the need to conserve oxygen are all part of what five travelers aboard the missing Titanic submersible are likely having to manage as they wait for rescue, a former Navy psychologist told Fox News.

"Certainly there is sheer panic where their heart is racing and they're having trouble breathing … or they feel like they are going to lose their mind," said licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Justin D'Arienzo. "And certainly in a cramped space that is dark, like this situation, that can be exponentially worse."

Magellan, which mapped Titanic wreck site, helps in search for missing sub: 'time is of the essence'

Magellan LTD, a company that created full-sized digital scans of the Titanic, says it has been contacted by OceanGate to help with finding the company's missing tourist submersible.

"Magellan is 100% focused on supporting the rescue mission to recover the submersible. We were contacted by OceanGate early Monday, UK time, June 19, and immediately offered our knowledge of the specific site and also our expertise operating at depth considerably in advance of what is required for this incident. OceanGate instructed us to mobilise and “use the means necessary to fly the needed equipment and crew to St. John’s, Newfoundland as soon as possible, stating time is of the essence," the company said on its website .

"We have been working full-time with UK and US agencies to secure the necessary air support to move our specialist equipment and support crew. We are ready to support, and we are fully mobilized to help. Magellan does not wish to comment on any specific media report. We also recognize the important role the media plays in disseminating accurate information to the public. We kindly request your cooperation in responsibly reporting on this incident, ensuring that the information shared is accurate and verified."

US aircraft deployed to Canada in search for missing Titanic tourist sub

“U. S. Transportation Command is supporting the search effort with (3) C-17 aircraft that are transporting commercial, rescue-related cargo and equipment from Buffalo, NY to St Johns, Newfoundland," Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said Tuesday.

"As of 4:30 pm eastern time today, all three aircraft have departed Buffalo, and the last aircraft is scheduled to land at St. John shortly.”

OceanGate, company behind missing Titanic tourist sub, once subject of lawsuit over safety complaint

OceanGate, the company behind the submersible that went missing while visiting the wreckage of the Titanic, was once the subject of a massive lawsuit from an employee who alleged he was fired because he had raised safety concerns over deep the vessel could descend.  

The former OceanGate employee, David Lochridge, refused to greenlight manned tests of the submersible over safety concerns. The Washington-based company later sued Lochridge for disclosing confidential information. 

Click here to read more.

Inside the missing OceanGate Titan submarine lost on Titanic visit

Fox News Digital

Pentagon confirms DOD assisting in desperate search for missing Titanic tourist submersible

“The DOD is assisting in search operations. As of yesterday, there were two C-130s that conducted search and rescue flights and conducted a search flight over the area. By later today an Air National Guard C-130 will also join the search and conduct a search flight over the area. So, by the end of today, we would have committed three C-130s to conducting search and rescue flights,” Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said Tuesday.

“In addition to that, the Navy has been in touch with the Coast Guard and is working to provide personnel such as subject matter experts and assets as quickly as possible.” 

Hour by hour: Timeline of missing Titanic tour submarine and the race against time to save its crew

News of OceanGate Expedition's missing submarine exploded on Monday as the U.S. and Canadian coast guards sprang into action with search and rescue missions.

Here is the timeline of how OceanGate's Titan submersible went missing during its descent to the wreckage of the Titanic.

OceanGate Titan sub began dive to the Titanic with 96 hours of oxygen onboard

Technical specifications of the OceanGate Titan submarine. (Fox News)

The U.S. Coast Guard estimated Tuesday afternoon that the missing OceanGate Titan submarine should run out of breathable air by Thursday morning.

OceanGate Titan submarine operated by video game controller, CEO says

The Logitech F710 video game controller which operates the OceanGate Titan submarine. (Joby Sessions/PC Gamer Magazine/Future via Getty Images/OceanGate Expeditions)

The Titan submarine OceanGate has been charging tourists around $250,000 each to ride in is operated by an inexpensive video game controller, its CEO revealed in a video interview last year.

Stockton Rush, during a segment aired by "CBS Sunday Morning," said "we run the whole thing with this game controller" while holding up what appears to be a modified Logitech F710 wireless gamepad. 

The device first debuted in 2011, according to the gaming website Dexerto, and a refurbished version of it currently retails for $30 on Amazon. 

In the CBS video, Rush’s version appears to have elongated, modified sticks to help control the Titan submarine. 

Coast Guard estimates around 40 to 41 hours of oxygen left onboard Titan submarine

The Coast Guard said Tuesday that it estimates that there is around 40 to 41 hours of oxygen left onboard OceanGate's missing Titan submarine, which vanished Sunday during a dive to the Titanic wreck site.

Coast Guard 'immediately' launched search effort for missing Titanic tourist sub Sunday evening

U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Fredrick said as soon as the Coast Guard received a report Sunday evening of the OceanGate Titan submarine's disappearance,"we immediately launched search efforts.

"We flew assets that evening and we've continued constant surface and air assets searches since that point," he added.

Coast Guard says search area for missing OceanGate Titan sub larger than Connecticut

Capt. Jamie Fredrick, U.S. Coast Guard First District Response Coordinator, told reporters Tuesday that an ongoing search with the assistance of the Canadian Coast Guard in an area "larger than the state of Connecticut" has not yet turned up any signs of OceanGate's missing Titan submarine.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the crew and the families and their loved ones," he said.

Fredrick said there is about 41 hours left of breathable air onboard the Titan, based on estimates.

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush among 5 onboard missing Titan submarine, company says

An OceanGate spokesperson tells Fox News' Tamara Gitt that the company's CEO, Stockton Rush, is among the five people who are now missing after its Titan submarine vanished during a dive Sunday to the wreck site of the Titanic.

“OceanGate can confirm that CEO Stockton Rush is aboard the submersible as a member of the crew," the spokesperson said.

Images show OceanGate Titan sub's final moments on the surface before vanishing during Titanic dive

In this photo posted to Instagram, the crew of the RMS Titanic Expedition Mission V can be seen shortly after launching on Sunday, June 18, 2023. (@actionaviation/Instagram)

New images have emerged showing what appear to be the OceanGate Titan submarine’s final moments on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean before it disappeared underwater during a dive to the Titanic wreck site. 

The photos taken Sunday were posted on Instagram by Action Aviation, whose chairman Hamish Harding is among the five people missing on board the vessel. 

Images appear to show Titan floating on a platform just prior to it being launched into the water. 

As of late Tuesday morning, the vessel's whereabouts remain unknown. 

Coast Guard says 10,000 square miles searched in hunt for missing OceanGate Titan sub

A general view of the United States Coast Guard Base in Boston, Massachusetts on Tuesday, June 20, 2023. (Fox News Digital)

The U.S. Coast Guard Northeast has announced Tuesday morning that 10,000 square miles have now been searched in the hunt for the missing OceanGate Titan submarine, which vanished Sunday during a dive to the Titanic wreck site.

"A Canadian Aircraft P3 Aurora has arrived on scene to conduct sonar searches," it said. "The R/V Polar Prince and R/V Deep Energy are continuing their surface searches."

One of Pakistan’s richest men, son, aboard missing OceanGate Titanic tourist submarine

Shahzada Dawood, left, is missing along with his son aboard OceanGate's Titan submersible. (Fox News)

One of Pakistan's richest men and his son are aboard the OceanGate submarine that went missing while on a visit to the wreck of the Titanic, family members confirmed.

Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Sulaiman Dawood, 19, are among five people aboard OceanGate Expedition's Titan submersible, which descended to the wreck of the Titanic on Sunday only to lose contact with the mother ship after nearly two hours.

"We are very grateful for the concern being shown by our colleagues and friends and would like to request everyone to pray for their safety while granting the family privacy at this time," the family said in a statement. "The family is well looked after and are praying to Allah for the safe return of their family members."

OceanGate CEO last year addressed 'worry' of Titan submarine being unable to return to surface

Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate, poses in Times Square in New York City in April 2017. (Reuters/Shannon Stapleton)

The CEO of the company whose submersible craft has vanished with five people on board during a tourist dive to explore the wreckage of the Titanic revealed in a podcast interview late last year that he had a worry of objects preventing the vessel from returning to the surface. 

Stockton Rush of OceanGate addressed the concern during a November episode of "Unsung Science" titled "Back to Titanic Part 1," which featured a discussion of his company’s now-missing Titan sub.

"So, once we’re down there, what are the things to worry about?" host David Pogue, a "CBS Sunday Morning" correspondent, asked Rush. 

"What I worry about most are things that will stop me from being able to get to the surface. Overhangs, fish nets, entanglement hazards," Rush said. "And, that’s just a technique, piloting technique. It’s pretty clear -- if it’s an overhang, don’t go under it. If there is a net, don’t go near it. So, you can avoid those if you are just slow and steady." 

Engro Corporation identifies two passengers aboard missing Titanic tourist submersible

A rescue operation remains underway deep in the Atlantic Ocean in search of the technologically advanced submersible vessel carrying five people to document the wreckage of the Titanic. OceanGate Expeditions via AP

The Engro Corporation released a statement early Sunday morning identifying two passengers on the submersible that went missing Sunday during a survey of the sunken Titanic.

"On Sunday, June 18, Mr. Shahzada Dawood, Vice Chairman of Engro Corporation Limited, along with his son, Suleman, embarked on a journey to visit the remnants of the Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean. All that we know so far is that contact was lost with their submersible craft," the company said in a statement.

"There is limited information available beyond this that we know, and we humbly request that speculation and theorization is avoided," the statement read.

It continued: "A rescue effort is being jointly led by multiple government agencies and deep-sea companies to find and bring home Shahzada, Suleman, and all aboard. Prayers for their safety and privacy for the family are requested during this testing time. We, at Engro, remain in prayer for their swift and safe return, and will share any updates we may have as and when they come.

The submersible was believed to be carrying five passengers when it went missing some 435 miles south of St. John's, Newfoundland.

French mariner Paul-Henry Nargeolet feared aboard missing Titanic sightseeing sub

French mariner Paul-Henry Nargeolet, considered one of the leading experts on the Titanic, is feared to be among five people who went missing on a tourist submersible visiting the wreckage. 

Nargelot was named in a Facebook post by fellow voyager, Hamish Harding, a U.K. billionaire and aviator, a day before the mission. 

Read more about Paul-Henry Nargeolet .

OceanGate issues statement on missing Titanic tourist submarine

“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 . Our entire focus is on the wellbeing of the crew and every step possible is being taken to bring the five crew members back safely. 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. We pray for the safe return of the crew and passengers, and we will provide updates as they are available.”

Former Navy officer, US congressman calls for deployment of nuclear sub to search for lost Titanic

A U.S. congressman who served as a nuclear submarine officer in the U.S. Navy is calling for the force to take action in the search for a missing tourist submersible destined for the wreckage of the Titanic that disappeared on Sunday.

"I have 500 days at sea on a submarine, so my heart really goes out to the missing crewmen and their families. The United States Navy needs to step up and do everything possible to help locate that submarine as quickly as possible," Rep. Brandon Williams, R-N.Y., told Fox News Digital Monday evening.

What you need to know about the missing Titanic exploration submarine

The five-person tourist submersible that’s at the center of an ongoing search and rescue effort after being reported missing while on an exploration trip to the wreck of the Titanic is capable of diving to depths more than two miles deep and is operated by a video game-style controller. 

OceanGate Expedition’s submersible, known as Titan, lost contact on Sunday morning about an hour and 45 minutes after it departed from its launch ship, the Canadian research vessel Polar Prince, according to the Coast Guard. The U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards are participating in the search and rescue effort and are being aided by other vessels in the area of the Titanic wreck located about 370 miles south-by-southeast of St. John’s, Newfoundland, and 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Here is what you need to know about the missing Titanic exploration submersible .

Submersible scientist fears OceanGate may have suffered catastrophic implosion: 'Deeply worrisome'

A career scientist in the submersible vehicle industry fears the worst — a catastrophic implosion — regarding the fate of the OceanGate , he indicated in an interview on Monday evening.

The submersible with five people on board has been missing since Sunday while bringing tourists to explore the wreck of the Titanic . 

Time running out for Titanic tourist submersible missing in rough seas

Time is running out for three tourists, a researcher and one pilot aboard a submersible surveying the Titanic's wreckage at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. The 21-foot submersible only has 72 more hours of life support capability left for the five aboard after it went missing Sunday during rough weather and high seas. 

"We were notified yesterday afternoon, and we began immediately to mobilize assets to search both the surface and the water search from the air, and then also launch equipment that would enable us to detect any vessels under the water as well," Rear Admiral John Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard told FOX News' John Roberts.

French mariner PH Nargeolet once made ominous statement about deep-sea exploration

French mariner Paul-Henry Nargeolet, feared to be among those missing in the Titanic tourist submersible , gave an ominous statement to the Irish Examiner about deep-sea exploration in 2019.

"If you are 11m or 11km down, if something bad happens, the result is the same," Nargeolet told the outlet . "When you're in very deep water, you're dead before you realize that something is happening, so it's just not a problem."

NARROW ESCAPE: diver says he was supposed to be on missing Titanic tourist submersible

A lawyer with more than 40 years of diving experiencing posted on Facebook that he was meant to be on a now-missing submersible taking tourists to see the wreckage of the Titanic.

"I was supposed to be on this expedition and, indeed, on this dive, but I had to cancel to attend to another urgent client matter," Concannon wrote. "Last night, I was called and asked to provide whatever assistance I could to ensure the safe return of everyone in the sub."

Rory Golden, first Irish diver to visit Titanic, involved in search of missing tourist submersible

Rory Golden, a maritime explorer and the first Irish diver to visit the site of RMS Titanic in 2000, is reportedly on the surface ship connected to a missing tourist submersible missing since Sunday.

"I'm OK," Golden wrote on Facebook. "We are all focused on board here for our friends. "

Coast Guard vet details 'uncomfortable, dark' scenario Titanic tourist sub crew likely experiencing

The commercial submersible that went missing carrying five passengers while touring the Titanic shipwreck presents a "challenging" and "dire" situation for rescuers, a former Coast Guardsman told Fox News. 

"From what I understand, the vessels are not designed for long-range, multi-day excursions," said John Mixson, a retired U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant commander who was involved in long-range search and rescue missions. "So it's going to be a very, very uncomfortable, dark experience with a lot of hope and prayers."

The former Coast Guardsman details the likely situation for the passengers of the submersible .

French mariner Paul-Henry Nargeolet among missing crew members on Titanic tourist submersible

French mariner Paul-Henry Nargeolet is reportedly among the five people aboard the missing Titanic tourist submersible . Fellow traveler, U.K. billionaire and aviator Hamish Harding, mentioned Nargeolet in a social media post ahead of the voyage, which began early Sunday.

Rep. Brandon Williams, former sub officer, calls on Navy to help find missing Titanic tourist sub

10 fascinating facts about the titanic: from dinner courses to iceberg warnings.

Take a deep dive into some historical, numerical facts you might not know about the "Wonder Ship" that set sail on April 14, 1912.

Learn more about the Titanic!

OceanGate says it is working toward the safe return of the missing crewmembers

Who is hamish harding, the british businessman and explorer aboard missing titanic sightseeing sub.

Hamish Harding, a British millionaire known for his exploratory escapades across the globe, is reportedly among five people who went missing aboard a tourist submersible visiting the Titanic shipwreck .

Harding, chairman of Dubai-based Action Aviations, boarded the OceanGate Expeditions submersible Sunday morning as part of a $250,000 tourist venture to see the historic wreck of the ill-fated White Star ocean liner off the Canadian coast. 

Read more about Hamish Harding .

UK billionaire Hamish Harding mentioned bad weather before Titanic tourist sub went missing

U.K. billionaire and aviator Hamish Harding , one of five people reportedly on board a missing Titanic tourist submersible, posted on Instagram ahead of the voyage that it was likely to be "the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023" because of "the worst weather in 40 years" in Newfoundland.

Harding said the voyage was planned to follow through because a "weather window" had opened up and the crew would attempt a dive Sunday morning.

Titanic expert ‘very hopeful’ missing OceanGate tourist submarine will be found

A search was still underway Monday afternoon for a missing five-person submersible used to take tourists to see the underwater wreckage of the Titanic, but one expert says he remains "very hopeful" and "very positive." 

Speaking to Canada’s NTV Evening News, Titanic expert Larry Daley acknowledged the dangers of deep submersible diving, but argued that technology has gotten much better in recent years. 

See what else the Titanic expert says about the missing submersible.

Royal Canadian Air Force Aurora aircraft deployed out of 14 Wing Greenwood for aerial search

JRCC Halifax has tasked one Royal Canadian Air Force Aurora aircraft out of 14 Wing Greenwood in Nova Scotia for aerial search, and Canadian Coast Guard Vessel Kopit Hopson is also assisting MRCC Boston with a surface search for the submersible .

US Coast Guard, Canadian officials deploying C-130 aircraft in search for missing vessel

Rear Admiral John W. Mauger said Monday that the U.S. Coast Guard and Canada have both deployed C-130 aircraft in the search for missing Titanic tourist submersible . Commercial vehicles are being utilized in the search as well, Mauger said.

Canadian forces have also deployed a P-8 submarine search aircraft and put sonar buoys in the water.

The location of the search is approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod in a water depth of roughly 13,000 feet. 

See where Titanic tourist submarine went missing

Yasin Demirci/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre Boston requests assistance from Joint Rescue Coordination Centre

"Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) Boston has requested assistance from Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) Halifax in the search of an overdue submarine . The submersible has lost communications with its surface vessel located 380NM south of St. John’s NL," Jessica Lamirande with   Canadian Department of National Defense said in a statement.

"JRCC Halifax has tasked one Royal Canadian Air Force Aurora aircraft out of 14 Wing Greenwood in Nova Scotia for aerial search, and Canadian Coast Guard Vessel Kopit Hopson is also assisting MRCC Boston with a surface search for the submersible.MRCC Boston retains the lead for all search coordination."

Titanic submarine tour company OceanGate Expeditions: What to know

A search and rescue mission is underway for a submersible that was reported missing in the Atlantic Ocean while taking tourists to the submerged wreck of the Titanic on Monday.

The sub belongs to OceanGate Expeditions, a company that provides crewed submersible services for exploration, industry and research purposes. The U.S. Coast Guard is participating in the search and has reported that five people are aboard the vessel, including one crew member and four "mission specialists." An air search is underway and several ships are heading to the area to assist. 

Learn more about the OceanGate Expeditions .

Submarine used for tourist visits to Titanic wreckage goes missing in the Atlantic

A rescue mission is underway after a vessel used to take tourists to see the underwater wreck of the Titanic went missing in the Atlantic Ocean on Monday.

The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed to Fox News Digital that they were currently searching for a lost Titan submersible. Tourists can charter the small craft for visits to the infamous ship through OceanGate Expeditions , which recently announced new mission crews for a North Atlantic trip on social media.

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A WWII Submarine Resurfaced After 3 Decades And What Was On Board Was Unexpected

Posted: April 23, 2024 | Last updated: April 23, 2024

Picture this: It's World War II, and a U.S. Navy submarine vanishes into thin air, taking its 80 brave crew members with it. But Tim Taylor and his crack team of researchers weren't about to let this mystery remain unsolved.

Armed with cutting-edge technology, they set out to uncover the truth. And just when it seemed like all hope was lost, a stunning discovery in the footage sent them racing back to the depths to uncover the shocking truth. Keep clicking through this incredible story to learn more...

USS Grayback

The U.S.S. Grayback, also known as the S.S. -208, was a submarine of the United States that mysteriously disappeared in 1944. Presently, ongoing efforts are underway to locate the vessel as part of the Lost 52 Project, an initiative focused on finding the 52 submarines that went missing during World War II.

Sadly, the Grayback was reported as missing towards the end of March in 1944.

Go Out With A Win

Embarking on its tenth and final combat mission of World War II, the USS Grayback departed Pearl Harbor on January 28, 1944. Prior to vanishing, the submarine had sent a series of triumphant messages to its base, confirming the successful sinking of two enemy freighters, the Toshin Maru and Taikei Maru, on February 24th.

The unexpected loss of the Grayback took everyone by surprise, as there had been no forewarning that this would mark the submarine's final voyage.

Alerted Others Of The Victory

Following their earlier successful reports, on February 25, 1944, the USS Grayback's crew transmitted another message of triumph, declaring the destruction of the Asama Maru, a Japanese submarine predominantly employed as a troop carrier. Additionally, they conveyed the sinking of the Napo Maru tanker.

Regrettably, subsequent to this final report, no further messages of victory were received. The submarine had to make its way to Midway Atoll in the North Pacific for resupply, as their remaining arsenal consisted of only two torpedoes.

Later Reported As Missing

The message received on February 25 was the final communication received from the Grayback. Based on the location when they sent their last message, it was expected that they would reach the resupply station by March 7.

When the submarine failed to arrive at their expected destination at Midway Atoll three weeks later, the situation grew increasingly concerning. Finally, the vessel was reported missing on March 30, 1944.

Building The Submarine Was Not An Easy Feat

The construction of the U.S.S. Grayback began on April 3, 1940 at the Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut. The Electric Boat Company, known for its skilled workers and engineers, was an ideal choice for building the submarine.

The company has a long history of building submarines, dating back to the U.S.S. Holland, the first US Navy submarine, built in 1899. Additionally, during World War I, the company played a significant role in the United States and United Kingdom's naval efforts, with a total of 85 submarines built.

Multiple Submarines Manufactured For WWII

During World War II, the Electric Boat Company was tasked to build 74 more submarines, including the Grayback. The Grayback was a Tambor-class vessel, and one of the 12 built by the company, with 7 of them destroyed during World War I.

The other Tambor submarines were later withdrawn from operation, but the Grayback went missing before it could be recalled, like the others.

The Grayback Was An Impressive Vessel

The Grayback was designed to measure at a length of 300 feet from stern to stern, with the ability to submerge to a maximum of 2,410 tons of pressure beneath the waves.

Furthermore, the width of the boat measured 27 feet and had a surface speed of 20 knots and an underwater speed of just under nine knots. On top of that, the Grayback could impressively remain submerged underwater for up to 48 hours, covering many miles.

It Ran On Diesel

Four electric motors drove the propellers of the submarine that was also operated by diesel engines that allowed the submarine to go to a diving depth of up to 250 feet.

Unfortunately, the submarine was over capacity when it was lost at sea. It was designed to fit a crew of 54 enlisted men and six officers. On its final voyage in February 1944, it had a crew of 80 men.

It Was Designed For Warfare

On top of its ability to travel fast and deep beneath the water, it was also equipped for battle. The Grayback was fitted with ten 21-inch torpedo tubes with six located towards the bow and four at the stern.

Furthermore, the ship had a 50-caliber gun, Oerlikon 20mm cannons, and Bofors 40mm, which lined the deck. The weapons were designed to provide both defense and attack abilities both beneath the water and when it surfaced.

It Was Ready For Battle In No Time

Just ten months after the vessel's construction was completed by the Electric Boat Company, Rear Admiral Wilson Brown's wife personally announced the launching of the Grayback on January 31, 1941.

The submarine was then commissioned into the United States Navy on June 30 that same year. This was just five months before the United States declared war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor which took place on December 7, 1941.

It Was Put On Patrol

After being brought into the United States Navy, the submarine fell under the command of Lieutenant Willard A. Saunder on Long Island Sound. Its initial voyages were used as a test to see the submarine's capabilities were and for its crew to get a feel for her and learn all of her technical aspects.

Once everyone on board was comfortable running the ship, the Grayback went on patrol, where she covered parts of the Caribbean and the Chesapeake Bay in September 1941.

Preparing For War

After undergoing a series of checks and maintenance at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on the coast of Maine, the vessel made its way back to Pearl Harbor in 1942. By the time the Grayback arrived in Pearl Harbor, the United States was already deep into World War II, and it was clear that the crew of the Grayback would be seeing action sooner rather than later.

Its first taste of war was one February 15, 1942, as it sailed along the coasts of the island of Guam, where Japan had invaded in 1941.

Heading Into Enemy Territories

On top of patrolling the coasts of Guam, the submarine also went into close range of Saipan, a Japanese territory. The patrol lasted a total of three weeks, with the submarine becoming involved in a series of "hide and seek" games with one particular Japanese submarine.

During that time, the Japanese submarine fired two torpedoes at the Gray, with both of them missing. The Grayback was then able to attack and return fire.

The Taste Of Battle

While still patrolling around enemy territories, the Grayback managed to escape from several other enemy ships, even managing to sink an impressive 3,291-ton submarine.

However, on her second voyage, the vessel encountered little to no fighting, and she ended up docking at Fremantle. There, for a period of her military career, the Grayback remained docked at this base that was located in Western Australia.

The Grayback Experienced Some Troubles

During its next two missions at sea, the Grayback found itself sailing across South China's territory and had several issues with enemy patrol, low-lit nights, and waters that were perilous to cross at times.

Nevertheless, the Grayback was overall successful, managing to destroy several enemy boats and merchant ships. Then, on December 7, 1942, the Grayback set sail for the port of Australia once more in preparation to complete its fifth mission.

They Were Sent On A Rescue Mission

On the submarine's fifth tour, the Grayback was involved in a rescue mission that many consider being one of their most daring. In Japanese territory, a Martin B-26 Marauder crash-landed, leaving six Americans stranded.

At dusk, two crew members of the Grayback launched a search-and-rescue mission that resulted in the finding and the saving of the Americans that were shot down. By dawn, the Grayback was beneath the waves, successfully evading Japanese aircraft.

The Grayback Was Eventually Damaged

The following evening, after the men had been found and the submarine was safe underneath the water, the two crewmen carefully guided the stranded men to the location of the submarine.

For his efforts, Commander Edward C. Stephan, who took command in September 1942, was awarded the Navy Cross for his bravery as well as the U.S. Army Silver Star. Nevertheless, as their mission continued, the submarine continued to damage enemy ships but was eventually damaged herself by depth charges from an enemy destroyer.

In Comes Commander Moore And The Creation Of The "Wolfpack"

On September 12, 1943, the Grayback found itself in Pearl Harbor, preparing for more missions on the Pacific. Being the ship's eighth mission, the submarine was now under the command of Commander John Anderson Moore.

Just two weeks after docking in Pearl Harbor, the ship set out once more to Midway Atoll, but this time with the U.S.S. Shad. While at Midway Atoll, the U.S.S. Cero joined the Grayback and Shad, forming what is known as the "Wolfpack." Submarines teaming up had proven to be successful and was a tactic used by German U-boats.

The Wolfpack Was Fierce

Implemented by the United States Navy, the Wolfpack proved to be as successful as anyone had hoped. Together, these three submarines managed to sink over 38,000 tons of Japanese shipping.

By November 10, 1943, the three boats had returned to Midway Atoll after they had run out of all of their ammunition. By the end of this tour, Commander Moore was the second officer to receive a Navy Cross while being in command of the Grayback.

The Submarine's Ninth Tour Was Short Yet Effective

On December 2, 1943, the Grayback was commissioned to set sail once again, but this time to the East China Sea. This ninth patrol saw the Grayback incredibly firing all of their torpedoes in just five days in which four Japanese warships were destroyed.

Out of ammunition, the Grayback was forced to return to Pearl Harbor, where commander John Anderson Moore was awarded yet again with another Navy Cross.

The Last Time Setting Sail

After nine incredibly successful mission, the Grayback found itself back at the port of Pearl Harbor before going on her tenth, and unknowingly, final mission. The submarine set off onto the ocean open for its last time on January 28, 1944, and as mentioned earlier, its final message to base was on February 25, 1944.

By March 30, the legendary submarine had been officially declared as missing, with no contact being able to be sent or received to the submarine.

The Final Task

Upon leaving Pearl Harbor, the Grayback's final mission was a dangerous one, which was to sink a significant 21,594 tons of Japanese shipping. At this point, this was the third time that Moore would be the commander of the vessel.

And, when the ship was never seen on land again, Commander Moore was posthumously awarded his third Navy Cross. Grayback was also awarded her eighth battle star for her service during World War II.

There Was A Single-Digit Error

The information that the Navy was using to try and pinpoint where the Grayback may have sunk came from Japanese war records. However, as it turns out, there was a single-digit in a map that had been transcribed that was wrong.

This meant that where the Navy originally thought the submarine might have been was nowhere close to where it actually was. Knowing that investigators had been looking in the wrong place for years, they had a whole new set of problems.

A New Investigation

Researchers Tim Taylor started up the investigation once again to re-examine the disappearance of the submarine and see where the Navy went wrong in the first place.

Luckily, this time, there was a key to the mystery that was discovered about the truth of what happened. Taylor then spearheaded the Lost 52 Project, a private investigation designed to find the various remains of the 52 submarines that went missing during the conflict of World War II.

A Japanese And United States Collaboration

Ironically, Taylor ended up teaming up with Yutaka Iwasaki, a Japanese researcher, to help decipher the files that were found on the Sasebo base.

The Japnese used this base during the Second World War that housed much of the Japanese Imperial Navy at times. This location was the site of daily radio contacts from both Naha and Okinawa and was also the location for Japanese naval air.

Figuring Out The Mistake

Iwasaki got to work immediately on the project, and before long, discovered the error that was in the transcription on the report that was collected on February 27, 1944, at Sasebo from Naha.

Incredibly, the data that was collected was only a few days before Grayback had docked on the base. Furthermore, there was also a detailed report of an attack by a Nakajima B5N bomber collected from an aircraft carrier.

The Search Was On

With this new information revealed, Taylor was now confident that he would be able to find the wreckage site of Grayback.

So, during the spring of 2019, Taylor and his team set out to find the truth. Miraculously, it was a success, and the Lost 52 team managed to locate the once lost submarine's hull that had remained on the ocean floor after so many years.

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They Also Found The Bodies

Although it was exciting to finally find the lost submarine, the team came to the painful realization that they would most likely also discover the bodies.

In an interview with the New York Times, Taylor explained, It was a great feeling but also sad as we found the 80 men." This made the discovery not hard for the team, but also those who had lost loved ones aboard the Grayback.

Personal Stories

Gloria Hurney was one of the living individuals that was personally affected by the discovery of the Grayback, 75 years after it had gone missing. Her Uncle, Raymond Parks, was a member of the submarine as an electrician's mate, first class.

In her past, Gloria recounts that she had read a book that claimed only God could tell you where the lost ships were, which left her without any closure. Luckily, the team's findings proved different. Of course, she was not the only person that was impacted by the discovery.

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Two Japan Navy Helicopters Crash, One Body Found, 7 Missing

A Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) vessel conducts a search and rescue operation at the site where two JMSDF helicopters crashed into the sea during a training exercise near Torishima in the remote Izu island group, off the southern coast of central Japan, April 21, 2024, in this photo released by Kyodo. Mandatory credit Kyodo/via REUTERS

TOKYO (Reuters) -Two Japanese navy helicopters crashed into the sea during a training exercise, killing at least one of the eight crew members on board, the defence minister said on Sunday.

The two SH-60 patrol helicopters were conducting anti-submarine exercises on Saturday night near Torishima in the remote Izu island group, off the southern coast of central Japan.

Defense Minister Minoru Kihara told a press conference the cause of the crash is under investigation. The two flight recorders had been discovered in close proximity to each other and the probability was high that the two helicopters had collided, he added.

Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) and Coast Guard are searching for the remaining seven crew members.

Earlier on Saturday, MSDF Chief of Staff Yoshitaka Sakai indicated he did not believe there involvement from another country in the crash.

In a post on X, U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel offered his country's assistance in search and rescue efforts.

(Reporting by Kevin Buckland; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

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