A Submersible Carrying 5 People Has Disappeared During a Deep-Sea Dive to the ‘Titanic’ Wreck

Rachel Cormack
·3 min read

The U.S. Coast Guard is racing against the clock to find a submersible that disappeared during an expedition to the Titanic wreck over the weekend.

The deep-diving sub, christened Titan, was carrying five people and went missing about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive in the North Atlantic on Sunday. The 21-footer reportedly has four days of emergency capability (or between 70 to 96 hours of air), according to the U.S. Coast Guard. A massive search and rescue operation is now underway in an area of the ocean about 900 miles off the U.S. coast that has a depth of roughly 13,000 feet.

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“It is a remote area and it is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area, but we are deploying all available assets to make sure that we can locate the craft and rescue the people on board,” rear admiral John Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard said at a news conference in Boston on Monday.

Operated by OceanGate Expeditions, Titan typically carries three guests who have paid $250,000 for a ticket, a pilot, and a researcher on dives to the remnants of the iconic liner. Setting sail from St John’s in Newfoundland, the expeditions usually include eight days at sea and each full dive to the wreck site can last for up to 10 hours.

“Our entire focus is on the crew members in the submersible and their families,” OceanGate said in a statement. “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.”

The company’s managing director Mark Butler said millionaire chairman of Action Aviation Hamish Harding is among those aboard Titan, while The Times UK recently confirmed entrepreneur Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son, Suleman, are both on the missing submersible. Reuters has also just reported that French Titanic expert Paul Henry Nargeolet and founder and CEO of OceanGate Stockton Rush are aboard, too.

The search team faces particularly challenging conditions in such deep waters, from a lack of light to potentially strong currents to extreme temperatures. Adventurer Victor Vescovo has firsthand experience with diving the Titanic, having successfully piloted his submersible DSSV Pressure Drop in 2019 to the wreck. Vescovo did five consecutive dives, including the world’s first solo dive.

“At one point, the current was so strong that Pressure Drop had trouble moving forward against it,” Vescovo recently told Robb Report in an interview. “The conditions and visibility can vary quite a bit, even that deep, on any given day.”

Harding previously accompanied Vescovo on another deep dive as part of Vescovo’s Challenger Deep Expedition to the Mariana Trench in 2021. Both were also part of Blue Origin’s NS-21 space flight in the same year.

Mauger said aircraft from the U.S. and Canada and sonar buoys have been involved in the search. The Coast Guard is also using commercial deep-sea vessels to scour the area.

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