June 20, 2023 Missing Titanic sub search news | CNN (2024)

Our live coverage of thesearch for the missing Titanic sub has moved here.

Crewssearching for the Titan submersibleheard banging sounds every 30 minutes Tuesday, according to an internal government memo update on the search.

Four hours later, after additional sonar devices were deployed, banging was still heard, the memo said. It was unclear when the banging was heard Tuesday or for how long, based on the memo.

A subsequent update sent Tuesday night suggested more sounds were heard, though it was not described as “banging.”

A Canadian P3 aircraft also located a white rectangular object in the water, according to that update, but another ship set to investigate was diverted to help research the acoustic feedback instead, according to that update.

The Joint Rescue Coordination Center is working to find an underwater remote operated vehicle to help assist in the search, according to the memo.

CNN has reached out to OceanGate, the US Coast Guard in Boston and Canadian authorities for comment.

Rolling Stone was first to report the news Tuesday night.

CNN’s Andy Rose and Paul Murphy contributed to this report.

In a 2019 blog post on OceanGate’s website, the company said most marine operations “require that chartered vessels are ‘classed’ by an independent group such as the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), DNV/GL, Lloyd’s Register, or one of the many others.”

This “classing” system ensures vessels are designed and built following regulations such as the number of life rafts or types of materials used.

But the Titan submersible that went missing en route to the Titanic wreck, is not classed, the blog post said.

It said classing innovative designs often requires a multiyear approval process, which gets in the way of rapid innovation.

Classing agencies “do not ensure that operators adhere to proper operating procedures and decision-making processes – two areas that are much more important for mitigating risks at sea. The vast majority of marine (and aviation) accidents are a result of operator error, not mechanical failure,” it said.

“Classing assures ship owners, insurers, and regulators that vessels are designed, constructed and inspected to accepted standards. Classing may be effective at filtering out unsatisfactory designers and builders, but the established standards do little to weed out subpar vessel operators – because classing agencies only focus on validating the physical vessel,” it read.

In a 2021 court filing,OceanGate’slegal representativetouted the specifications anda hull monitoring system that he called“anunparalleled safety feature” built into the Titan submersible.

Thelegal representativeinformed the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which oversees matters related to the Titanic, of the company’s expedition plansat the time.

The filing lays out the Titan’s testing details and its specifications, including that it had undergone more than 50 test dives and detailing its 5-inch-thick carbon fiber and titanium hull.

The filing said OceanGate’s vessel was the result of more than eight years of work, including “detailed engineering and development work under a company issued $5 million contract to the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory.”

But according to the University of Washington, the laboratory neverdealt withdesign or engineering forOceanGate’sTitan vessel.

In a statement to CNN, Kevin Williams, the executive director of UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory, said the lab’s expertise involved “only shallow water implementation,” and “the Laboratory was not involved in the design, engineering or testing of the TITAN submersible used in the RMS TITANIC expedition.”

In 2022, thelegal representativeupdated the Virginia court on OceanGate’s expeditions in another court filing.

There were no submersible-related issues that canceled dives on the third, fourth, or fifth missions, according to the court filing.

CNN has reached out to OceanGate for comment.

An undated photo of the OceanGate Titan submersible.

Two former employees of OceanGate Expeditions separately brought up similar safety concerns about the thickness of the now-missingTitansubmersible’s hull when they were employed by the company years ago.

A statement from a research lab appears to show conflicting information about the engineeringand testingthat went into the development of the vessel.

David Lochridge worked as an independent contractor for OceanGate in 2015, then as an employee between 2016 and 2018, according to court filings. He served as the company’s director of marine operations.

The company terminated his employment and sued Lochridge and his wife in 2018, claiming he shared confidential information,misappropriated trade secrets andused the company for immigration assistance then manufactured a reason to be fired.The lawsuit noted that Lochridge is not an engineer, calling him a submersible pilot and a diver.

In a counter filing, Lochridge claimed he was wrongfully terminated for raising concerns about the safety and testing of the Titan.

Lochridge’scountersuit says hewas tasked by OceanGate’s CEO, Stockton Rush, to perform an inspection of the submersible. It saysLochridge brought up concerns that no non-destructive testing had been performed on the Titan’s hull to check for “delaminations, porosity and voids of sufficient adhesion of the glue being used due to the thickness of the hull.”

The suit says that when Lochridge raised the issue, he was told that no equipment existed to perform such a test.

The lawsuit was settled and dismissed in November 2018.The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, and Lochridge could not be reached for comment.

Court filings from the company indicate there was much additional testing after Lochridge’s time at OceanGate, and it’s unclear whether any of his concerns were addressed as the vessel was developed.

An undated photo of the OceanGate Titan submersible.

Another former employee of OceanGate who workedbrieflyfor thecompany during the same time period as Lochridge spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity because heisnot authorized to speak publicly.

He said he became concerned when the carbon fiber hull of the Titan arrived, echoing Lochridge’s concerns about its thickness and adhesion in his conversation with CNN. He saidthe hull had only been built to 5 inches thick, whilehe saidcompany engineerstold him theyhad expected it to be 7 inches thick.

The former employee worked at the submersible company for two and a half months in 2017; he was an operations technician who assisted with towing submersibles out into the ocean and preparing them for the diving operation.

Hesaidmore concerns were raised by contractors and employees during his time at OceanGate andRush became defensive andshied away from answeringquestions during all-staff meetings. When the former employee raised concerns thatOceanGate could potentially be violating a US law relating to Coast Guard inspectionsdirectly to Rush, the CEO outright dismissed them,the former employee said, andthat’s when he resigned.

CNN has reached out to OceanGate for comment.

Search patterns used in the search for the Titansubmersible.

The US Coast Guard released an image showing the search pattern for the Titan submersible — and provided an update on existing and incoming resources that are expected to aid in the search for the underwater vessel.

A New York Air National Guard C-130 arrived at about 4 p.m. to assist in the search, joining“Deep Energy,” a Bahamian research vessel that arrived around 7 a.m., and was conducting remotely operated vehicle (ROV) operations, the Coast Guard said.

The following additional assets are also en route to the scene, theUS Coast Guard said:

·Canadian CGSJohn Cabot

·Canadian CGS Ann Harvey

·Canadian CGS Terry Fox

·Canadian CGSAtlantic 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)

An undated file photo shows the Titan submersible.

It remains unclear what happened to the missing submersible on Sunday when it lost contact with crews on the surface on its way down to the Titanic wreckage.

But with no word from the vessel, experts say the odds don’t look good — and there are a few things that could have gone wrong.

Marc and Sharon Hagle were onBlue Origin’s 2022 space mission.

OceanGate Expeditions CEO Richard Stockton Rush was sued in February by a Florida couple seeking a refund for a trip to see the Titanic wreckage they claim was booked with OceanGate but never happened.

According to the lawsuit, Marc and Sharon Hagle of Winter Park, Florida,signed a contract with Rush to go on a manned submersible dive expedition to the RMS Titanic on Cyclops 2. In November of 2016, the Hagles paid a deposit of $10,000each, which they say they were told was fully refundable.

But after paying a total of$210,258 and seeing their expedition postponed many times, the lawsuit says they were unable to get a refund. The lawsuit allegesfraudulent inducement and violation of Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Rush is on board the submersible that went missing on Sunday.CNN has reached out to OceanGate for comment on the lawsuit. The online docket for Florida’s 9thJudicial Circuit shows no response to the lawsuit at this time.

The lawsuit states that theHagles wereeachdue to pay a $40,000 “milestone payment 15 days after Cyclops 2 made its first dive, approximately around October 2017. Under their contract, a$55,129 final payment each was due on February 1, 2018, which would have been approximately four months before thescheduleddate of their expedition,” the lawsuit says.

The couple, who were onBlue Origin’s 2022 space mission, became skepticalthe expeditionwould take placeand were contemplating requesting a refund, the lawsuitstates.

It saysRush visited the couple in Florida in 2017 and explained the design of Cyclops 2 to them as well as the details of the expedition and crew that would be manning the submersible. He also told them Cyclops 2 would be ready to dive to the wreckage as planned, in June2018,the lawsuitadds.The lawsuit states that Rush confirmed at that time that they would receive a full refund if they wanted.

The Hagles’ lawsuitclaimsthey received a second contractafter Rush’s visitthat required them to pay the fullbalance for the expedition, a total of $190,258more,which they wired to OceanGate. A month after they signedthe new contractand wired the money, the name of Cyclops 2 was changed to Titan, the lawsuit says.

The June 2018 expedition was canceled two months later. The lawsuit alleges that the reason they were given was that OceanGate had not had sufficient time to dotests to certify the Titan could reach the depth of the Titanic wreckage, the lawsuit claims.

The new expedition was scheduled for July2019, but canceled the month before, first saying the support vessel refused to participate and later citing “equipment failure,” according to the suit.The Hagles claim they were then told their new expedition date would be some time in 2020.

Thecouplethenrequested a refund of the $210,258 they had paid.

The Hagles claim that though they had been told byOceanGate’s expedition manager that the company was working on a “full refund plan,” they received communication from OceanGate demanding they participate in a July 2021 expedition. Ifthey failed to do so,they would not be entitled to a refund or credit, the lawsuit says they were told.

The couple is asking the court for the return of their monies paid as well as punitive damages.

When reached by CNN, theHagles’ attorney, Ronny Edwards Jr., declined to comment on the pending litigation, but said, “More important than the litigation, however, is the safe return of the entire Titan crew.My thoughts and prayers are with the crew and their families.”

CNN’s Ross Levitt contributed to this report.

If search crews locate the missing submersible deep in the ocean, authorities will face a highly complex mission to recover the craft and any survivors, an expert said Tuesday.

McCord said sophisticated naval craft could reach the wreckage of the Titanic at a pace of about 1,000 feet per hour.At more than 12,000 feet below sea level, diving and surfacing could take a full day.

At these depths, a remote craft would be able to explore a limited area rather than cruise along the ocean floor, he said.

“When you’re going deep, you usually go up and down like an elevator,” McCord said.“When you’re going shallow, you can go further like a nuclear submarine.”

Once crews have narrowed their search, they could deploy a cargo van-sized remote-operated craft to locate the submersible.The remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, is tethered to a surface ship with a two-inch thick cable to provide power and communication.The ROV could be moved to a Canadian port by military aircraft, loaded onto a ship by crane, and then steamed to the search site, McCord said.

US military ROVs have electric motors and cameras, but do not have the capacity to lift the missing vessel, McCord said.

Rescuing the missing craft from the ocean depths would require asecond, more specializedvehicle known as the Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System, he said.FADOSS includes specialized shock absorbers to handle lifting loads of up to 60,000 pounds without snapping its cable to the surface.

The US Navy said that it is sending a FADOSS to assist in the search and rescue efforts. It is expected to arrive in St. Johns Tuesday night, a spokesperson said.

Industry leaders expressed concerns five years ago about OceanGate Expeditions’ “experimental approach” to the Titan submersible and its planned trip to the site of the Titanic wreckage, the New York Times reported Tuesday

The Manned Underwater Vehicles committee ofthe Marine Technology Societypenned a letter to OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush in 2018, it said.

Specifically, it expressed concern over the company’s compliance with a maritime risk assessment certification known as DNV-GL.

“Your marketing material advertises that the TITAN design will meet or exceed the DNV-GL safety standards, yet it does not appear that Oceangate has the intention of following DNV-GL class rules,” the letter said.

The leaders wrote that portraying the Titan this way is misleading to the public and “breaches an industry-wide professional code of conduct we all endeavor to uphold.”

OceanGate has not responded to a request for comment on the letter.

The company’s CEO, Stockton Rush, is one of the five passengers onboard the missing Titan submersible, a source told CNN on Tuesday.

The five people onboard the submersible that went missing near the wreckage of the Titanic have less than 40 hours of breathable air left, according to the US Coast Guard.

The urgent search has not yielded anything so far, but officials are looking on both on the surface and underwater in the remote North Atlantic area. More equipment and personnel are expected to arrive soon, the Coast Guard said Tuesday.

Here’s where things stand:

Here’s a look at how deep the submersible was going:

An undated file photo shows the Titanic shipwreck from a viewport of an OceanGate Expeditions submersible.

A friend of Paul-Henri Nargeolet, one of the passengers on the missing submersible, described the French ex-Navy officer as someone with deep knowledge of the Titanic and a person who accepted the risk that came with these expeditions.

Mathieu Johann, a friend of Paul-Henri Nargeolet, said he hopes its an end “like in the movies, he’ll reappear very quickly to reassure us all.”

Johann is a Director at Harper Collins France and worked with Nargeolet on his book about the Titanic.

Nargeolet “became attached to its history” and the mysteries that may be inside the wreckage, he said.

“I know that his big thing is trying to find out what’s in the Titanic’s safe. I hope with all my heart that one day he’ll manage to penetrate that vault, which remains full of mystery 4000 meters under the sea,” Johann said. “He’s also been married to the Titanic for 30 years. So I hope he’s still going to teach us lots of things because he’s a great man, humble and passionate and fascinating,” he added.

Johann described Nargeolet as someone who “risked his life all his life” and that although he knew diving to the Titanic wreck is risky, it was just part of his daily life.

King Charles III has requested to be kept fully up to date regarding the submersible that went missing on a trip to view wreckage of the Titanic, a royal source said.

Shahzada Dawood, who is one of the people on board the missing submersible, is a longtime supporter of The Prince’s Trust International and The British Asian Trust, according to the source.

The source said the King’s thoughts and prayers are with the Dawood family, as well as those involved in the attempted recovery operation.

The US Navy is sending subject matter experts and a “Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System (FADOSS)” to assist in the search and rescue of a tour sub that has been missing since Sunday, a spokesperson said Tuesday.

The FADOSS is a “motion compensated lift system designed to provide reliable deep ocean lifting capacity for the recovery of large, bulky, and heavy undersea objects such as aircraft or small vessels,” the spokesperson said.

A Navy information page on the FADOSS says it can lift up to 60,000 pounds.

The equipment and personnel are expected to arrive at St. John’s by Tuesday night and will be in support of the US Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard said Tuesday that the search has not yielded anything so far, but it is continuing to look both on the surface and underwater for the missing submersible. Officials estimated that the crew onboard has “about 40 hours of breathable air left.”

Ret. US Air Force Col. Terry Virts said his friend, who is a passenger on the missing submersible, was “very excited” about the trip to view the wreckage from the Titanic.

Virts recalled the “brief” conversation via text message with Hamish Harding ahead of the voyage.

Virts described Harding as an adventurer who had been on trips including the South Pole, the Mariana Trench and outer space.

“While he’s down at the bottom of the ocean waiting for rescue, he’s probably planning out his next exploration adventure,” Virts said.

He said Harding’s past adventuring experiences could help to serve him in his current situation.

He added that the calmer the five passengers are in the submersible, “the longer their oxygen supply will last and they certainly realize that.”

Coast Guard officials said Tuesday they estimated there is “about 40 hours of breathable air left.”

A pair of C-17s are seen at Buffalo Niagara International Airport on Tuesday.

The US military is moving military and commercial assets to help in the ongoing search efforts for the missing submersible, according to the Coast Guard and US Transportation Command.

The Navy’s Supervisor of Salvage and Diving is working with US Transportation Command to bring “more capable assets” into the search, Capt. Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District said Tuesday. The assets will be moved first to St. John’s in Canada and then taken to the search area.

The Navy command has advanced remotely operated dive vehicles capable of operating at the extreme depths required in this search effort.

“The Navy is working to coordinate assets with the USCG and the unified command. We will give you more details as we get assets and personnel in place,” according to a Navy spokesperson.

There will also be three flights from Buffalo, New York, to St. John’s today carrying commercial cargo that may be able to assist in the search and rescue efforts, a spokesman for TRANSCOM told CNN.

It is unclear at this time what assets or equipment are on the flights or to whom they belong.

“U.S. Transportation Command is coordinating authorized planning and support of DoD assistance and transport of assets in the location and recovery of a disabled commercial-owned manned submersible in the Atlantic Ocean,” a TRANSCOM spokesperson said in a statement.

The defense department is also assisting, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said.

Two C-130 aircraft were assisting in search and rescue flights over the area on Monday, and an Air National Guard C-130 would be joining the efforts Tuesday, she said.

“[B]y the end of today, we would have committed three C-130s to conducting search and rescue flights,” Singh said. “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.”

“I believe that we are doing everything we can in terms of surveying the area and that’s been the focus of the department right now,” she added.

The more time passes in the search for the missing submersible, “the less likely a positive outcome will occur,” Ret. U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen said Tuesday.

Mullen, who is also a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that those on board of the missing sub will be “trying to conserve as much oxygen as possible.”

Coast Guard officials said Tuesday they estimate there is “about 40 hours of breathable air left” in the missing submersible that went missing on its way to view the wreckage from the Titanic.

The search will be complicated if the sub isn’t emitting any sound. “Because it’s probably not making noise… to find it acoustically will be a challenge,” Harris said.

An undated photo of the OceanGate Titan submersible.

US President Joe Biden is “watching events closely” surrounding the missing submersible near the wreckage of the Titanic, the White House said Tuesday.

National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby pointed to the ongoing, collaborative search and rescue efforts by the Coast Guard, Canadian officials and other agencies. He said, “Certainly the president wants the Coast Guard to continue to participate in that.”

Kirby said the US Navy is also on standby “should they be needed because they have some deep-water capabilities that the Coast Guard wouldn’t necessarily have.”

Rick Murcar, owner of Aquatic Adventures of Florida, described the phases of recovery that rescuers will go through if they can locate the missing submersible.

“That’s going to be a longprocess,” he added.

Coast Guard officials on Tuesday afternoon estimated there is “about 40 hours of breathable air left” in the submersible, which went missing Sunday on a trip to view the wreckage of the Titanic.

So far, the Coast Guard and its partners’ search effortshave “not yielded any results,” Capt. Jamie Frederick, with the First Coast Guard DistrictResponse Department, said Tuesday.

Weather conditions and fog complicated aerial search efforts Monday, the Coast Guard said, but conditions are expected to clear up as the search continues on Tuesday.

The Coast Guard has deployed several aircraft to search the surface of the water for the missing submersible. Canada also said it has mobilized planes to help.

Simpson said Coast Guard aircraft crews receive specialized training to be able to spot objects in the ocean in scenarios like this.

US Coast Guard First District Commander Rear Adm. John Mauger speaks to the media on Monday in Boston.

While a lot of the search for the missing submersible has been focused on the surface of the water, the team now has underwater search capability on scene, said US Coast Guard First District Commander Rear Adm. John Mauger.

The Canadian Air Craft, USCG aircraft and New York Air National Guard aircraft have been flying patterns roughly the size of Connecticut on the surface of the water, he told CNN.

Mauger said he met with unified command last night which includes the US Navy, Canadian Coast Guard and the Canadian Armed Forces as well as Ocean Gate expedition, the company that owns and runs the missing submersible.

Ocean Gate, having the most familiarity with the site, and knowing where their submersible was operating, is helping to set priorities, he added.

The New York Air National Guard’s 106thRescue Wing is assisting the US Coast Guard search and rescue operation for the missing Titanic submersible, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced in a statement Tuesday.

“The women and men of New York’s Air National Guard are always ready to lend a helping hand,” Hochul said. “I commend the members of the 106th Rescue Wing for their efforts to assist the U.S. Coast Guard in this search and rescue operation.”

The 106thRescue Wing, which is based at the F.S. Gabreski Air National Guard Base in Westhampton Beach on Long Island, launched an HC-130J Compat King search and rescue aircraft on Monday afternoon at the request of the Coast Guard, Hochul said in the statement.

The 13 Air National Guard members on board, including a team of pararescue jumpers, flew 900 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean and searched a designated area using forward-looking infrared radar and onboard observers, the statement said.

The plane returned to base early this morning, and the wing has been asked to assist in the search again this afternoon.

Coast Guard officials estimate there is “about 40 hours of breathable air left” in the missing submersible that went missing on its way to view wreckage from the Titanic.

The vessel lost contact 1 hour and 45 minutes into its dive Sunday, the US Coast Guard said. At that time, officials estimated it had 96 hours of life support.

“We know there’s about 40 hours of breathable air left based on that initial report,” Capt. Jamie Frederick, with the First Coast Guard District, said at a Tuesday news conference.

Five people are on board the missing sub.

Watch here:

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So far, the Coast Guard and its partners’ “search effortshave not yielded any results” in the hunt for the missing Titanic tour submersible, Capt. Jamie Frederick, with the First Coast Guard DistrictResponse Department, said Tuesday.

Frederick said the Coast Guard has been coordinating with other agencies since Sunday, including the US Navy and Canadian Coast Guard, to conduct the search.

On Tuesday, the vesselDeep Energy, a 194-meter pipe-laying vessel with underwater capabilities, arrived on scene and rendezvoused with thePolar Prince, the vessel the submersible launched fromto commence a dive at the last known position of the sub and at the approximate position of the Titanic wreck, Capt. Frederick said at a news conference.

He said other vessels are currently en route to join the effort, including some privately owned vessels that are “making preparations” to help with the “very complex” search.

The Canadian vesselJohn Cabotis expected to arrive this evening, along with other Canadian Coast Guard vessels.

The US Navy’s supervisor salvage and diving command is working with US Transportation Command to bring additional assets, he said.

Vessels will be staged at St. John’s in Canada, Frederick said.

US Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick speaks during a press conference in Boston on Tuesday.

The US Coast Guard is working “around the clock” to try to find the missing submersible with five people on board, an official said Tuesday.

The submersible was reported missing on Sunday after it lost contact and didn’t return to the surface at its expected time.

Capt. Jamie Frederick, with the First Coast Guard District, said it has been a “complex search” that requires specialized equipment.

The Coast Guard doesn’t have all of the expertise and equipment that they need, which is why they are calling on other agencies and countries for help, Frederick said, including the United States Navy and the Canadian Armed Forces.

“The unified command brings thatexpertise and additional capabilitytogether to maximize effort insolving this very complexproblem,” he said at a news briefing Tuesday.

The Coast Guard is giving an update on the search efforts for five people onboard a missing submersible near the wreckage of the Titanic.

Capt. Jamie Frederick, of the First Coast Guard Districtwhich is coordinating the effort, is expected to speak.

The search is happening about 900 miles off the coast of Cape Cod. The Coast Guard said in a tweet earlier Tuesday that 10,000 square miles have been searched so far.

Aircraft and other equipment are looking for the submersible on the surface and underwater.

French President Emmanuel Macron has ordered the dispatch of the research ship Atalante to join the international search for the missing Titanic tour submersible, the French government announced Tuesday.

The ship is equipped with an underwater robot that can reach as deep as 4,000 meters and the robot’s operation team has departed from the French city of Toulon, according to Berville.

“This is a race of time that started last night (Monday) and France has responded to the calls from American authorities,” he said.

Stockton Rush is seen in an undated photo from OceanGate.

The fifth passenger aboard the submersible bound for the Titanic wreckage is Stockton Rush, CEO and founder of OceanGate, the company leading the voyage, according to a source with knowledge of the mission plan.

Multiple authorities have said there were five people aboard the missing submersible.

According to CNN reporting, Rush is aboard the submersible, alongside four others:

CNN has reached out to OceanGate for comment but has not received an immediate response.

OceanGate Expeditions says it is “deeply grateful” for the “extensive assistance” it is receiving from multiple government agencies in search of a submersible visiting the wreck site of the Titanic.

The company, which operates tours to the wreckage site, said in a Monday night statement that “for some time” it has been “unable to establish communications” with the submersible.

Here’s the complete statement:

Some more context: The submersible was part of an eight-day journey conducted by OceanGate Expeditions. The trip is based out of Newfoundland, with participants first traveling 400 nautical miles to the wreck site, which is about 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

The submersible began its two-hour descent to the wreck on Sunday morning. It lost contact with the Polar Prince, the support ship that transported the vessel to the site, 1 hour and 45 minutes into its descent, officials said.

Search operations began later that day.

It’s still not clear what happened to the submersible, why it lost contact and how close to the Titanic it was when it went missing.

The Titan submersible, a small vessel carrying five people, was on a trip to view the wreckage of the Titanic when it lost contact with the Polar Prince, the vessel that transported it to the North Atlantic Ocean.

The wreckage lies around 12,500 feet below sea level — that’s about 10 times the height of the Empire State Building.

Here’s a look at what the descent to the wreckage site is like:

The US Coast Guard said that 10,000 square miles have been searched for the missingTitanic-boundsubmersible as of Tuesday morning.

A Canadian P3 Aurora aircraft has arrived to help conduct sonar searches, the Coast Guard tweeted.

Two research vessels, R/V Polar Prince and R/V Deep Energy, are continuing surface searches as well.

The US Coast Guard will hold a 1 p.m. ET news conference to discuss the search efforts to locate a missing submersible that was en route to the Titanic wreckage, it said in a press release.

The Coast Guard and partner agencies are continuing their search Tuesday for the sub, which is carrying five people, after the Canadian research vessel Polar Prince lost contact with it on Sunday.

The submersible — a watercraft that, unlike a submarine, needs a mother ship to launch it— was on a dive about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, the release said.

An undated photo of the OceanGate Titan submersible.

The Titansubmersiblewent missing while it was on a tour of the wreckage of the Titanic. Here is the timeline that was set for the vessel, according to Miawpukek Maritime Horizon Services, which co-owns the Polar Prince, the support ship that helped launch Titan.

All times are in Atlantic Daylight Time, which is 1.5 hours ahead of Eastern Time:

Friday, June 16: The Polar Prince departs St. John’s, Newfoundland

Saturday, June 17: The Polar Prince arrives at the dive site

Sunday, June 18:

Hamish Harding looks on before boarding the submersible Titan on June 18.

A friend of Hamish Harding, one of the people missing onboard a Titanic expedition vessel, told CNN Tuesday that the explorer is “larger than life.”

“Hamish is larger than life. He lives exploration. He is an explorer to the core of his soul. He has been to the bottom of planet earth in the Mariana Trench…he’s even been in space. We circumnavigated the planet together…the north and south pole, and set the world speed record,” Jannicke Mikkelsen, a fellow explorer, said.

Mikkelsen said Harding would be “calm and collected” in an emergency and that his experience would have prepared him for any difficulties.

Mikkelsen said the vessel Harding is on is “a self-rescue vessel” with seven systems of unloading weight so it can ascend to the surface by itself if necessary.

“The only way it couldn’t do that is if it was trapped — for instance, in the wreck of the Titanic or maybe as something as simple as a fishing net,” Mikkelsen said.

“My biggest concern is that Hamish and the rest of the crew aboard…are trapped in a metal can at the bottom of the ocean where the atmospheric pressure is 400 times that of here at ground level. There is no way we could possibly have a manned rescue at that sort of depth. My fear is that they cannot self-rescue and appear to the surface by themselves,” Mikkelsen said.

Action Aviation, the company owned by Harding, said Tuesday that both they and Harding’s family are “very grateful for all the kind messages of concern and support from our friends and colleagues,” according to a press release from the company.

“We are thankful for the continued efforts of the authorities and companies that have stepped in to aid in the rescue efforts. We put great faith and trust in their expertise,” Action Aviation said. “The team at Action Aviation are extremely proud of Hamish and we look forward to welcoming him home.”

A massive search operation is underway to find a submersible with five people on board that went missing on a trip to view the wreckage of the Titanic.

The Titanic wreckage sits at the bottom of the ocean nearly 13,000 feet below the surface southeast of Newfoundland, Canada.

Here’s a look at a map of the area:

A massive search operation is underway to find the submersible with five people on board that went missing on a trip to view the wreckage of the Titanic.

See some of the last pictures taken of the crew before they made their descent in the video below:

See Also

All 5 passengers on OceanGate's missing Titan submersible are dead

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Deep sea-mapping company Magellan, most famously known for itsone-of-a-kind deep sea imagery of the Titanic, is fighting against the clock to try and get involved in the search and rescue efforts underway to locate the submersible that’s been missing in the Atlantic since Sunday—but a key transport issueholding them back.

Magellan Chair David Thompson told CNN that his team is familiar with the site of the wreck and received written notice from OceanGate Expeditions, the company running the expedition to the Titanic, to mobilize early Monday “by all means necessary — time is of the essence.”

CNN has reached out to OceanGate for comment.

But it needs an aircraft — specifically, a C-17 Globemaster III military cargo jet — with the ability to transport its deep-sea diving equipment, which is located in the UK, and deliver it to Canada in order to launch its operation.

Thompson said the US Air Force or UK Royal Air Force have not gotten back to Magellan letting them know if or when a plane can be procured to use to transport the equipment they need to Canada to embark on rescue efforts

Most of the equipment needed for the deep-sea dive is in Jersey, located in the Channel Islands off the coast of France, with some other equipment in Aberdeen, Thompson said.

There’s an element of serendipity at play in all this, as Thompson said that the equipment needed for this deep-sea expedition is normally not docked in the Channel Islands, where the company is based.

“It’s normally on a vessel floating around the world, quite frankly. But by pure coincidence, we had it off whilst we were changing vessels and it just happened to be in Jersey at this point as opposed to on a boat in the middle of the sea,” he explained.

The quickest the Magellan team say they and their equipment could be at the site of the search and rescue operation underway in the Atlantic would be somewhere between 24 and 30 hours.

The missing21-foot vessel has life support for up to 96 hours, according to theOceanGate website. US Coast Guard officials estimated Monday afternoon that they anticipate that the vessel has somewhere between 70 to 96 hours of emergency oxygen available for the passengers onboard.

CNN has reached out to the UK Royal Air Force as well as the US Air Force for comment.

Paul-Henri Nargeolet poses for a photo at an exhibition dedicated to the Titanic, in Paris in 2013.

A colleague of the French submariner onboard the missing Titanic dive vessel told CNN Tuesday that their community is “in shock.”

Gallo calledPaul-Henri Nargeolet, who is one of five people on board the missing vessel his “closest colleague” and someone who is “the best” at deep-sea searching.

As the search for the missing vessel continues, Gallo said “time is against us at this point.”

The depth of water where the search is being conducted is “a whole different world,” Gallo said, but added that “everything that can be done, is being done.”

“You begin on the surface in a light blue, pretty color blue that we’re familiar with. It takes two and a half hours to get to the bottom roughly, and you start to drift down slowly through that water column. You leave the blue behind. It gets medium blue, deep blue, dark blue, and then black for about two hours. And this is a place that’s been eternally cold and pressure is building,” Gallo said.

Weather in the search area for the submersible in the North Atlantic is generally good for the next several days. A weak cold front moved through the area on Monday, leading to some rain showers. As this front continues to move away from the area, chances of any showers will diminish.

The search area can expect partly cloudy skies, southwest winds of 20 to 30 knots (23-34 mph) and wave heights up to 9 feet on Tuesday. These conditions are average for the area this time of year. Both air and sea surface temperatures are in the 50s.

High pressure will build in the area, leading to clear skies and relatively calm conditions through the rest of the week.

Sunrise for the search area is just before 4 a.m. ET with sunset around 7 p.m. ET.

The US Coast Guard searched an area “about the size of Connecticut” overnight for the submersible gone missing with five people inside, US Coast Guard First District Commander Rear Admiral John Mauger said.

As the search continues Tuesday morning, the unified command team is expanding its capabilities to be able to search under the water as well, Mauger told ABC Tuesday. “We have a commercial vessel that’s on scene now, that has remote operated vehicles, that will give us the ability to search under the water as well.”

The unified command is also using a P-3 aircraft from the Canadian Armed Forces, which has been flying during the last 24 hours, dropping sonar buoys to listen for any sounds from the submersible.

“We also have vessels on scene now that [have] the capability to listen with their SONAR, and so if they are making sound, that’s certainly one of the ways that we’re going to use to locate,” Mauger added.

Paul-Henri Nargeolet is pictured next to a miniature version of the sunken Titanic at an exhibition in Paris in 2013.

French submariner and ex-Navy officer, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, is among the five people missing aboard a submersible exploring the Titanic wreck, his family confirmed to CNN affiliate BFMTV Tuesday.

It was previously thought that Nargeolet was among the passengers after fellow “mission specialist” British businessman and adventurerHamish Harding referenced the Frenchman in a post prior to the expedition launch.

The French Foreign Office has said the ministry is not in a position to confirm his disappearance, a spokesperson said.

Harding had posted on social media Saturday saying that Nargeolet was scheduled to be on Sunday’s dive with him.

Nargeolet led several expeditions to the Titanic and supervised the recovery of many artifacts from the wreck, according to theE/M Group, where Nargeolet was director of underwater research.

As the search for the missing submersible continues, David Gallo, senior adviser for Strategic Initiatives at RMS Titanic Inc., told CNN This Morning about what it’s like to journey down to the Titanic wreck.

“It’s a whole different world,” he explained, adding that it “takes two and a half hours to get to the bottom roughly.”

When asked about the round-the-clock efforts to locate the Titan vessel, Gallo was frank in his assessment.

“Certainly, time is against us at this point. The only thing that we can say is that everything that can be done is being done. That includes the coast guard at the surface, listening a bit beneath the surface. And then assembling right now are some of the best robotic people… to respond right away if they do find that submarine.”

The interior of OceanGate's Titan is seen in 2018.

Officials are racing against the clock to locate the civilian submersible that had five people aboard when it went missing Sunday.

CNN’s Gabe Cohen has previously reported on the operator OceanGate Expeditions and had toured the Titan vessel out of the water during his time at CNN affiliate KOMO in 2018.

Speaking to CNN This Morning, Cohen said he recalled being “blown away by how simple” the onboard tech seemed.

“It’s this tiny vessel, quite cramped and small. You have to sit inside of it, shoes off… It is operated… by a gaming controller, what essentially looks like a PlayStation controller,” he explained.

“It could dive 13,000 feet down into the ocean and handle 150 million pounds of pressure that it would feel on the ocean floor.

The company was founded in 2009 by its current CEO Stockton Rush.Cohen explained that the company has conducted many science-driven expeditions to various shipwrecks, not just the Titanic, over the years.

While discussing the use of consumer-friendly products used onboard, like the game controller, Cohen said that he’d asked OceanGate about it. “They also stressed that the carbon fiber structure of Titan could reliably pull off a mission like this. They did not spare any expense or cut any corners to pull that off - that is what they repeatedly said to me.”

He continued, “I interviewed Stockton Rush several times. Not just him but his staff and crew. They talked about safety over and over and how confident they were in the technology of this vessel, and the other vessels they had designed over time, but we have since learned that Titan has had some issues before with communication.”

Cohen referred to a CBS report that last year the vessel was lost for more than two hours unable to get messages from the surface, which it relies on to figure out where to go there’s no GPS onboard.

An all-out search is underway to find the submersible missing off the coast of Newfoundland.

The Canadian Coast Guard is helping the United States with the search for the vessel with the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre Boston coordinating the response.

Contact with the vessel was lost Sunday.

“Right now, our capability is limited to sonar buoys and listening for sound. But, you know, we are working very hard to increase the capability.”

Mauger said on Monday at 4:30 p.m. ET that the missing sub was designed with a “96-hour sustainment capability if there was an emergency on board,” and “we anticipate there’s somewhere between 70 and the full 96 hours available at this point.”

Here’s what we know about the urgent search and rescue operation underway:

The Titanic lies at close to 12,500 feet, more than two miles below the surface, and a depth that experts have said that could complicate any rescue mission.

CNN’s Rob Frehse and Celina Tebor contributed to this post.

When RMS Titanic set sail on April 10, 1912, she was the largest passenger ship in service and considered to be “unsinkable.”

But just days later, Titanic’s celebrated maiden voyage turned into a disaster when she suffered a catastrophic collision with an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank less than three hours later.

More than 1,500 people died in the accident.

More than a century after the ship went down, researchers and historians are still captivated by its story. Sea investigators and filmmakers are still trying to map the wreck and glean more about what happened that fateful day.

Read more here:

An undated photo of ShahzadaDawood, one of the two Pakistani nationals on board the missing Titanic-exploring submersible.

The family of businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Sulaiman, confirmed earlier Tuesday that they were two of the five people onboard the missing submersible.

Dawood is the vice chairman of Engro Corporation Limited, one of Pakistan’s largest conglomerates, that has “a diverse portfolio of businesses across… energy and related infrastructure, agricultural outputs, petrochemicals and telecommunication infrastructure,” according to its website.

In a statement, Engro said all it knew was “that contact was lost” and urged the public to avoid speculation while rescue efforts continue.

Here’s the full statement:

Dawood is also a trustee of the SETI Institute in California, according to a biography on its website. He is also vice chairman of Dawood Hercules Corporation, part of the Dawood Group and resides in the United Kingdom with his wife and two children, according to the biography.

The British Asian Trust said its “heartfelt thoughts” were with the Dawood family in a Twitter post.

Most chartered vessels, whether oil tankers or commercial ships, are “classed” by independent groups that set safety standards, according to OceanGate Expeditions, the company operating the Titanic wreckage tour.

This “classing” system ensures vessels are designed and built following regulations such as the number of life rafts or types of materials used.

But the tour operator claims the Titan, the missing submersible, is not classed because the technology being used is so new it has not yet been reviewed and incorporated into existing standards.

It added that organizations can take years to review and approve new standards, and that other OceanGate vessels do have approved classing.

The Titan submersible is pictured departing its launch platform in this undated file photo.

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

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

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

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

As of Monday afternoon, Coast Guard officials estimate the Titan has 70 to 96 hours of oxygen left, potentially giving officials until Friday to find the vessel and rescue the five crew members aboard.

Previous diving experience is not required before joining an OceanGate expedition to visit the wreckage of the Titanic, an archived version of the operator’s website said.

To be a Mission Specialist, applicants must be at least 18 years old when the trip begins and pay $250,000, according to an archived version of the itinerary seen by CNN, which is no longer accessible on their website.

Applicants must “be able to live aboard the expedition vessel for a week” and “be able to demonstrate basic strength, balance and flexibility,” the website said.

Mission Specialists can opt-in to roles while on the eight-day trip, including helping with sonar operations, photography and videography, and communications and tracking by assisting the pilot with sub-to-surface comms.

They could also help identify undersea objects, conduct species counts and analyze the sonar data to create an image of the wreck.

Of the five onboard the submersible, there is usually one pilot, three Mission Specialists, and one content expert, according to OceanGate.

The portbowrailing of the RMSTitanic, as pictured during an expedition to the wreck in 1996.

Rescuers are in a “race against time” to find the crew of the missing submersible, said David Gallo, senior adviser for Strategic Initiatives, RMS Titanic, which owns the exclusive salvagerights to the Titanic wrecksite.

If the submersible is intact, those onboard would be faced with dwindling oxygen levels and fighting the cold, Gallo told CNN.

Hypothermia would be an issue “if thesub is still at the bottom,because in the deep ocean itis just above freezing cold,” Gallo said.

Once the submersibleis located, the team could face even greater challenges in trying to rescue the crew.

It’s one thing to get there, another “tounderstand the situation aboutwhat the problem is with thesub and then go to work to tryto extricate it from that,” Gallo added.

Locating the vessel: Gallo said thesurface ship should have a good idea where the submersible’s last known position was.

“A sub will not go very far.If it has gotten intotrouble on the surface it mightdrift a bit, but on the bottommotoring — 2 miles an hour,something like that.So the search area should besmall,” Gallo said.

However, that doesn’t mean locating a smallsubmersible in suchdeep and expansive waters will be easy, he said.

As US and Canadian authorities continue search efforts overnight, it is still not clear what happened to the missing submersible, why it lost contact with crews on the surface, and where — or how deep — it might be.

Eric Fusil, a submarine expert and associate professor at the University of Adelaide, said the search is complicated by limited underwater communication methods with the submersible.

Above the water, in open air, detecting objects like the submersible can be “instantaneous” thanks to radar and other communications across long distances, he said — but underwater, “spotlight or laser beams are absorbed within a few meters.”

That means no radar or GPS is available, either, he said.

A submersible like the Titan would therefore have to rely on acoustic sound sensors and basic communication like text messages, he added.

When communications break down: WhenCBS correspondent David Poguetook a trip on the Titan to the Titanic wreck last year, he said the submersible was only guided by text messages from the surface ship. On Pogue’s trip, communications broke down during a dive and the submersible was lost for more than two hours, he said.

Polar Prince, a vessel used to transport the missing submersible to the site of the Titanic wreckage before the expedition.

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

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

Here’s an overview of the itinerary:

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

Shahzada Dawood, one of the two Pakistani nationals on board the missing Titanic-exploring submersible.

Though authorities haven’t publicly identified any of the five passengers on board the submersible, their family, friends and companies have begun releasing information — painting a clearer picture of who was on the expedition.

Here’s what we know about the crew so far:

The missing submersible is a small vessel designed to only hold five people for a day — two hours down, several hours exploring the Titanic and two hours back to the surface.

Last year, the founder of tour operator OceanGate Expeditions showed a CBS team the inside of a submersible used to visit the Titanic’s wreckage. The CBS video shows a small chamber, with about as much space as a minivan.

There are no chairs or seats and the passengers sit cross-legged on the floor, having taken off their shoes before entering.

For such an advanced submersible, the interior is mostly bare and simple, with just one button and a screen on the wall. The rest of the vessel’s operations are run on a handheld controller that looks remarkably similar to a gaming console, complete with colorful buttons.

It recommended that passengers restrict their diet before and during the dive “to reduce the likelihood that you will need to use the facilities.”

Watch the video:

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01:55 - Source: CNN

The submersible, named Titan, is operated by OceanGate Expeditions, which handles expeditions to the Titanic wreckage.

According to OceanGate, Titan is a 23,000-pound submersible made of carbon fiber and titanium that’s “designed to take five people to depths of 4,000 meters (13,123 feet).”

Unlike a submarine, a submersible has limited power reserves so it needs a mother ship that can launch and recover it, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

WhenCBS correspondent David Poguetook a trip on the Titan down to the Titanic wreck last year,on the invitation of OceanGate, he said the hatch was sealed from the outside with 17 bolts — there was no other way out.

With no GPS underwater, the submersible is only guided by text messages from the surface ship. On Pogue’s trip, communications broke down during a dive and the submersible was lost for over two hours, he said.

Read more here.

It doesn’t bode well that search parties still haven’t heard from the missing submersible, former US Navy submarine captain Thomas Shugart told CNN on Monday.

Shugart said a locator beacon likely would have detected the vessel by now if it had a “relatively minor issue that forced them to surface unexpectedly.”

Shugart added that his experience is limited with the problems the crew may have run into at these depths.

It’s still not clear what happened to the submersible, why it lost contact, and how close to the Titanic it was when it went missing.

The submersible began its two-hour descent to the wreck on Sunday morning, which is about 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

It lost contact with the Polar Prince, the support ship that transported the vessel to the site, 1 hour and 45 minutes into its descent, officials said.

Search operations began later that day.

Coast Guard officials estimated on Monday afternoon the submersible had “somewhere between 70 to the full 96 hours” of oxygen — potentially giving rescuers until Friday to locate and retrieve the vessel.

But the depth of the area where they went missing could pose a challenge.

Thedeepest ever underwater rescue was that of Roger Chapman and Roger Mallinson, who were rescued from a submersible at depths of 1,575 feet in 1973. They were trapped for 76 hours before finally being hauled to the surface.

The Titanic wreckage is much deeper, sitting nearly 13,000 feet below sea level.

Other factors complicating the search include its distance from the coast, local weather conditions, and unknowns like the state of the submersible and whether it has working equipment like acoustic pingers that can be detected by search teams.

Read more here.

A Pakistani father and son are on board a submersible carrying five people to see the wreck of the Titanic at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean, according to a statement released by the family Tuesday.

The statement namedShahzada Dawood and his son, Sulaiman Dawood, as being on the “journey to visit the remnants of the Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean.”

Shahzada Dawood is a trustee of the SETI Institute in California, according to a biography published on its website. According to the biography, Dawood is vice chairman of Dawood Hercules Corporation, part of the Dawood Group.

The port bow railing of the Titanic lies in 12,600 feet of water about 400 miles east of Nova Scotia as photographed as part of a joint scientific and recovery expedition sponsored by the Discovery Channel and RMS Titantic.

The submersible that has gone missing in the North Atlantic was part of an expedition to view the wreckage of the RMS Titanic, perhaps the most famous shipwreck in the world.

More than 100 years after its disastrous maiden voyage, the fate of the luxury liner has long served as a source of fascination, and been the backdrop for countless books, fiction and non-fiction and, of course, a blockbuster movie.

The ship set sail from Southampton, England, to New York on April 10, 1912.

Then, between April 14 to 15, it hit an iceberg around midnight and sank in less than three hours.

A total of 1,517 people died and 706 survived out of 2,223 passengers and crew, according to theUS Senate reporton the disaster.

Here are more interesting facts about the Titanic:

The ship: The estimated cost of construction was $7.5 million. At the time, the RMS Titanic was the largest passenger ship afloat. The ship’s length was 882 feet, 9 inches, and it weighed 46,328 tons. Its top speed was 23 knots. The wreckage is located about 350 miles off the southeast coast of Newfoundland.

How the Titanic sank: The iceberg punctured five of 16 supposedly watertight compartments designed to hold water in case of a breach to the hull. Investigations at the time blamed Capt. Edward Smith for going too fast in dangerous waters, initial ship inspections that had been done too quickly, insufficient room in the lifeboats for all passengers, and a nearby ship’s failure to help. Many maritime safety reforms were implemented as a result of the findings of the investigations.

Smith went down with the ship, and his body was never recovered.

Key dates post-shipwreck:

Read more here.

French diver PH Nargeolet was scheduled to be on the dive with the missing submersible in the North Atlantic, according to a social media post Saturday by businessmanand adventurer Hamish Harding.

Harding is one of the passengers on the submersible that went missing during a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic, according to a social media post by his company, Action Aviation.

Larry Daley, a St. John’s-based diver whor*portedly made the trip to the Titanic two decades ago, told CBC NewsNargeolet was one of the people on the current expedition.

In a news conference Monday, the US Coast Guard Boston did not release the names of any of the five people onboard the missing submersible.It is unclear from the agency if Nargeolet was among those who boarded the vessel the morning after Harding’s social media post.

CNN has attempted to reach out independently to Nargeolet with no success.

Depending where and at what depth the submersible is found, there could be limited options for rescue vessels — even the US Navy’s advanced fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

The Navy’s multibillion-dollar nuclear-powered subs can stay under water as long as the provisions for the crew hold out and usually operate at 800 feet or less.

The maximum depth for subs is classified, but reputable experts say the deepest a US Navy sub can go is 1,500 to 2,000 feet, depending upon the class of submarine.

Below those depths, the water pressure on the hull of the submarine would cause it to implode, meaning they can’t dive down to the ocean floor, where the wreckage of the Titanic is located.

The Navy does have specialized rescue submersibles, but even those can only make rescues at depths up to 2,000 feet, according to the Navy’s Underwater Rescue Command.

Deepest rescue: Thedeepest ever underwater rescuewas that of Roger Chapman and Roger Mallinson, who were rescued from a submersible at depths of 1,575 feet in 1973. They were trapped for 76 hours before finally being hauled to the surface.

During that rescue, authorities used other submersibles and a remotely operated, Navy-developed recovery vessel to attach lines to their vessel, the Pisces III, which were then used to pull it back to the surface.

It’s not clear whether these methods could work for the Titan, given the uncertainty around its location.

The missing submersible was on an eight-day expedition to the Titanic wreck site, departing from St. John’s, Newfoundland on Sunday.

Weather conditions in the area at the time included choppy seas, with 3 to 6 feet waves, and foggy conditions, according to CNN meteorologists.

While these conditions aren’t too out of of the ordinary for the area, they could cause some delays for search parties due to the difficulty of using certain aerial equipment in low clouds.

On Monday, the US Coast Guard said it was “bringing all assetstobear” in the search forthesubmersible but the effort was “complicated by local weather conditions.”

Flight tracking service Flightradar24 said Monday its most tracked flight currently is a US Air Force C-130, which it said was en route to assist the search for the missing submersible.

Later, the US Coast Guardtweeted that “two C-130 flights have been completed from Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City.”

This post has been updated.

JRCC Halifax has launched a Royal Canadian Air Force Aurora aircraft from Nova Scotia to assist in the aerial search for the submersible.

A search and rescue operation is underway for a missing submersible operated by a company that handles expeditions to the Titanic wreckage off the coast of St John’s, Newfoundland, in Canada.

The vessel has 70 to 96 hours of life support, officials said Monday.

Here’s what we know so far:

OceanGate Expeditions says it is taking “every step possible” to return the five crew members onboardthe missing submersibleto safety and focusing its entire search effort on their wellbeing, according to a statement released by the company Monday night.

OceanGate Expeditions is the group that was conducting the expedition to view the wreckage of the Titanic

“We are deeply grateful for the urgent and extensive assistance we are receiving from multiple government agencies and deep-sea companies as we seek to reestablish contact with the submersible,” the statement read.

Here’s their full statement:

The US Coast Guardtweetedthat it will continue to conduct surface searches for the missing submersible throughout the evening.

The Coast Guard tweeted that The Polar Prince, the vessel used to transport the submersible to the site of the Titanic wreckage before the expedition, as well as aerial support from the Air Force’s 106thRescue Wing, will be involved in the surface searches.

Canadian Coast Guard surface and subsurface search, as conducted by Canadian P8 Poseidon aircraft, will continue in the morning, according to the US Coast Guard.

96 hours: The submersible has 96 hours of emergency oxygen on board, based on information received from the vessel operator, US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger told a news conference Monday. The Coast Guard “anticipate thatthey’re somewhere between 70 tothe full 96 hours” of oxygen available on the vessel, he said.

Photos of the submersible were posted on Action Aviation's business Instagram page.

Businessmanand adventurer HamishHarding posted photos of the vessel on social media Sunday before the launch of the expedition.

Harding is one of the passengers on the submersible that went missing during a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic, according to a social media post by his company, Action Aviation.

The photos were posted on Action Aviation’s business Instagram page.They show the submersible sitting in a cradle-like flotation device in the Atlantic Ocean.

A caption accompanying the photos said that it “had a successful launch” and was “currently diving.”

Another post from the account, posted on Saturday, noted that the weather had been bad but a “window” had opened up for Sunday.

The submersible went missing during a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic off Newfoundland, Canada.

Hamish Harding is seen in an image released by the Explorers Club.

Businessmanand adventurer HamishHarding is one of the passengers on the submersible that went missing during a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic, according to a social media post by his company, Action Aviation.

OceanGate, the company conducting the expedition, released a statement Monday confirming it lost contact with the submersible but did not specify who was onboard.

Harding, a British national,wasone of the first peopleto travelthe Challenger Deepin the Pacific Ocean — the deepest knownpoint on Earth.

The United Arab Emirates-based businessman also made headlines in 2019 for being part of a flight crew that broke the world record for thefastest circumnavigationof the globe via both poles.More recently, he was a passenger on Blue Origin’s June 2022 space flight.

Hardingpostedon Facebook on Saturday about his participation in the expedition.

Harding posted an image of the submersible to his social media accounts on Saturday, June 17.

“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,” the post read.

CNN has reached out to Action Aviation for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

The Explorers Club, a New York-based group of elite explorers and scientists that’s been involved in many of the world’s most prestigious discoveries, confirmed Harding was on the submersible.

President Richard Garriott de Cayeux said in a statement he saw Harding last week and “his excitement about this expedition was palpable.”

“I know he was looking forward to conducting research at the site,” he said.

Harding is one of the founding members of the club.

A spokesperson for the UK foreign office told CNN it was aware of reports of a British citizen on the submersible.

CNN’s Artemis Moshtaghian contributed reporting to this post.

Officials are in a race against time to find acivilian submersiblethat had five people aboard after it went missing Sunday in the North Atlantic while voyaging to the wreckage of the Titanic.

The 21-foot vessel has four days of emergency capability, the leader of search and rescue efforts said Monday afternoon, as crews with the US and Canadian coast guards continued scouring the ocean’s surface about 900 miles east of Cape Cod and used sonar to listen for sounds far below the water, which is up to 13,000 feet deep in the area.

The five people on board the vessel, which was on an expedition to view the Titanic wreckage, comprised one pilot and four “mission specialists,” Rear Adm. John Mauger,commanderof the US Coast Guard’s First District, said Monday in a news conference. He didn’t identify the five and said authorities still were in the process of contacting family members.

He referred reporters to the group conducting the expedition, OceanGate Expeditions, for information about what the term “mission specialist” entails.

The Canadian research ship Polar Prince on Sunday notified the military branch it had lost contact with the underwater vessel, according to Coast Guard spokesperson Lt. Samantha Corcoran.In a tweet, the Coast Guard said the communication stopped approximately 1 hour, 45 minutes into the vessel’s dive.

A British businessman based in the United Arab Emirates, Hamish Harding, is one of the people on the submersible, according to a social media post by the company he owns, Action Aviation.

“The sub had a successful launch and Hamish is currently diving,” the company said inan Instagram poston Sunday.

Read more here.