A deep-diving tourist submersible that went missing near the wreck of the Titanic with five people on board has “about 40 hours of breathable air” left, captain Jamie Frederick of the US Coast Guard said Tuesday.
All communication was lost with the 21-foot (6.5-meter) Titan craft during a descent Sunday to the Titanic, which sits more than two miles (nearly four kilometers) below the surface of the North Atlantic.
The submersible was carrying three fee-paying passengers — British billionaire Hamish Harding, and Pakistani tycoon Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman.
The US and Canadian Coast Guards have deployed ships and planes in an intensive search for the vessel, which was attempting to dive near the wreck of the Titanic some 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick told reporters that the rescue efforts over an area of 7,600 square miles, larger than the US state of Connecticut, “have not yielded any results.”
“There’s about 40 hours of breathable air left based on that initial report,” he said referring to the sub’s capacity to hold up to 96 hours of oxygen.
A P-3 plane from Canada has dropped sonar buoys in the area of the Titanic wreckage to listen for any sound from the small sub.
The search, initially restricted to the ocean’s surface, was expanded under water on Tuesday.
France’s oceanographic institute said it was sending a deep-sea underwater robot to aid efforts.
In an Instagram message posted just before the dive, Harding said a mission window had opened after days of bad weather. Among the crew he named was Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a veteran diver and expert on the Titanic wreck.
Unconfirmed reports said the fifth person on board was Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions which operates the tourist dives.
The Titan lost contact with the surface less than two hours into its descent, according to authorities.
“We are exploring and mobilizing…
