The race is on as the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards continue to search for a tourist submarine that took five people to look at the Titanic wreckage thousands of feet underwater and hasn't been in contact since Sunday.
The vessel, which costs $250,000 a person to ride, was operated by the tour company OceanGate Expeditions and was last seen off the coast of Canada.
Experts say there's enough oxygen on board to last until Thursday. Reuters reported the five passengers include Indian billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his teen son Sulemon, British billionaire Hamish Harding, French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, plus the owner of OceanRush Stockton Rush.
"It's a race against time, because there's only 96 hours of oxygen on board. And after that, if you haven't reached the surface, you starve of oxygen," Per Wimmer, an explorer and global financier, told ABC News.
David Marquet, a retired U.S. Navy submarine captain, told NPR there is no other submersible that can go that deep, which makes the search and rescue mission harrowing to say the least. The best bet is to find it and tow it back to the surface, he added.
"It's basically imagining a spacecraft disappeared on the far side of the moon," he says. "A, you have to find it. B, you have to get to it. Even when you get to it ... you still need to somehow get the people out of there to safety."
Marquet put the chances of its passengers' survival at "about 1 percent."
The excursion usually runs about 10 days as the submersible makes the journey to the wreckage, located almost 370 miles from Newfoundland and 2.5 miles underwater.
OceanGate Expeditions is one of the only companies that offer tours of the famous shipwreck, allowing tourists to get an up close and personal view of the Titanic.
So far this year, the 2023 expeditions are only the third the company has carried out in its submersible vessel.
“We are exploring and mobilizing all options to bring the crew back safely,” it said on Monday. “Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families.”
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