The five people aboard the submersible that’s been missing since it dropped into the Atlantic for a trip to the wreckage of the Titanic on Sunday are out of time by some estimates. The Coast Guard estimated yesterday that the Titan could run out of air by 7:08 a.m. today. Experts say they could have been taking measures to conserve oxygen, but it’s not clear how much additional time that would give them, if any.
As of yesterday afternoon, searchers had covered an area twice the size of Connecticut on the surface, and Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick said the underwater search that’s reached as far as 2.5 miles deep is “an incredibly complex search operation.” More “noises” were heard by a Canadian P-3 aircraft yesterday, but a Navy analysis of the noises came back inconclusive, with Capt. Frederick saying “We don’t know what the noises are to be frank with you.”
The five people on board the sub are Stockton Rush, the CEO and founder of OceanGate, the company leading the trip, British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman, and French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet.