Noises have been detected from the search area of the missing deep-sea vessel near the wreck site of the Titanic as those on board face a dwindling supply of oxygen, the US Coast Guard has confirmed.
The submersible, named Titan, lost communication with tour operators on Sunday while about 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland during a voyage to the shipwreck off the coast of Canada.
Titan has five people on board, including British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, and on Tuesday the US Coast Guard estimated the 22ft long OceanGate Expeditions vessel had just 40 hours of oxygen left.
The others on board are Shahzada Dawood, his son Suleman, 19, OceanGate’s chief executive and founder Stockton Rush and French submersible pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet.
A Canadian aircraft heard noises at 30-minute intervals in the area the capsule vanished on Tuesday. The banging was noted in emails exchanged with the US Department of Homeland Security and seen by Rolling Stone, but it was not clear when they were heard.
Coast Guard officials confirmed underwater noises were heard by a plane and operations were ‘relocated’ to determine the origin. But as of early Wednesday, they have ‘yielded negative results’.
Rescue crews will further analyze the data, which could be considered for future search plans in the deep Atlantic Ocean since the submersible launched Sunday and quickly lost contact with the surface.
Richard Garriot de Cayeux, President of The Explorers Club, confirmed in a Tuesday night social media post that ‘there is cause for hope.’
He said in a statement: ‘We have much greater confidence that 1) There is cause for hope, based on data from the field – we understand that likely signs of life have been detected at the site.’
“RCC Halifax launched a P8, Poseidon, which has underwater detection capabilities from the air,” the DHS e-mails read. “The P8 deployed sonobuoys, which reported a contact in a position close to the distress position. The P8 heard banging sounds in the area every 30 minutes. Four hours later additional sonar was deployed and banging was still heard.” The announcement did not state what time the banging was heard, or what was thought to have caused it.
www.yahoo.com/entertainment/searchers-titanic-tourist-sub-heard-003052670.html