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in the North Atlantic traces have been lost of a submarine that was carrying out an exploration in the area where the wreck of the Titanic is located, the famous ocean liner that sank in April 1912. The United States Coast Guard has started search activities, but there are currently no much more information and the area to search is relatively large.
The submarine is operated by OceanGate Expeditions, a company that offers the possibility of making short underwater excursions aboard small submarines with a capacity of five people. Expeditions are organized in particular points of the seabed and often to observe wrecks of sailing ships and other boats, such as that of the Titanic. The ticket for a seat on board costs 250 thousand dollars.
The company has confirmed that it has lost contact with the submarine and is working to find it and secure its crew. “We are deeply grateful for the extensive assistance we have received from certain government agencies and other industry companies in our efforts to re-establish contact with the submarine.”
Information is scarce at the moment, but it seems that the model of submersible used has oxygen reserves to cover four days underwater. There are usually three passengers on board, the pilot and a person who acts as a guide and illustrates what can be observed from the submarine’s porthole. The course is set by a support vessel, which makes sure to maintain constant communication with the crew during the dive. In the summer of last year another submarine from OceanGate it had been lost for a couple of hours, before a connection was re-established.
OceanGate had embarked on an eight-day expedition departing from Canada on June 12 and returning on June 20, according to information provided by the company’s website, which has not yet released many details. Also among the passengers was Hamish Harding, a 58-year-old British businessman who was among the first to become a “space tourist” thanks to a short excursion organized by Jeff Bezos, the former CEO of Amazon, by the space company Blue Origin.
Harding had announced his journey to reach the wreck of the Titanic on social networks, saying that his would probably have been the only mission of the year to the seabed due to unfavorable weather conditions. From his stories it seems that the OceanGate mission therefore started later than initially planned, but further confirmations are awaited.
The wreck of the Titanic lies at a depth of approximately 3,800 meters 600 kilometers off the coast of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. What remains of the liner was discovered in 1985 and has since been explored on multiple occasions, both by manned submersibles and by automated robots.