For over 110 years now, people have been mystified and horrified by the story of the sinking of the Titanic. From legends of a giant squid in the area to tales of whales protecting the grand ship’s final resting area, people have been curious about what happened there.
The latest trip to explore the wreckage has now gone missing 435 miles south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, per Canada’s Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The US Coast Guard out of Boston, MA, is leading the recovery efforts with Canadian Coast Guard aircraft and vessels assisting. Rear Adm. John Mauger, a commander for the U.S. Coast Guard, has pledged additional resources are en route.
“It is a remote area — and it is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area. But we are deploying all available assets to make sure we can locate the craft and rescue the people on board.”
The company behind the trip, OceanGate Expeditions, said the submersible was equipped with roughly 96 hours of oxygen when it went below the surface at 0600 eastern on June 18th. David Concannon is an advisor for the company who was supposed to be on the trip but said he was forced to be away, handling business for another client. He claims the biggest problem is getting another vehicle that can plunge to 20,000 ft below the surface there in time.
Typically taking scientists and marine biologists, the group also takes “mission specialists” who pay $250,000 or more for the opportunity to take the plunge and operate sonar and other equipment on the five-person submersible. For this trip, there was one captain and 4 “mission specialists” on board.
According to the company, they have repaired previous minor issues on the vessel, and just last year alone, they took 28 people into the depths and back safely.
Unfortunately, they were finally found – though there were no survivors. It has been identified that there was a “catastrophic implosion.”
The real mystery is why the US Navy knew about the fate of the ship for four full days before revealing it to the rest of the world.
