Search teams found a debris field near the Titanic’s wreckage as authorities race to find the missing submersible and its five-man crew in the North Atlantic waters.
The U.S. Coast Guard said that a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) discovered the underwater debris shortly before noon Thursday. Experts involved with the search are analyzing the information to see if it correlates with the missing Titan vessel.
ROVs have been deployed since Thursday morning as the Titan’s 96-hour oxygen supply was believed to have run out around 7 a.m. The vessel first made its descent Sunday morning, but lost contact with the surface less than two hours after it embarked for the Titanic.
Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic has sent its remote-operated vehicle (ROV) to the deep-sea bed, and French ship L’Atalante, which has the Victor 6000 ROV that can reach the 2.5-mile ocean depth of the Titanic, has also been sent below.
Deep-sea salvage equipment from the U.S. Navy has also arrived at St. John’s, Newfoundland, and is on standby to be sent to the search area. The salvage equipment was used to recover an F-18 fighter jet from the Mediterranean Sea last summer.
This could be one of the first substantial clues about what happened to the missing vessel since authorities said they detected “banging noises” overnight Wednesday. ROVs had been scouring the area of the noises ever since, though search officials said at the time that they hadn’t verified that those sounds were associated with the Titan.
Search efforts mainly involved deploying sonar buoys on the water’s surface before additional ships arrived with their deep-sea ROVs.
U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John W. Mauger told NBC’s “Today” show Thursday that the search efforts are continuing despite the news of the lack of oxygen.
“People’s will to live really needs to be accounted for as well,” Adm. Mauger told NBC. “So we’re continuing to search and proceed with rescue efforts.”
Excursion organizer OceanGate Expeditions first reported that the Titan was missing Sunday evening, and the U.S. Coast Guard immediately began coordinating a search with the Canadian coast guard and Canadian armed forces.
The Titanic’s wreckage site sits about 380 miles off the southern coast of St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Aboard the Titan are OceanGate founder Stockton Rush, British explorer Hamish Harding, Titanic researcher Mr. Nargeolet, and British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman.
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