Rescue teams are looking for the submarine Titanic, which disappeared with five people on board near the wreck of the Titanic on Sunday. in the area where sounds of unknown origin have been heard for the past few hours, in a race against time as the ship’s oxygen runs out.

“We don’t know what the noises are,” U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Captain Jamie Frederick said at a news conference Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, asking to remain “optimistic and hopeful.”

Communications with the 6.5-meter submarine were lost on Sunday, two hours after it began to descend towards the coast the remains of the mythical ocean liner Titanicalmost 4,000 meters deep and about 600 km away from the Canadian island of Newfoundland, in the North Atlantic Ocean.

On board the Titan are British millionaire Hamish Harding, president of the Action Aviation company; Pakistani Shahzada Dawood, Vice President of Engro, and his son Suleman; the French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet; and Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, the company that operates the submarine, which charged $250,000 per tourist.

This combination of images taken on June 21, 2023 shows Titan submarine passengers (left to right, top to bottom) Hamish Harding, Stockton Rush, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Suleman Dawood, and their father Shahzada Dawood. The five on board are estimated to have less than 24 hours of oxygen left. Photo: JOEL SAGET HANDOUT

This is how Titan’s oceanic expeditions work to observe the Titanic’s remains

‘Stable mentality’

Dik Barton, the first Briton to dive the wreck of the Titanic, who has made 22 dives to the wreck so far, said his ‘reliable’ friend, the French explorer Paul Henri Nargeoletwho is aboard the missing ship, he is “100 percent” the man he would like to be if he gets trapped in a submarine.

Considered arguably the foremost Titanic expert in the diving world, Nargeolet directs underwater research for RMS Titanic, Inc, which owns the salvage rights to the wreck.

Barton said Daily mail that Nargeolet would be a great asset to explorers. “(Nargeolet) is an underwater science consultant, an expedition leader, very reliable, he will be the guy to keep everyone in a stable mindset”. “That is crucial to maintain normalcy. Everyone has claustrophobia, panic attacks, but you have to limit it because you have nowhere to go,” he said.

In this type of expedition, Barton believed that it is in the danger zone from the moment the mothership releases the ship. “From that moment on you depend on the technology, integrity and strength of the ship.“, said.

It was reported earlier on Wednesday that OceanGate’s operators had refused to allow Titan to be independently evaluated for use. Court documents show a former employee was fired after raising concerns about the ship’s safety.

David Lochridge, OceanGate’s former director of maritime operations, alleged in the August 2018 lawsuit that he was wrongfully fired after raising concerns about the company’s alleged “refusal to conduct critical non-destructive testing of the experimental design “.

After raising the “quality control issues” with Titan, the files say Rush asked Lochridge to run a “quality inspection” report on the ship.

During this process Lochridge ‘identified numerous issues posing serious safety concerns’but reportedly faced “hostility and denial of access” to necessary documents before being fired.

The document said it was concerned about the “lack of non-destructive testing on the Titan’s hull” and that it “highlighted the potential danger to Titan’s passengers if the submarine reached extreme depths.”