Searchers in the North Atlantic detected what was described as “banging” noises Tuesday and Wednesday but could not confirm whether the sounds originated with sealife or the missing submersible Titan and its five-man crew.
The craft lost contact with the surface shortly after setting out Sunday to visit the deep-sea wreckage of the Titanic.
U.S. Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick said during a Wednesday press conference that a Canadian P-3 surveillance plane first detected the noises late Tuesday night and again before dawn Wednesday.
Resources that can scour the area underseas have been focused on that location since in hopes of finding the Titan, the missing 21-foot tourism and research submersible.
“The noises have been described as ‘banging noises,’ but again, they have to put the whole picture together in context and they have to eliminate potential manmade sources other than the Titan,” Carl Hartsfield, an expert from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who was recruited to help with the search effort, told reporters at the press conference.
Mr. Hartsfield said sea creatures can also make noises that can throw off search efforts.
Experts are analyzing the noises to see if they give any indication about the vessel’s whereabouts as oxygen aboard the Titan is running dangerously low. Authorities expect the air supply aboard the vessel — if it is still intact — to be depleted by 6 a.m. Thursday morning.
Capt. Frederick said debris was found in the search area — which has been expanded to be twice the size of Connecticut — but that none of the objects found correlated with the Titan.
Despite the mounting odds, the Coast Guard officer assured reporters that the search, and the hope to find the vessel, is still very much alive.
“This is a search-and-rescue mission — 100%,” Capt. Frederick said. “We are smack dab in the middle of search and rescue and we’ll continue to put every available asset that we have to find the Titan.”
Three additional ships — the Canadian coast guard’s John Cabot, the DOF Subsea’s Skandi Vinland and the Canadian supply vessel Atlantic Merlin — arrived at the sprawling search area Wednesday morning, with all three using the John Cabot’s side-scanning sonar to conduct search patterns, according to officials.
Canadian Ship Glace Bay is en route to the search area. The ship is equipped with a mobile decompression chamber and has medical personnel aboard.
Atlante, a French research ship arriving at the search area Wednesday night, has a vessel that can venture down the 2.5 miles underwater to the Titanic’s final resting place.
Most search efforts so far have involved deploying sonar buoys on the surface in hopes that a noise will be detected. The U.S. Coast Guard, the Canadian coast guard and the Canadian armed forces lack the equipment to reach the deep ocean where the missing vessel may be stuck.
Titan first made its descent toward the Titanic’s wreckage site on Sunday morning. The vessel lost contact with the surface less than two hours later.
Excursion organizer OceanGate Expeditions that evening notified the Coast Guard, which immediately launched their search effort.
Aboard the Titan are OceanGate founder Stockton Rush, British explorer Hamish Harding, Titanic researcher Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and British businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman.
Previous reports have covered that the Titan is operated by a video game controller.
CBS News reporter David Pogue, who rode in the Titan for a report last year, said that parts of the vessel’s hull looked to be improvised.
He told the network Tuesday that hope is “quickly fading” for the missing crew and that it’s “really bad” that the Titan lost its signal during its descent. To him, that meant that something “catastrophic” took place.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
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