Rescuers are racing against the clock to find the submersible which disappeared on the way to the Titanic wreck, with less than 24 hours of breathable air left on board.
The vessel, which is carrying five passengers, began its journey towards the wreckage site off Canada's coast on Sunday morning, before contact was lost about one hour and 45 minutes into its dive, the US coast guard said.
The six-metre submersible, named Titan, has the capacity to stay underwater for 96 hours, according to its specifications - giving the five people aboard until early on Thursday before air runs out.
Rescuers are now concentrating their efforts on a remote area of the North Atlantic where a series of undersea noises have been detected.
On Wednesday, the US Coast Guard wrote on Twitter that a Canadian aircraft had detected the "underwater noises" in the search area.
David Pogue, a CBS reporter, dove to the site on board the Titan last year.
In a December news report, he read aloud the waiver he had to sign, which noted the submersible had "not been approved or certified by any regulatory body" and could result in death.
In an interview on Tuesday, Pogue said the OceanGate has successfully gone down to the wreck about two dozen times and that the company does a meticulous safety check before each attempt.
"They treat this thing like a space launch," he said, according to AAP.
"It is definitely a culture of safety."
- With PA and AAP.
This article was originally published on June 20, 2023, and was updated on June 22, 2023.
Feature Image: AAP/OceanGate/Facebook/Getty/Twitter.
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Top Comments
I don't understand why you'd want to do this, in that craft (that bolts you in from the outside!) that far down to look at a murky grave site. It's so far down, it just seems like a ridiculous idea to be paying to go down just to look. More money than sense, some people.