Missing Titanic submersible live updates: Texts show OceanGate CEO dismissed concerns
Five people, including the company CEO, were aboard the sub when it imploded.
All passengers are believed to be lost after a desperate dayslong search for a submersible carrying five people that vanished while on a tour of the Titanic wreckage off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
The 21-foot deep-sea vessel, operated by OceanGate Expeditions, lost contact about an hour and 45 minutes after submerging on Sunday morning with a 96-hour oxygen supply. That amount of breathable air was forecast to run out on Thursday morning, according to the United States Coast Guard, which was coordinating the multinational search and rescue efforts.
Latest headlines:
- RCMP to investigate the deaths aboard Titan sub
- US taxpayer cost for search and rescue may be $1.5 million, expert says
- OceanGate CEO claimed sub was safer than scuba diving, texts show
- OceanGate co-founder defends development of submersible
- Sub's carbon-fiber composite hull was the 'critical failure,' James Cameron says
- Probe seeks answers on why Titanic sub imploded
- Navy likely detected sound of the implosion on Sunday: Official
- All lives believed to be lost: OceanGate
Company behind Titan overstated details of partnerships with Boeing, others
The company behind the submersible that imploded exaggerated the details of the industry partnerships behind the development and engineering of the underwater vessel.
In some public statements, OceanGate suggested the Titan -- its only vessel able to reach Titanic depths -- was designed and engineered with the assistance of entities such as Boeing, the University of Washington and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In statements to ABC News, each entity described its role, or lack thereof, as more limited than sometimes stated by OceanGate.
When asked about these exaggerations about the role of partnerships in the development of the Titan submersible, an OceanGate representative declined to comment on the matter.
Read more here.
-ABC News' Peter Charalambous
Probe seeks answers on why Titanic sub imploded
U.S. Coast Guard officials conceded they are facing a daunting investigation to determine what caused the Titan submersible to implode underwater near the wreckage of the Titanic, killing all five explorers aboard.
Officials said the 21-foot-long Titan was found in pieces by a remotely operated vehicle on a smooth section of ocean floor more than 2 miles beneath the surface.
"This was an incredibly complex case and we're still working to develop details for the timeline involved with this casualty and the response," Mauger said.
Read more about the investigation here.
-ABC News' Bill Hutchinson
What a 'catastrophic implosion' means
The Titan submersible suffered a "catastrophic implosion," the U.S. Coast Guard determined.
At the depth of the Titanic, which sits 3,800 meters below sea level, the pressure reaches a level 380 times the atmospheric pressure on the Earth's surface, Stefan Williams, a professor of marine robotics at the University of Sydney, said in a blog post on Tuesday.
A fault or failure in the hull of the Titan could have led to an implosion, as the vessel gave way to the high pressure of the deep sea, Williams said.
The implosion of a submersible delivers immense force, oceanographer Bob Ballard told ABC News on Thursday.
Read more here.
-ABC News' Max Zahn
Navy likely detected sound of the implosion on Sunday: Official
A senior U.S. Navy official confirmed to ABC News that an underwater acoustic detection system heard on Sunday what was likely the implosion of the Titan submersible. The information was immediately shared with the U.S. Coast Guard on Sunday and analysis continued afterwards.
"The U.S. Navy conducted an analysis of acoustic data and detected an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost," the senior official told ABC News in a statement. "While not definitive, this information was immediately shared with the Incident Commander to assist with the ongoing search and rescue mission."
According to the official, "This information was considered with the compilation of additional acoustic data provided by other partners and the decision was made to continue our mission as a search and rescue and make every effort to save the lives on board.”
Separately, a U.S. defense official said an analysis of the “banging” noises picked up by sonar buoys were not from the missing submersible but were either natural ocean sounds, biological noises or noises associated with the surface response vessels.
-ABC News' Luis Martinez
Former Navy sub captain on rescue options
Rescuers racing against the clock to save the five people trapped in a tourist submersible nearly two miles deep in the Atlantic Ocean are facing major obstacles that could make saving the people onboard extremely difficult, according to a former U.S. Navy submarine commander.
Retired Capt. David Marquet told ABC News on Monday that this type of rescue operation is complicated because there aren’t nearby U.S. or Canadian underwater vessels that can go as deep as the Titanic wreckage, which sits 13,400 feet below the ocean’s surface. Also, the ocean is pitch black at that depth.
"The odds are against them," Marquet said. "There's a ship in Boston that has this ability to either lower cable and connect to it or have a claw. It's still a thousand miles away."
Even if a vessel was able to locate the submersible and lower a cable, it’s extremely difficult to safely navigate the waters and attach it, according to Marquet.
"You've got to get it exactly right," he told ABC News. "It's sort of like ... getting one of those toys out of those arcade machines. In general, you miss."
Rescuers do have one advantage, Marquet said, as weather conditions off the coast of Newfoundland are not rough and will not disturb any boat or vessel there.
Marquet added that if the five people aboard are still alive, they would be asked to sleep to conserve their oxygen.
"We would put the vast majority of the crew to sleep because that's when you're using the least amount of oxygen and you're expelling the least amount of carbon dioxide," he said.
-ABC News' Sam Sweeney and Ivan Pereira