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
Canadian ROV begins search on sea floor
The U.S. Coast Guard announced via Twitter early Thursday that a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) deployed by the Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic has reached the sea floor, beginning its search for the missing submersible.
Meanwhile, the French vessel L'Atalante is preparing its ROV to enter the water in the search area, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
Search becomes dire as time runs out
Time is running out as rescuers race to locate and save five people trapped in a submersible that vanished during a tour of the Titanic wreckage on Sunday morning.
The deep-sea vessel submerged at 8 a.m. ET on Sunday with a 96-hour oxygen supply, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. That amount of breathable air is forecast to run out on Thursday morning.
The search and rescue mission remains ongoing.
Wife of missing OceanGate CEO is great-great-granddaughter of couple who died on Titanic: NYT
The New York Times traced the lineage of Wendy Rush, wife of missing OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, and found that she's the great-great-granddaughter of a couple who died on the Titanic, Isidor and Ida Straus.
The executive director of the Straus Historical Society told ABC News that The Times article, which cites archival records, is largely correct with regard to Wendy Weil Rush's heritage.
-ABC News' Nic Uff
US Navy crane in Newfoundland but awaiting ship
A U.S. Navy portable crane system capable of bringing up items from as deep as 20,000 feet has arrived in St. John's, Newfoundland, but is waiting to be welded onto a chartered ship to take it to the search area for the missing submersible, according to a U.S. Navy official.
The Navy has not yet contracted a ship for the salvage system, known as Fly Away Deep Ocean Salvage System or FADOSS, the official told reporters Wednesday. Once the ship is contracted, Navy teams will spend approximately 24 hours working around the clock to weld the system aboard the ship before it can leave port, the official said.
FADOSS is the salvage system the U.S. Navy uses for all of its deep-water recoveries. Last year, it was able to bring up an F/A-18 aircraft that had fallen into the waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
-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