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
Search teams have covered 7,600 square miles
Search and rescue teams have now covered 7,600 square miles -- an area bigger than the state of Connecticut -- as they scour the ocean for the missing submersible, Coast Guard officials said.
A grid depicting the expanding search area is expected Tuesday night, according to a public information affairs lieutenant for the First District of the U.S. Coast Guard.
-ABC News' Miles Cohen
NASA weighs in on missing submersible
NASA released a statement Tuesday on the Titan, saying it remains "hopeful the crew will be found unharmed."
"NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center had a Space Act Agreement with OceanGate, and consulted on materials and manufacturing processes for the submersible. NASA did not conduct testing and manufacturing via its workforce or facilities," the agency said.
-ABC News' Gina Sunseri
US Navy sending salvage experts, equipment to help with submersible
The U.S. Navy said it's sending to the search site experts and equipment "designed to provide reliable deep ocean lifting capacity for the recovery of large, bulky, and heavy undersea objects."
The equipment, which can lift up to 60,000 pounds, and the experts will arrive in Canada Tuesday night, the Navy said.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said earlier Tuesday that the Navy was"on standby" to help with the search for the missing submersible, because the Navy has "some deep-water capabilities that the Coast Guard wouldn’t necessarily have."
President Joe Biden is "watching events closely," Kirby said, adding that Biden and the White House offer their thoughts "to the crew onboard, as well as to the -- what is no doubt -- worried family members back on shore."
3 Air Force C-17's transporting equipment to Newfoundland
Three U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo aircraft will be transporting commercial equipment from Buffalo, New York, to Newfoundland, Canada, to help with the search efforts, according to a U.S. official.
-ABC News' Luis Martinez
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