A Canadian military surveillance aircraft detected underwater noises as a massive operation searched early Wednesday in a remote part of the North Atlantic for a submersible that vanished while taking five people down to the wreck of the Titanic.
A statement from the U.S. Coast Guard did not elaborate on what rescuers believed the noises could be, though it offered a glimmer of hope for those lost aboard the Titan as estimates suggest as little as a day’s worth of oxygen could be left if the vessel is still functioning.
Meanwhile, questions remain about how teams could reach the lost submersible, which could be as deep as about 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) below the surface near the watery tomb of the historic ocean liner. Newly uncovered allegations also suggest there had been significant warnings made about vessel safety during its development.
Lost aboard the vessel are pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO of the company leading the expedition. His passengers are a British adventurer, two members of a Pakistani business family and a Titanic expert.
The Coast Guard wrote on Twitter that a Canadian P-3 Orion had “detected underwater noises in the search area.” Searchers then moved an underwater robot to that area to search. However, those searches “have yielded negative results but continue.”
“The data from the P-3 aircraft has been shared with our U.S. Navy experts for further analysis which will be considered in future search plans,” the Coast Guard said.
The Coast Guard statement came after Rolling Stone, citing what it described as internal U.S. Department of Homeland Security emails on the search, said that teams heard “banging sounds in the area every 30 minutes.”
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush emerges from the hatch atop the OceanGate submarine Cyclops 1 in the San Juan Islands, Wash., on Sept. 12, 2018. Rescuers in a remote area of the Atlantic Ocean raced against time Tuesday, June 20, 2023, to find a missing submersible before the oxygen supply runs out for five people, including Stockton, who were on a mission to document the wreckage of the Titanic. (Alan Berner/The Seattle Times via AP)
U.S. Coast Guard Chief Public Affairs Specialist Robert Simpson faces reporters during a news conference, Tuesday, June 20, 2023, at Coast Guard Base Boston, in Boston. The U.S. Coast Guard says a search covering 10,000 square miles (26,000 square kilometers) has turned up no signs of a missing submersible off New England. Authorities made the announcement Tuesday. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick, center, faces reporters during a news conference, Tuesday, June 20, 2023, at Coast Guard Base Boston, in Boston. The U.S. Coast Guard says a search covering 10,000 square miles (26,000 square kilometers) has turned up no signs of a missing submersible off New England. Authorities made the announcement Tuesday. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Warren Deyampert is docked as a member of the Coast Guard walks past, Tuesday, June 20, 2023, at Coast Guard Base Boston, in Boston. The U.S. Coast Guard says a search covering 10,000 square miles (26,000 square kilometers) has turned up no signs of a missing submersible off New England. Authorities made the announcement Tuesday. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger, commander of the First Coast Guard District, speaks to the media, Monday, June 19, 2023, in Boston. A search is underway for a missing submersible that carries people to view the wreckage of the Titanic. Canadian officials say the five-person submersible was reported overdue Sunday night about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland and that the search is being led by the U.S. Coast Guard. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
FILE – OceanGate CEO and co-founder Stockton Rush speaks in front of a projected image of the wreckage of the ocean liner SS Andrea Doria during a presentation on their findings after an undersea exploration, on June 13, 2016, in Boston. Rescuers in a remote area of the Atlantic Ocean raced against time Tuesday, June 20, 2023, to find a missing submersible before the oxygen supply runs out for five people, including Stockton, who were on a mission to document the wreckage of the Titanic. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes, File)
In this photo released by Action Aviation, the submersible Titan is prepared for a dive into a remote area of the Atlantic Ocean on an expedition to the Titanic on Sunday, June 18, 2023. Rescuers raced against time Tuesday, June 20, to find the missing submersible carrying five people, who were reported overdue Sunday night. (Action Aviation via AP)
A boat is parked outside the back entrance to the OceanGate Expeditions office in a marine industrial warehouse office door in Everett, Wash., Tuesday, June 20, 2023. Rescuers raced against time to find the missing submersible carrying five people, who were reported overdue Sunday night. (AP Photo/Ed Komenda)
The logo for OceanGate Expeditions is seen on a boat parked near the offices of the company at a marine industrial warehouse office door in Everett, Wash., Tuesday, June 20, 2023. Rescuers raced against time to find the missing submersible carrying five people, who were reported overdue Sunday night. (AP Photo/Ed Komenda)
The logo for an OceanGate Expeditions 2019 Titanic expedition is seen on a marine industrial warehouse office door in Everett, Wash., Tuesday, June 20, 2023. Rescuers are racing against time to find the missing submersible carrying five people, who were reported overdue Sunday night. (AP Photo/Ed Komenda)
A crane truck and a boat with OceanGate logos are parked near the offices of the company in Everett, Wash., Tuesday, June 20, 2023. Rescuers are racing against time to find the missing submersible carrying five people, who were reported overdue Sunday night. (AP Photo/Ed Komenda)
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush is seen on Oct. 22, 2013, in Seattle. Rescuers in a remote area of the Atlantic Ocean raced against time Tuesday, June 20, 2023, to find a missing submersible before the oxygen supply runs out for five people, including Rush, who were on a mission to document the wreckage of the Titanic. (Greg Gilbert/The Seattle Times via AP)
OceanGate CEO and co-founder Stockton Rush speaks during a presentation on findings after an undersea exploration of the SS Andrea Doria wreckage in the Atlantic Ocean near Nantucket, on June 13, 2016, in Boston. Rescuers in a remote area of the Atlantic Ocean raced against time Tuesday, June 20, 2023, to find a missing submersible before the oxygen supply runs out for five people, including Stockton, who were on a mission to document the wreckage of the Titanic. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes, File)
In this photo provided by Blue Origin, NS-21 (New Shepard-21), astronaut Hamish Harding receives his Blue Origin astronaut pin after a successful flight to space on June 4, 2022, in Van Horn, Texas. According to Action Aviation, a company for which Harding serves as chairman, the U.K. businessman was one of the mission specialists onboard a missing submersible carrying five people to view the wreckage of the Titanic that was reported overdue late Sunday, June 18, 2023. (Felix Kunze/Blue Origin via AP)
FILE – Commander Paul-Henry Nargeolet, left, laughs with Millvina Dean, 84, of England at the Black Falcon Pier in Boston on Sept.1, 1996. Nargeolet , a former French navy officer who is considered a Titanic expert after making multiple trips to the wreckage over several decades, is aboard a submersible that vanished while taking five people down to the wreck of the Titanic .(AP Photo/Jim Rogash, File)
A man reads a copy of a morning newspaper which reports missing Titanic submersible and onboard five people, including Pakistani nationals Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, at a stall, in Karachi, Pakistan, Wednesday, June 21, 2023. A Canadian military surveillance aircraft detected underwater noises as a massive operation searched early Wednesday in a remote part of the North Atlantic for the submersible that vanished while taking five people down including Dawood, a well-known Pakistani businessman and his 19-year-old son to the wreck of the Titanic. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)
A motorcyclist rides past a head office building of Dawood Hercules Corp, a firm of Pakistan’s most prominent businessman Shahzada Dawood, in Karachi, Pakistan, Wednesday, June 21, 2023. Social media in Pakistan has been flooded with prayers and messages of support for a prominent businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood who are aboard a submersible that disappeared while taking wealthy tourists to see the wreck of the Titanic. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)
This photo provided by OceanGate Expeditions shows a submersible vessel named Titan used to visit the wreckage site of the Titanic. In a race against the clock on the high seas, an expanding international armada of ships and airplanes searched Tuesday, June 20, 2023, for the submersible that vanished in the North Atlantic while taking five people down to the wreck of the Titanic. (OceanGate Expeditions via AP)
FILE – This 2004 photo provided by the Institute for Exploration, Center for Archaeological Oceanography/University of Rhode Island/NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration, shows the remains of a coat and boots in the mud on the sea bed near the Titanic’s stern. A search is underway for a missing submersible that carries people to view the wreckage of the Titanic, according to media reports. The U.S. Coast Guard told BBC News that a search was underway Monday, June 19, 2023, off the coast of Newfoundland. (Institute for Exploration, Center for Archaeological Oceanography/University of Rhode Island/NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration, File)
In underwater disasters, a crew unable to communicate with the surface relies on banging on their submersible’s hull to be detected by sonar. However, no official has publicly suggested that’s the case and noises underwater can come from a variety of sources.
Yet the reports have sparked hope in some, including Richard Garriott de Cayeux, the president of The Explorers Club. He wrote an open letter to his club’s adventurers, who include the missing British man and the Titanic expert aboard the Titan, that they had “much greater confidence” now after they spoke to officials in Congress, the U.S. military and the White House about the search.
Three C-17 transport planes from the U.S. military have been used to move commercial submersible and support equipment from Buffalo, New York, to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to aid in the search, a spokesperson for U.S. Air Mobility Command said.
The Canadian military said it provided a patrol aircraft and two surface ships, including one that specializes in dive medicine. It also dropped sonar buoys to listen for any sounds from the Titan.
Rescuers have been racing against the clock because even under the best of circumstances the vessel could run out of oxygen by Thursday morning.
In addition to an international array of ships and planes, an underwater robot had started searching in the vicinity of the Titanic and there was a push to get salvage equipment to the scene in case the sub is found.
Authorities reported the carbon-fiber vessel overdue Sunday night, setting off the search in waters about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s.
The submersible had a four-day oxygen supply when it put to sea around 6 a.m. Sunday, according to David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate Expeditions, which oversaw the mission.
CBS News journalist David Pogue, who traveled to the Titanic aboard the Titan last year, said the vehicle uses two communication systems: text messages that go back and forth to a surface ship and safety pings that are emitted every 15 minutes to indicate that the sub is still working.
Both of those systems stopped about an hour and 45 minutes after the Titan submerged.
“There are only two things that could mean. Either they lost all power or the ship developed a hull breach and it imploded instantly. Both of those are devastatingly hopeless,” Pogue told the Canadian CBC network on Tuesday.
The submersible had seven backup systems to return to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that drop off and an inflatable balloon. One system is designed to work even if everyone aboard is unconscious, Pogue said.
Aaron Newman, who has been a passenger on the Titan, told NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday that if the submersible is below a couple hundred meters and without power, the passengers are in complete darkness and it’s cold.
“It was cold when we were at the bottom,” he said. “You had layered up. You had wool hats on and were doing everything to stay warm at the bottom.”
Meanwhile, documents show that OceanGate had been warned there might be catastrophic safety problems posed by the way the experimental vessel was developed.
David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations, said in a 2018 lawsuit that the company’s testing and certification was insufficient and would “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible.”
The company insisted that Lochridge was “not an engineer and was not hired or asked to perform engineering services on the Titan.” The firm also says the vessel under development was a prototype, not the now-missing Titan.
The Marine Technology Society, which describes itself as “a professional group of ocean engineers, technologists, policy-makers, and educators,” also expressed concern that year in a letter to Rush, OceanGate’s chief executive. The society said it was critical that the company submit its prototype to tests overseen by an expert third party before launching in order to safeguard passengers. The New York Times first reported about those documents.
The search for the missing vessel has drawn international attention. In Dubai, where the missing British adventurer Hamish Harding lives, Crown Prince Hamadan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum wrote: “Dubai and its people pray for their safety and hopeful return home.”
Others aboard include Pakistani nationals Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, whose eponymous firm invests across the country. In Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, employees at his firms said they prayed for the two’s safe return, as did government officials. French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet also was on the vessel.
Describing Harding and Nargeloet as “tourists” is a misnomer, said Newman, the former Titan passenger.
“These are people who lived on the edge and loved what they were doing. If anything’s going on, these are people that are calm and thinking this through and doing what they can to stay alive,” Newman said, adding that he felt safe and in the hands of professionals on his descent. “It’s a good set of people.”
Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.
