A French robot that can dive to 20,000 feet (6,000 meters) underwater has joined the search for the passengers on the missing submersible.
On Sunday (June 18), it was reported that an underwater vessel - known as Titan - had lost contact with it mothership an hour and 45 minutes after diving into the depths of the North Atlantic Ocean with five people on board.
The expedition, operated by OceanGate, was described as an opportunity to "become one of the few to see the Titanic with your own eyes," and aimed to embark on a 12,500 feet deep dive to see the infamous Titanic wreckage - which sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg.
However, the sub failed to provide a signal to a Canadian research vessel just an hour and 45 minutes into the journey, which led to operators growing concerned. A major search operation - headed by the US Coast Guard as well as OceanGate Expeditions - is currently underway to locate and recover the vessel before its 96-hour oxygen supply runs out.
It has now been four days since the submersible was declared missing and the desperate search to find it has entered a critical stage after several reports suggested that the vital oxygen supply on board would run out on Thursday, June 22.
The rescue and search operation - which involves both US and Canadian ships and planes - faces a difficult challenge, as the Titanic wreckage sits at a depth of approximately 12,500 feet on the ocean floor.
According to Reuters, the US Coast Guard got assistance from a French robot called Victor 6000 on Wednesday (June 21). Victor 6000 can dive to 20,000 feet underwater, which is deeper than other equipment at the site in the North Atlantic.
An operator said the highly advanced, deep-sea craft is one of the few skilled at reaching the shipwreck as it has arms that can be remotely controlled to cut cables or perform other maneuvers. The downside is that the robot was given a limited window to provide help before the Thursday morning deadline when the sub's air supply is expected to run out.
"Victor is not capable of lifting the submarine up on its own," Olivier Lefort, the head of naval operations at Ifremer said, per the outlet. However, he shared that the craft could help connect Titan to a ship with the capability of lifting it to the surface.
"Victor is able to do visual exploration with all the video equipment it has. It is also equipped with manipulating arms which could be used to extricate the sub, such as by sectioning cables or things that would be blocking it at the bottom," he added.
Lefort noted that the robot - which is operated by a 25-person crew onboard its mothership, the Atalante - can work "non-stop for up to 72 hours, we don’t need to stop at night".
The five confirmed names on the missing sub are CEO and founder of OceanGate Expeditions Stockton Rush, British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, French submersible pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood.
On Tuesday (June 20), Captain Jamie Frederick of the US Coast Guard released a statement to reporters stating that the search has covered a "combined 7,600 square miles."
"These search efforts have focused on both surfaces, with C-130 aircraft searching by sight and with radar, and subsurface, with P-3 aircraft we’re able to drop and monitor sonar buoys. To date, those search efforts have not yielded any results," he said at the press conference per CBS News.
In addition to this, it was reported on Wednesday (June 21) morning that banging noises have been detected by a Canadian P-3 aircraft using sonobuoys - a special type of buoy with underwater sonar capabilities - after it was deployed in the search for the missing vessel.
However, the US Coast Guard took to their social media to inform people that the investigation of the noises by specialist underwater equipment had "yielded negative results".
"We don’t know what happened. The noises that were heard give us hope the submarine is on the seabed and that people are still alive, but other scenarios are possible," Lefort commented. "Even if hope is slim, we’ll go all the way."