In a desperate race against time, international rescue efforts are intensifying to locate the missing Titanic submersible, Titan, as its onboard oxygen supply is forecasted to deplete around midday today, UK time.
This unsettling realization has sent shockwaves across the world, and the urgency to locate the five trapped individuals onboard is mounting.
According to reports, those onboard the 22-ft long submersible are British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, Stockton Rush, OceanGate's founder and CEO, French submersible pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman. The group is now being referred to as "The Titan Five".
The Titan's communication with its tour operators was abruptly lost this past Sunday, while the vessel was approximately 435 miles south of St John's, Newfoundland. The OceanGate submersible was on a fascinating, albeit high-risk, expedition to the Titanic shipwreck off Canada's coast when it suddenly stopped sending signals back to its launch ship, Polar Prince, around 1 hour and 45 minutes into its journey.
The Daily Mail reports that OceanGate's emergency measures includes a 96-hour oxygen supply, which is now rapidly dwindling. Per the US Coast Guard's predictions, this means that the breathable oxygen supply on the sub is expected to run out at 12:08PM GMT (08:08PM ET).
Despite the daunting odds, the US Coast Guard - which is spearheading this international rescue mission - remains dedicated to finding the missing submersible. Their efforts were heightened after detecting underwater "banging" noises on Tuesday and Wednesday. However, whether these sounds are emerging from the missing vessel remains unclear, fueling both hope and uncertainty.
Carl Hartsfield, an expert in subsea acoustics from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, said on Wednesday about the detected noises: "Obviously, [there are] human sounds, nature sounds, and it’s very difficult to discern what the source of those noises are, at times.
"But I can tell you that this team has multiple sensors, they’re in the area, they’re sending data back expeditiously to the best in the world, people to analyze that data, and then they’re feeding the results of that analysis back to the unified team and they’re making decisions."
Former US Navy submarine commander, David Marquet, has also expressed skepticism, telling BBC News: "I don’t think the noise is them, it could just be natural sounds." He pointed out that the detection of more noises coincided with the arrival of additional rescue ships in the area, suggesting the possibility of a mere coincidence.
As the hours wind down, search and rescue teams are leveraging every possible resource, including the latest technology and international assistance, in the hope of detecting the missing Titan submersible.
Airplanes and ships from the United States, Canada, and France have scoured over 10,000 square miles (25,900 square km) of the open sea in their search efforts - an area exceeding the entire size of Wales.
The search area has also been expanded to around 14,000 square miles - twice the size of the state of Connecticut.
Despite the fraught circumstances, US Coastguard Captain Jamie Frederick instills hope, declaring that the mission remains a "100 percent search and rescue mission."
"We have to remain optimistic and hopeful when we are in a search and rescue case," Frederick said, per the Daily Mail. "If we continue to search, potentially we could be at that point... And that's a discussion we will have with the families long before I am going to discuss here publicly."
While the fate of the 'Titan Five' hangs in the balance, the world unites in sending prayers and thoughts, hoping for their safe and timely return.