SINGAPORE: A search is underway for a deep-sea vessel that went missing with five people aboard after it dove toward the deteriorating wreck site of the Titanic ocean liner.
The United States Coast Guard is leading the search for the small craft, the Titan, in the North Atlantic Ocean.
The remote area is where the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew.
The Titan’s dive on Sunday was one of many that have been made to the wreck by OceanGate Expeditions since 2021.
The US-based undersea exploration company has been chronicling the ship’s decay as well as the underwater ecosystem that has sprung up around it over the last century.
Here is what we know about the situation so far.
What kind of vessel is missing?
The Titan is a 6.5m-long manned submersible that can carry five people – a pilot and four passengers – to depths of up to 4,000m, according to OceanGate’s website.
Expeditions to the Titanic, which cost US$250,000 per person, start in St John’s, in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
There, passengers board a support ship, the Polar Prince in this case, which heads out 640km into the Atlantic to the wreckage site.
To visit the wreck, passengers climb inside the Titan, which takes two hours to descend about 3,800m to the Titanic.
In a May 2021 court filing, OceanGate said that the Titan had an “unparalleled safety feature” that assesses the integrity of the hull throughout every dive.
At the time of the filing, the Titan had undergone more than 50 test dives, including to the equivalent depth of the Titanic, in deep waters off the Bahamas and in a pressure chamber, the company said.
During its 2022 expedition, OceanGate reported that the submersible had a battery issue on its first dive and had to be manually attached to its lifting platform, according to a November court filing.
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