Hope persists but time is running out. The desperate search for five missing in the submersible who sought to explore the remains of the Titanic It seems to have entered its last phase, with only a few hours of oxygen in the artifact’s reserves, according to expert calculations. The large rescue team deployed in the area, some 600 kilometers from the Newfoundland coast, clung on Wednesday to the “sounds” at half-hour intervals that a Canadian plane has managed to detect.
It is a “P-3 device that detected underwater sounds in the search area,” as reported by the First District of the United States Coast Guard, later resorting to a remotely operated vehicle that was trying to get closer. to the place where the noises were heard. Captain Jamie Frederick, of the Coast Guard, said this afternoon that those sounds had been picked up for the first time on Tuesday and again the next day, with “inconclusive” results.“.
It is, for the moment, the only indication that the five people on board the Titan, the name of the submersible, could still be alive. “You have to keep hope“, indicated Frederick, who assured that they have already been sent more boats to the area, including one with a French robot on board capable of scanning the bottom of the sea.
According to experts, in the best of cases, the Titan would be on the surface of the ocean. It is equipped with safety systems that allow it to rise to the surface in an emergency, even if all the occupants are unconscious.
However, if the Titan were to get stuck at the bottom of the ocean, its occupants would eventually run out of oxygen and suffer hypothermia from the extreme cold. The craft could also become caught in a fishing net or other entanglement. In those cases, the best way to achieve this would be to use a robot remotely controlled by a fiber optic cable, he explains. Jeff Karson, Professor Emeritus of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Syracuse University.