Rescuers rush to find submersible before oxygen runs out

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US and Canadian search teams were making a last push on Thursday to find a submersible that went missing over the wreck of the Titanic before the oxygen runs out for the five people on board the tiny craft.

Aircraft, ships and remotely-operated submersibles from the US and Canada have been searching an area 900 nautical miles east of Cape Cod, focusing on places where sonar equipment detected sounds potentially coming from the craft.

The effort comes as evidence has mounted of a long record of concerns about the safety approach of OceanGate, the privately held company that offered the trip, and the 10.4-tonne Titan submersible it used.

The Titan is designed to have 96 hours’ worth of oxygen from the start of any dive. Given that the vessel started diving towards the wreck of the Titanic at 9.30am local time on Sunday, that would give the vessel enough oxygen until 1pm London time or 8am US eastern time on Thursday.

Searchers did not know the nature of the underwater sounds that Canadian aircraft had detected in the area in recent days, said captain Jamie Frederick of the US Coast Guard.

“The good news is . . . we are searching in the area where the noises were detected and we will continue to do so,” he said on Wednesday.

The John Cabot, a Canadian coastguard vessel with sonar capabilities, has been on the scene of the search since Wednesday morning local time. Two commercial vessels, the Skandi Vinland and Atlantic Merlin, are also helping in the search.

Both Stockton Rush, founder of OceanGate, and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a French explorer, have been widely reported to be among the five people on board. Relatives of Hamish Harding, a British entrepreneur, Shahzada Dawood, a Pakistani businessman, and Dawood’s 19-year old son Suleman have confirmed they are passengers on the craft.

The Titan is one of only a handful of crewed submersibles seeking to operate at the depth of the wreckage of the Titanic, the British passenger ship that sank in 1912, costing the lives of around 1,500 people. The wreckage lies around 3,800 metres below the sea, where pressures are around 380 times those of the atmosphere at the surface.

OceanGate’s website contains assurances about the safety systems aboard the vessel, including a “real-time health monitoring” system that it says makes it possible to “assess the integrity of the structure” accurately.

“This onboard health analysis monitoring system provides early warning detection for the pilot with enough time to arrest the descent and safely return to surface,” the website says.

However, reporting since the vessel’s disappearance has revealed that as early as 2018, Will Kohnen, an expert at US Marine Technology Society, had described the company’s approach to safety having potential negative outcomes “from minor to catastrophic”.

Kohnen questioned OceanGate’s insistence on classing its operation as “experimental” and not seeking industry certification. He described the company’s claims that it exceeds industry standards “misleading to the public” and in breach of an “industry-wide code of conduct we all endeavour to uphold”.

Passengers paying the $250,000 cost of a trip on the Titan are required to sign a waiver that warns in several places about the potentially fatal dangers.

There was further evidence of concerns about the company’s safety culture in legal action lodged in 2018 by David Lochridge, the company’s former director of marine operations. Lochridge claimed he was dismissed for raising safety concerns, including over whether the vessel’s viewing port was certified to handle the pressures generated at the extreme depth of the Titanic wreckage.

Lochridge’s action was a response to legal action by OceanGate accusing him of leaking confidential information.

OceanGate did not immediately respond to an emailed request to comment on the claims made by Kohnen and Lochridge.