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20th June 2023
07:02am BST
A British billionaire is among five people missing during a dive to the Titanic's wreck on Sunday.
Contact with the sub was lost about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive of the Atlantic Ocean, and no sign of the vessel has been seen since.
David Concannon, an adviser to the company, who was meant to be on board the missing Titanic submersible craft, said that the sub only had between 70 and 96 hours of breathing time left, AP News reported. It has been suggested the oxygen will run out in the vessel at 6am BST on Thursday.
Hamish Harding, who has previously travelled on the Challenger Deep to the bottom of the ocean and on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin into space, took to Facebook on Saturday to announce that he was joining OceanGate Expeditions for its Titanic mission this week.
The Brit's stepson Brian Szasz said in a now-deleted post on Facebook: He "has gone missing on (the) submarine", the BBC earlier reported.
Also on the submarine is French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, CBC News was told by Titanic expert Larry Daley. Nargolet spent 25 years in the French navy and worked with Daley, who is a St John’s-based diver, on his first Titanic dive 20 years ago.
Sky News reported that chief executive and founder of OceanGate - the company who own the sub - Stockton Rush, is also on board, along with Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman.
The BBC reports Tuesday that US and Canadian search teams are racing against time to find the tourist submarine with government agencies, both countries' navies and commercial deep-sea firms all involved in the rescue operation.
As of Monday afternoon, it was thought the crew members had roughly four days-worth of oxygen left.
"Right now, our focus is getting on as much capability into the area as we can," Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard told a press conference.
Military planes, a submarine and sonar buoys have so far been used in the search for the vessel.
Titanic's wreck lies some 435 miles (700km) south of St John's, Newfoundland, though the rescue mission is being run from Boston, Massachusetts.
The US Coast Guard said a research ship called the Polar Prince had conducted a surface search for the sub on Monday evening.
The missing craft is believed to be tour firm OceanGate's Titan submersible.
In a statement OceanGate Expeditions said: “We are exploring and mobilising all options to bring the crew back safely.
“Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families.”
“We are working toward the safe return of the crew members.”
The company charges guests $250,000 (£195,270) for a place on its eight-day expedition to see the famous wreck, the BBC reports.
The Titanic wreck sits at a depth of 3,800 metres in the Atlantic, roughly 500km off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
The passenger liner, which was the largest ship of its time, hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York in 1912. More than 1,500 of the 2,200 people on board died in the disaster.
The shipwreck has been extensively explored since it was discovered in 1985.
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