A 11 feet long submarine Titan continues to be missing along with five people who were due to return on June 18, 2023. The submarine was attempting to reach the sunken ship Titanic that lies nearly 13,000 feet beneath the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean. The Titan submarine is 9 feet wide and 8 feet high and has space for four passengers and a pilot. The expedition to the Titanic wreckage costs nearly $250,000 per person.
The submarine is owned by the OceanGate Expeditions that is responsible for deploying commercial manned submersibles for the sake of deep sea expeditions. The company has mentioned that the craft has 96 hours of air and also has a real time system monitoring the overall health of the submarine. It also has a big dome hole that is used for observation and also for external lights with 4K cameras. The craft also has internal heated walls that help to balance the temperature of the freezing sea water. It also has a toilet area that can be curtained.
The vehicle in question is called a submarine but technically it can be called as a submersible as it cannot launch itself and requires support ships. The CEO of OceanGate, Stockton Rush is also among the those who are missing with the submarine. Rush had last year said that his company Everett, a tourism and research company, had reached the site of the Titanic a dozen times between the years 2021 and 2022. As the GPS cannot be tracked under water, the Titan has to be guided with the help of text messages from the surface of the ships.
As per the Coast Guard, the submersible lost contact with the surface ship about an hour and 45 minutes after it was launched. OceanGate revealed that the submersible was sealed at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning and the people on board have until Thursday to run out of oxygen.
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