CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A U.S. Coast Guard base in North Carolina has sent resources to help find a missing submersible carrying passengers that is lost underwater.
The Elizabeth City, NC Coast Guard base sent C-130 aircraft to assist in the search for a submersible that disappeared in waters off the Canadian cost while on a tourist mission to visit a Titanic wreckage site.
The crew searched over 870 miles on Wednesday, according to the Coast Guard.
The small craft named Titan, owned by undersea exploration company OceanGate Expeditions, has been chronicling the Titanic’s decay and the underwater ecosystem around it via yearly voyages since 2021.
The U.S. Coast Guard has been leading the search since the Titan disappeared Sunday in a remote area of the North Atlantic Ocean.
A Canadian aircraft detected underwater noises in the search area Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Officials said they don’t know what made the sounds, and a robotic vessel scouring the area so far has “yielded negative results.” Additional remotely operated vessels were sent.
“The equipment that is onsite and coming is the most sophisticated in the world and certainly capable of reaching those depths,” said Sean Leet, chief executive of Canadian company Horizon Maritime.
As of Wednesday, searchers had covered an area twice the size of Connecticut in waters 2 1/2 miles deep.
The craft submerged Sunday morning, and its support vessel lost contact with it about an hour and 45 minutes later, according to the Coast Guard.
The vessel was reported overdue about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, according to Canada’s Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The Titan was launched from an icebreaker that was hired by OceanGate and formerly operated by the Canadian Coast Guard. The ship has ferried dozens of people and the submersible craft to the North Atlantic wreck site, where the Titan has made multiple dives.