Missing submarine at Titanic

 

Missing submarine at Titanic 

Sub is controlled by game controller - cannot be opened from inside  

The 6.5-meter-long Titan submersible can probably only be opened from the outside. That is what researcher Robert Blasiak tells Sky News. This means that the only chance for the five people on board to survive is for the submarine to be found within the next two days.  

- They have time if they float on the surface, says Blasiak.  

CBS reporter David Pogue did a dive with Titan last year. He describes how he was initially hesitant to get on board because some components seemed almost improvised. 

- You control this submarine with an Xbox game controller, some of the ballast is abandoned construction pipes, he says. 

Another who traveled with the submarine is the writer Mike Reiss. He tells BBC Breakfast that he was made to sign a contract before the journey which mentioned 'death' three times on the first page. 

- When I got on board I thought this could be the end. So no one in this situation was caught off guard. Everyone knows what they are getting into, he says.  

Wreck of the Titanic. AP  

Titanic veteran: This is the day we've been dreading 

Scientists and adventurers have feared that an accident will occur in connection with the dives at the wreck of the Titanic. This is what Joe MacInnis, a Canadian researcher who was part of the expedition that first located the wreck in 1985, told The Guardian. 

- This is the day we've been dreading for a long, long time - that you lose contact with a submarine in really deep water. It doesn't look good, MacInnis says of the mini-sub that has been missing since Sunday.  

He has completed 17 dives down to the Titanic. At one point the crew got stuck in part of the wreck and had to be carefully pulled out by another submarine. During the same dive, contact was temporarily lost with one of the submarines. That the mini-submarine Titan has now been missing for two days is very worrying, says MacInnis. 

- But this is the reality in the sea, especially in deeper water. It is a place of burning fear. And it is a place of fleeting beauty, he says. 

 

Paul-Henry Nargeolet, Shahzada Dawood and Hamish Harding. TT/Wholesale/TT  

Billionaires, explorers and a teenager aboard the submarine  

Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son Suleman Dawood are on board the mini submarine that disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean. The family confirms this in a statement, several media reports. According to the Daily Mail, Dawood is one of Pakistan's richest people. 

In addition to the two, the British billionaire Hamish Harding is also on the submarine. Stockton Rush, founder and director of Oceangate, which owns the mini-submarine, and French explorer Paul-Henry Nargeolet are also reported to be on board, writes Sky News.  

The submarine in which the people travel is 6.7 meters long and is said to be able to supply five people with oxygen for 96 hours in an emergency. According to the BBC, a ticket costs £195,000, equivalent to around SEK 2.7 mill.