A wreckage scene has been found near the wreck of the Titanic in the search for a missing submarine with five people on board, rescue officials said on Thursday.
An underwater robot came across the wreckage.
“Experts are currently evaluating the information,” the US Coast Guard said in a post on Twitter.
Several countries are participating in the search for the Titan craft, despite fears that the craft is running out of oxygen. Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard told NBC’s Today Show said rescue officials remain “fully committed to the rescue”. “Man’s will to live must be taken into account. We are continuing with the search and rescue.”
A host of assets and experts have been made available in the past 24 hours and sonar has detected unidentified sounds underwater.
Organizers of the rescue effort, which includes US and Canadian military aircraft, Coast Guard ships and remote-controlled robots, are focusing their efforts in the area where the sounds were heard.
The sounds, which were heard on Tuesday and Wednesday, raised hopes that the passengers were still alive. However, experts have not yet been able to confirm the source of the sounds.
On Thursday, the French research ship Atalante deployed an unmanned robot that can search underwater at depths of up to 6,000 meters, the US Coast Guard said. Experts describe the Victor 6000 as “the greatest hope” for an underwater rescue effort.
The Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic also deployed a robot that has already reached the bottom and started its search.
Mauger says vessels with medical personnel and a decompression chamber are also on their way to the area.
The 6.5 meter long Titan went down at around 08:00 on Sunday morning and was due to resurface seven hours later. Less than two hours after the Titan dived, however, all communications were cut.
On board are British billionaire Hamish Harding and Pakistani-British citizens Shahzada Dawood, a tycoon, and his son Suleman. OceanGate Expeditions charges $250,000 (about R4.6 million) per person for a trip to see the wreck of the Titanic.
Also on board are OceanGate’s CEO, Stockton Rush, and a French submarine operator, Paul Henri-Nargeolet, also known as “Mr Titanic” for his frequent dives at the wreck.
Ships and aircraft combed all 20,000 square kilometers of the surface in search of the Titan.
The Titanic’s watery grave is 600 km off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada and more than 3 km below the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean. The ship hit an iceberg in 1912 during its maiden voyage from England to New York and sank with 2,224 passengers and crew on board. More than 1,500 people died.
