WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th June, 2023) Rear Adm. John Mauger, the commander of the First Coast Guard District told reporters on Monday that they will deploy additional capabilities to locate the tourist submersible that went missing earlier in the day in the North Atlantic on a mission to visit the wreck of the Titanic.
"The location of this search is approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod, in a water depth of roughly 13,000 feet. It is a remote area and it is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area, but we are deploying all available assets to make sure that we can locate the craft and rescue the people on board," Mauger said. "Going into this evening, we will continue to fly aircraft and move additional vessels into the area."
Mauger noted that in this remote part of their search and rescue responsibility, they often rely on commercial vessels, and they have been in touch with additional commercial vessels operating in the area and initiated the movement of additional Canadian Coast Guard assets and US Coast Guard surface assets over the course of the next couple of days.
"The Coast Guard has two C-130 aircraft in addition to the command team that's working here. We have two C-130 aircraft deployed. The Canadians have C-130 aircraft and a P-8 aircraft. We also have access to and we'll launch this evening a C-130 aircraft from the New York national guard to make sure that we have sufficient air assets there," he noted.
Taking into account that this was a submersible vessel, the authorities are searching both on the surface of the ocean and in the water.
"We are doing that right now with the use of sonar abilities and sonar on the shipments out there to listen for any sounds that we can detect in the water column," he said. "Over the course of the next couple of days, we anticipate adding additional capability to conduct an additional search in the water as those commercial assets arrive on the scene."
Mauger also shared that they anticipate that the people on board are somewhere between 70 to the full 96 hours of available oxygen at this point.
Earlier on Monday, the Boston Coast Guard said that it was undertaking an operation to locate a tourist submarine with five people on board in the vicinity of the Titanic wreckage after the vessel went missing in the Atlantic Ocean.
The Titanic, the largest luxury ship at the beginning of the twentieth century, struck an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on April 15, 1912, and sank in the Atlantic. The incident resulted in the death of more than 1,500 passengers and crew.
The Titanic wreck is located about 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada at a depth of approximately 2.5 miles.�
