#TITANIC: GUARDIANS and MILITARY personnel carry out the SEARCH for the MISSING SUBMERSIBLE | RTVE

The rescue efforts of the missing submersible in the North Atlantic continue against the clock, while the window of time to find its five crew members alive, marked by those four full days of autonomy available to it, is narrowing. The vessel, used for tourism purposes, has been unaccounted for since last Sunday's dive to the wreck of the Titanic, the famous ocean liner that sank more than a century ago. OceanGate's Titan model has the capacity to dive to 4,000 meters, and can carry four people plus the pilot, with an autonomy of up to 96 hours underwater, according to the company's own data. The submersible measures 6.7m x 2.8m x 2.5m and weighs just under 10,500 kilos, with a payload of almost 700 kilos. It is typically used for tourist or scientific purposes, as well as for deep-sea filming. Like all bathyscaphs in its class, Titan is not autonomous, and needs a mother ship to tow it to the dive site and then pick it up. In addition, it has to be opened from the outside, so crew members always need assistance to get out of the cabin. Communication with the vessel was lost 45 minutes after the dive began, although this is not so worrying, as on previous expeditions communication was also lost and the submersible returned to the ocean surface normally. However, all alarms have been raised when the Titan continued to give no signals on Sunday night, two hours after the time it was due to return to the mother ship. On board the submarine are French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, OceanGate Expeditions' own CEO Stockton Rush, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood with his 19-year-old son Suleman, and British billionaire and explorer Hamish Harding.

2023-06-20T15:34:24+00:00
Duration: 04:58