Ship disappears during a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic, sparking a search

The submarine with five people on board slipped into the dark waters of the North Atlantic, heading for what was left of the Titanic, 12,500 feet below the sea. The expedition, like many before, was testament to the enduring fascination with the legendary ship that hit an iceberg more than a century ago and sank off the coast of Newfoundland.

But an hour and a half after the dive on Sunday morning, the craft went missing, sparking a search by rescue teams from two countries and adding a new layer of mystery and intrigue to the Titanic’s wreckage.

Among those on board was Hamish Harding, a British aviation magnate who took part in Blue Origin’s fifth human spaceflight last year and holds several Guinness World Records, including for the longest time traversing the deepest part of the ocean in a single dive.

In social media posts, Mr Harding had written excitedly about the upcoming trip: “I’m happy to finally announce that I’ve joined @oceangateexped for their RMS TITANIC mission as a mission specialist on the submarine descending to the Titanic” , he said on Instagram. “More expedition updates to follow,” he added, “IF the weather persists.”

On Monday, officials had no explanation for why the craft called the Titanlost contact with his surface Canadian expedition ship, MV Polar Prince, about 400 miles south of St. John’s, Newfoundland.

But a spokesman for the US Coast Guard, Vice Admiral John Mauger, said at a news conference that the people on the ship, which was designed to survive an emergency for 96 hours, would theoretically have at least 70 to 96 hours of oxygen before the situation became dire.

“We use that time and make the most of every moment of that time,” he said.

The Coast Guard coordinated with Canadian authorities and commercial vessels to help search an area about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, at a depth of about 13,000 feet, he said. Sonar buoys were deployed in the water and the expedition ship used sonar to locate the submarine. Aircraft from the United States and Canada, along with surface craft, were scanning the waves in case the submarine had surfaced and lost communications, he said.

“We are doing everything we can do,” Admiral Mauger said at the press conference, adding that it was “a challenge to search in that remote area, but we are using all available resources to ensure we can locate the craft .and save the people on board.”

Officials have not released the names of those on the craft, but Mr Harding, chairman of a Dubai-based sales and air operations company, Action Aviation, was confirmed by Mark Butler, the company’s managing director, to be on board the missing submarine. .

The 21-foot vessel is operated by a Washington state-based company, OceanGate Expeditions, which offers tours of shipwrecks and underwater canyons for $250,000 per person. In a statement on Monday, OceanGate said: “Our entire focus is on the crew members in the submarine and their families. We are very grateful for the extensive assistance we have received from various government agencies and deep-sea companies in our efforts to re-establish contact with the submarine.”

The Memorial University of Newfoundland Marine Institute in Canada, which partnered with OceanGate during the voyage, said in a statement Monday morning that it learned OceanGate had lost contact with its Titan submarine. “We have no further information on the status of the submarine or its personnel,” it said in a statement.

RMS Titanic, a luxury liner and the world’s largest ship when it was built, collided with an iceberg and sank on a Sunday in April 1912 on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City. Decades later, searchers explored the North Atlantic for the ship’s wreckage on the ocean floor.

Finally, in 1985, a team of submarine robots took it to depths of more than 12,000 feet and verified that the broken hull it found less than 400 miles from Newfoundland was indeed the Titanic of lore.

The derelict demise of the Titanic lies in waters some two and a half miles deep – much deeper than ordinary submarines can venture. At that depth, the water pressure is hundreds of times higher than just below the surface.

A submarine traveling to the Titanic faces enormous, crushing pressure during its long descent. At the ship’s resting place, the weight of the icy ocean pushing down would be equivalent to an overhead tower of solid lead rising to the height of the Empire State Building.

Typically, seekers and researchers looking into such inky depths rely on advanced robots using remote-controlled television, photography and sonar mapping systems that can survive the crushing pressure and pierce the darkness. But such exploratory work is expensive and often frustrating.

For 111 years, the Titanic shipwreck had aroused great interest among researchers and treasure hunters who were fascinated by its tragic history: the horror of the accident, the inadequacy of the lifeboats, the supposed hubris of the shipbuilders and operators, the vast wealth of many and the poverty of others on board and the deadly indifference of the iceberg and the sea.

Tourists paid up to $36,000 per dive per submarine in the early 2000s. Salvage crews hunted for artifacts to bring back, despite the objections of conservationists who said the wreck should be honored as the graveyard of more than 1,500 people. Wreckage from an underwater accident was found on one of the decks of the Titanic. Investigators said the site was littered with beer and soda bottles and the remains of salvage efforts, including weights, chains and cargo nets.

Award-winning director James Cameron rekindled interest in the ship with his 1997 film, ‘Titanic. Mr. Cameron’s cinematic hit infused the wreck with a new tale of romance and tragedy, renewing interest far beyond that of famous maritime accidents.

In the early 2000s, scientists warned that visitors posed a threat to the wreck, saying that gaping holes had appeared in the decks, walls had crumpled, and rustics — icicle-shaped rust structures — were spreading all over the ship.

Mr Cameron, who has repeatedly visited the Titanic, was among those calling for concern around the site. He took 3D cameras there for his 2003 documentary Ghosts of the Abyss.

By the time OceanGate Expeditions, a private company founded in 2009, began offering tours to paying customers, researchers said the Titanic had little scientific value compared to other sites. But cultural interest in the ship remains extraordinary and the disaster continues to fascinate online, sometimes at the expense of facts.

Last summer, OceanGate president Stockton Rush told The New York Times that private research was needed to continue to fuel public fascination with the wreck site.

“No public entity will fund a return to the Titanic,” said Mr. Rush. “There are other sites that are newer and probably of greater scientific value.”

OceanGate also shared a one minute video from video obtained during one of his trips to the wreck site. Mr Rush said the high quality of the images enabled researchers to get an even closer look at the site without having to go underwater.

He compared the OceanGate voyages to space tourism and said the commercial voyages were the first step toward expanding the use of the submersibles for industrial activities, such as inspecting and maintaining underwater drilling rigs.

The dives offered by the company last approximately eight hours, including the estimated 2.5 hours round trip it takes to descend and ascend. Scientists and historians provide context on the journey and some conduct research on the site, which has become a reef home to many organisms. The team is also documenting the wreckage with high-definition cameras to track its decay and capture it in detail.

In a post on his Facebook page on Saturday, Mr Harding, who boarded the submarine before it lost contact, said of the planned dive: “A weather window has just opened.”

In his Instagram post, he wrote, “The team on the submarine has a number of legendary explorers, some of whom have made more than 30 dives to the RMS Titanic since the 1980s.”

He also said, “Due to Newfoundland’s worst winter in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only crewed mission to Titanic in 2023.”

Amanda Holpuch And William J. Broad reporting contributed.