US Coast Guard reveal fleet of seven ships, planes, and recovery equipment en route to Titanic search zone
The US Coast Guard has revealed seven more ships, planes, and remote-controlled recovery vessels are now on their way to the search site of the missing Titan submarine.
Underwater sounds described as 'tapping' and 'banging' have been detected in the search zone by several vessels fitted with sonar technology.
The sounds have been handed over to the US Navy for analysis.
International crews have also deployed an entire fleet of new ships, planes, and other vessels to aid in the search mission.
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The fleet of seven new assets to aid in the search includes three underwater vessels capable of remote operation.
The three remotely operated vehicles will be on hand if the search turns into a search and rescue effort.
As time dwindles, the new vessels have been mobilised to save those on board the missing submarine.
The Coast Guard also revealed that the US Navy had sent a Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System (FADOSS) on its way to the last known location of the missing Titan submersible.
The FADOSS is a motion-compensated lift system designed to provide extraction capacities to recover large, bulky, and heavy undersea objects.
Just like the missing Titan submersible with five souls on board.
The additional vessels on their way are Canada's CGS Ann Harvey, CGS Terry Fox, and His Majesty's Canadian Ship Glace Bay, which has a mobile decompression chamber and a team of medical personnel on board.
ROV vessels en route to the site include French Research Vessel L’Atalante, another ROV from Magellan, and the Motor Vessel Horizon Arctic.
On Wednesday (June 21) morning, the US Coast Guard said they had 'detected underwater noises in the search area'.
They said: “As a result, ROV (remote operating vehicles) operations were relocated in an attempt to explore the origin of the noises.
“Those ROV searches have yielded negative results but continue.
OceanGate's Titan submarine was reported missing on June 18 at 5:40 pm local time.
If rescuers manage to locate the missing Titanic submersible - which lost communication with tour operators on Sunday (June 18) - they will only have one chance to retrieve it, an expert has said.
OceanGate, a company that takes tourists to visit the wreck of the Titanic, confirmed that five crew members are on board the submersible that has gone missing in the Atlantic Ocean.
British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding is among the five, along with Shahzada Dawood, his son Suleman and OceanGate’s chief executive and founder Stockton Rush, reportedly together with French submersible pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
Rachel Lang