Authorities from the US,Canada and France are now on an urgent mission to find the Titan after it disappeared off the coast of Canada on Sunday.
Underwater banging noises heard by a Canadian P-3 aircraft on Tuesday night refocused the search effort,which now spans an area two times bigger than the size of Connecticut. But Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick said on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) that the authorities were yet to find anything,and it was still not known if the noises represented signs of life,or came from unrelated sources,such as sea animals or other vehicles.
Frederick said acoustic analysis was under way but acknowledged this was an “extremely difficult” period for the families of the five people who were on the Titan:British billionaire Hamish Harding,British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son,Suleman,French maritime expert Paul Henri Nargeolet and OceanGate chief executive Stockton Rush.
Asked if he still had hope for survivors,Frederick said:“When you’re in the middle of a search and rescue case,you always have hope.”
Three more ships arrived on the scene Wednesday morning to continue assisting with the search and several privately owned vessels,one with a decompression chamber and some with underwater search devices,were also preparing to join the recovery mission. OceanGate is helping to lead underwater search efforts because of its knowledge of the site.
It is still not clear why the submersible disappeared about one hour and 45 minutes into its dive on Sunday when it lost contact with its command ship,the Polar Prince.
However,the documents that have emerged so far paint the picture of a company that declined to heed advice from experts over the years,insisting that its own methods and assessments were superior.
One scathing letter,dated March 2018,from members of the Maritime Technology Society,warned:“Our apprehension is that the current experimental approach adopted by OceanGate could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry.
“Your marketing material advertises that the Titan design will meet or exceed the DNV-GL safety standards,yet it does not appear that Oceangate has the intention of following DNV-GL class rules. Your representations,at minimum,are misleading to the public and breaches an industry-wide professional code of conduct we all endeavour to uphold.”
Court filings from the same year by the company’s then marine operations director,David Lochridge,also raised alarm bells.
Lochridge claims he was sacked because he raised critical safety concerns regarding OceanGate’s experimental and untested design of the Titan. Among them were warnings that the submersible posed potential “extreme danger” to passengers because it had not been properly tested for use at very low water depths.
Lochridge’s lawyer Blake Marks-Dias said his client had no further comment,but added:“We pray for everyone’s safe return.”
OceanGate has also not yet responded to questions about its safety record,although company’s website talks up the measures it had put in place.
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“In addition to designing and building an innovative carbon fibre hull,our team has also developed and incorporated many other elements and procedures into our operations to mitigate risks,” the company wrote.
“OceanGate’s submersibles are the only known vessels to use real-time (RTM) hull health monitoring. With this RTM system,we can determine if the hull is compromised well before situations become life-threatening,and safely return to the surface. This innovative safety system is not currently covered by any classing agency.”
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