NEW YORK, June 22. /TASS/. According to US Coast Guard estimates, oxygen supplies on the Titan submersible, which is still missing in the Atlantic Ocean, ran out as of 7:08 a.m. US East Coast time (2:08 p.m. Moscow time) on Thursday, the NBC television channel reported.
However, experts interviewed by NBC note that those on board the bathyscaphe can conserve oxygen, allowing them to stretch its reserves for a longer time. The vehicle is able to provide passengers with air for 96 hours.
According to the Sky News channel, 10 vessels are involved in the search for the bathyscaphe.
The Canadian vessel, the Horizon Arctic, activated a remotely operated unmanned underwater vehicle that reached the seabed and began searching for Titan, the US Coast Guard previously said on its Twitter page. Later, the French vessel L’Atalante also launched a deep-sea submersible.
On June 19, OceanGate Expeditions announced that it had lost communication with the vessel, which was taking tourists to the site of the Titanic wreckage. According to the US Coast Guard, there are currently five people inside the bathyscaphe; communication was lost about 1 hour 45 minutes after diving on Sunday. In total, the Titan can provide air to the people inside for 96 hours.
According to Sky News the submersible’s passengers are OceanGate Expeditions President and Founder Stockton Rush, French expert on the Titanic Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and British billionaire Hamish Harding, owner of Action Aviation. The two other passengers are Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Sulaiman Dawood, 19.