The Titanic tourist submersible that vanished on a trip to the 112-year-old shipwreck at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean is believed to have run out of oxygen with authorities still pushing forward with the search operation, according to New York Post,
OceanGate Expeditions, which operates the Titan sub and has its CEO Stockton Rush aboard the missing vessel, told the Coast Guard Sunday evening that the vehicle was equipped with only 96 hours of oxygen, with the timer running out around 7:08 a.m. Thursday morning.
The status of the five passengers aboard the ill-fated trip remains unclear as US and Canadian officials work around the clock to attempt to locate the missing Titan sub 900 miles east of Cape Cod.
The Coast Guard on Thursday morning, June 22, confirmed that a remote-operated vehicle “has reached the sea floor” and started searching for the missing sub.
“The French vessel L’Atalante is preparing their ROV to enter the water,” it added.
Along with Rush, who served as the vessel’s pilot, the missing include British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani tech and energy mogul Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Sulaiman, and famed Titanic explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
The US Coast Guard said it received word from OceanGate about the missing submersible eight hours after it lost contact with its mothership, the Polar Prince.
OceanGate said the sub disappeared less than two hours after it submerged Sunday afternoon.
Experts have said that the passengers could’ve actually shortened their 96 hours of oxygen by panicking.
Mike Tipton, the head of the extreme environments laboratory at the UK’s Portsmouth University, told Insider that humans can only go for about three minutes without oxygen.
With a depleting air supply, people can experience restlessness, headaches, confusion, shortness of breath, blue fingertips, increased heart rate, and eventually loss of consciousness, the expert said.
More than three minutes without oxygen can lead to brain damage, and eventually death.
Along with the lack of oxygen, Tipton warned that the passengers could’ve all already be in grave danger.