The Titan began its voyage at approximately 8 a.m. ADT on Sunday, and communication was lost about 100 minutes into the descent, with the vessel approximately halfway on its journey to the ocean floor.
Rescue crews are searching an area the size of Connecticut in hopes of finding the missing Titanic submersible and to rescue the five passengers aboard the vessel.
Those crews are now racing against the clock, with the vessel estimated to have approximately 36 hours of oxygen left as of 5 p.m. EDT, Capt. Jamie Frederick of the U.S. Coast Guard said during a media briefing on Tuesday.
The five passengers have now been identified as British-born billionaire Hamish Harding; the British-Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-olf son, Suleman; Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French Maritime expert who has been on approximately 40 dives to the site of the Titanic wreckage; and Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate.
Inclement weather had delayed the launch of the vessel, according to a tweet shared by Harding on Saturday, but on Sunday morning the five men were bolted into Titan, a 21-foot submersible, to begin their descent.
Once bolted into the vessel, there was no way out for the crew. The members of the research ship from which the submersible launches, in this case the Polar Prince, are responsible for closing the 17 bolts that seals the crew ahead of the decent and later loosening them to free the crew after their journey.
The Titan began its voyage at approximately 8 a.m. ADT on Sunday, and communication was lost about 100 minutes into the descent, with the vessel approximately halfway on its journey to the ocean floor.
This is not an uncommon occurrence, according to multiple people who previously travelled on Titan. This might explain why the submersible was not reported as missing until seven hours after it lost contact with Polar Prince, which would be around the time it typically returns to the surface.
The interior of the submersible is sparse, with no seats and a small, handheld toilet that cannot be emptied until the vessel resurfaces.
There are a number of experts who believe the vessel may have been caught in the wreckage of the Titanic and is unable to free itself. If that is the case, the U.S. Navy does have remote operated vehicles that can descend to 20,000 feet, but those devices need to be transported on specific ships that would take over a day to reach the dive site.
Only a handful of manned submarines can descend to that depth and there have been no reports that any of those vessels are heading to the site.
If on the ocean floor, rescuers will also have to contend with pitch-black conditions that complicate an already difficult search.
Capt. Jamie Frederick said on Tuesday that the U.S. Coast Guard is currently using maritime vessels, C-130 reconnaissance planes, and sonar buoys to aid in the search, which is being headed up by the agency's Boston division with assistance from stations in Newport and North Carolina.
OceanGate charges guests $250,000 to visit the site of the Titanic.
