The Titan: here’s what’s going on with the missing Titanic wreckage tourist sub

• PINNED
  Jun 19

  Monica Chin

  An underwater tourist vessel carrying five people, which was bound for the wreckage of the Titanic, has gone missing.

  The vessel lost contact with its research vessel an hour and 45 minutes into its descent on Sunday morning. A search is underway approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod.

  The five occupants have between 70 and 96 hours of oxygen available, Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger said at a press conference earlier today.

  Submersible vanishes near Titanic wreck; search for 5 aboard underway

  [Washington Post]

• TODAY, Two hours ago

  Emma Roth

  A “debris field” has been found near the Titanic shipwreck.

  The Coast Guard will hold a press briefing at 3PM ET to discuss its findings from the debris field that a remote-operated vehicle (ROV) uncovered at the bottom of the ocean near the Titanic.

  The Titan tourist submersible began its journey toward the shipwreck on Sunday before losing contact with its support ship. The sub’s 96 hours supply of oxygen was expected to run out this morning.
• Jun 21

  Emma Roth

  The missing Titanic sub seems to be having an impact on this horror game’s sales.

  Iron Lung, an $5.99 indie game for the PC and Switch, puts you inside a compact submarine where you must navigate an eerie ocean of blood using only the grainy pictures taken from outside the vessel.

  The game’s developer, David Szymanski, saw sales spike on June 20th — just a couple of days after OceanGate’s tourist submersible lost contact with the surface. The sub, which is controlled using a simple Logitech gamepad, was supposed to journey toward the Titanic’s shipwreck that lies about 13,000 feet at the bottom of the ocean.

  Submarine game spikes on Steam as search for OceanGate vessel continues

  [Polygon]

• Jun 21

  Wes Davis

  Crews searching for the Titan submersible heard a “banging” sound early Tuesday.

  A Canadian search aircraft with underwater detection capabilities picked up “banging” sounds coming from the depths around the HMS Titanic wreckage about every 30 minutes, per a US government memo obtained by CNN.

  Rolling Stone, who first reported it, said an email to the Department of Homeland Security from the research group Explorers Society read:

  “It is being reported that at 2 a.m. local time on site that sonar detected potential ‘tapping sounds’ at the location, implying crew may be alive and signaling.”

  Knocking was heard 4 hours later when “additional sonar was deployed.”

  Searchers detected banging while scouring the Atlantic for a manned submersible now running out of oxygen | CNN

  [CNN]

• Jun 20

  Richard Lawler

  The missing Titanic tour sub is steered with a simple Logitech gamepad

  On Sunday morning, an OceanGate submarine vessel with five people aboard went missing in the Atlantic about an hour and forty-five minutes into a planned trip to explore the wreckage of the RMS Titanic. Made of carbon fiber and titanium, the vessel has enough air for 96 hours; however, as word of the emergency has spread, there’s also shock at the wireless Logitech F710 gamepad used for steering.

  The Titan advertises “state-of-the-art lighting and sonar navigation systems plus internally and externally mounted 4K video and photographic equipment,” and this CBS News Sunday Morning segment from David Pogue, taken last summer, showed the reporter laughing as he was shown its controls. OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush holds up the F710, saying, “We run the whole thing… with this game controller.” The reporter refers to the “MacGyver jury-riggedness” of the whole thing, using many off-the-shelf parts, as Rush said, “certain things, you want to be button down,” noting work with Boeing and NASA.

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