A rare menu from the Titanic‘s first-class restaurant sold at auction over the weekend along with a pocket watch from a man who died in the 1912 disaster at sea and a deck blanket from the ill-fated ocean liner. The items were put up for auction with dozens of other transportation memorabilia Saturday in the U.K.
How much did the Titanic menu sell for at auction?
The menu sold for 83,000 British pounds (about $101,600), according to auction house Henry Aldridge and Son Ltd. Dated April 11, 1912, the menu shows what the Titanic’s most well-to-do passengers ate for dinner three days before the ship struck an iceberg that caused it to sink in the Atlantic Ocean within hours.
Featuring such dishes as spring lamb with mint sauce, “squab à la godard” and “apricots bordaloue,” the menu shows some signs that it was exposed to water. It was found earlier this year among the personal belongings of a Canadian historian who lived in Nova Scotia, where recovery ships brought the remains of those who died in the catastrophe.
A Titanic menu from April 11, 1912, was sold at auction in the U.K.
Courtesy Henry Aldridge and Son Ltd.
How the menu came to be in the historian’s possession is unknown, according to the auction house. He died in 2017, and his family found the menu tucked away in a photo album from the 1960s.
A pocket watch recovered from a Russian immigrant sold for 97,000 pounds (about $118,700), according to the auction house. Sinai Kantor, 34, was one of the over 1,500 people who died in the disaster. He was immigrating to the U.S. with his wife, Miriam, who survived the tragedy.
A pocket watch recovered from a Titanic victim was sold at auction in the U.K.
Courtesy Henry Aldridge and Son Ltd.
After Kantor’s body was recovered from the Atlantic, his belongings were returned to his wife, according to the auction house. The items included his Swiss-made, silver-on-brass pocket watch with Hebrew figures on its heavily stained face.
A deck blanket from the Titanic sold for slightly less than the watch at 96,000 pounds (about $117,500), according to the auction house.
The tartan blanket features the logo for White Star Line, the British company that owned and operated the Titanic. The blanket was used on a lifeboat and then taken on a rescue ship to New York, where it was acquired by a White Star official, according to the auction house.
A deck blanket from the Titanic was sold at auction in the U.K.
Norfolk, Va. — The U.S. government is trying to stop a planned expedition to recover items of historical interest from the sunken Titanic, citing a federal law and an international agreement that treat the shipwreck as a hallowed gravesite.
The expedition is being organized by RMS Titanic Inc., the Georgia-based firm that owns the salvage rights to the world’s most famous shipwreck. The company exhibits artifacts that have been recovered from the wreck site at the bottom of the North Atlantic, from silverware to a piece of the Titanic’s hull.
The government’s challenge comes more than two months after the Titan submersible imploded near the sunken ocean liner, killing five people. But this legal fight has nothing to do with the June tragedy, which involved a different company and an unconventionally designed vessel.
The battle in the U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, which oversees Titanic salvage matters, hinges instead on federal law and a pact with Great Britain to treat the sunken Titanic as a memorial to the more than 1,500 people who died. The ship hit an iceberg and sank in 1912.
The U.S. argues that entering the Titanic’s severed hull – or physically altering or disturbing the wreck – is regulated by federal law and its agreement with Britain. Among the government’s concerns is the possible disturbance of artifacts and any human remains that may still exist.
“RMST is not free to disregard this validly enacted federal law, yet that is its stated intent,” U.S. lawyers argued in court documents filed Friday. They added that the shipwreck “will be deprived of the protections Congress granted it.”
RMST’s expedition is tentatively planned for May 2024, according to a report it filed with the court in June.
The company said it plans to take images of the entire wreck. That includes “inside the wreck where deterioration has opened chasms sufficient to permit a remotely operated vehicle to penetrate the hull without interfering with the current structure.”
RMST said it would recover artifacts from the debris field and “may recover free-standing objects inside the wreck.” Those could include “objects from inside the Marconi room, but only if such objects are not affixed to the wreck itself.”
The Marconi room holds the ship’s radio – a Marconi wireless telegraph machine – which broadcast the Titanic’s increasingly frantic distress signals after the ocean liner hit an iceberg. The messages in Morse code were picked up by other ships and onshore receiving stations, helping to save the lives of about 700 people who fled in life boats. There had been 2,208 passengers and crew on the Titanic’s maiden voyage, from Southampton, England, to New York.
The Titanic leaving Southampton, England on her maiden voyage on April 10, 1912.
AP file photo
“At this time, the company does not intend to cut into the wreck or detach any part of the wreck,” RMST stated.
The company said it would “work collaboratively” with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. agency that represents the public’s interest in the wreck. But RMST said it does not intend to seek a permit.
U.S. government lawyers said the firm can’t proceed without one, arguing that RMST needs approval from the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, who oversees NOAA.
The company has not filed a response in court. But in previous cases, it has challenged the constitutionality of U.S. efforts to “infringe” on its salvage rights to a wreck in international waters. The firm has argued that only the court in Norfolk has jurisdiction, and points to centuries of precedent in maritime law.
RMST reiterated that stance in a statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday, noting that the court granted its salvage rights three decades ago. Since then, the firm said it has recovered and conserved thousands of Titanic artifacts, which millions of people have seen.
“The company will continue its work, respectfully preserving the memory and legacy of Titanic, her passengers and crew for the future generations,” RMST said.
In 2020, the U.S. government and RMST engaged in a nearly identical legal battle over a proposed expedition that could have cut into the wreck. But the proceedings were cut short by the coronavirus pandemic and never fully played out.
The company’s plan then was to retrieve the radio, which sits in a deck house near the grand staircase. An uncrewed submersible was to slip through a skylight or cut the heavily corroded roof. A “suction dredge” would remove loose silt, while manipulator arms could cut electrical cords.
The company said it would exhibit the radio along with stories of the men who tapped out distress calls “until seawater was literally lapping at their feet.”
In May 2020, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith gave RMST permission, writing that the radio is historically and culturally important and could soon be lost to decay. Smith wrote that recovering the telegraph would “contribute to the legacy left by the indelible loss of the Titanic, those who survived, and those who gave their lives in the sinking.”
A few weeks later, the U.S. government filed an official legal challenge against the 2020 expedition, which never happened. The firm indefinitely delayed its plans in early 2021 because of complications wrought by the pandemic.
Pieces of debris from the sub that officials say imploded while carrying five people to the wreckage of the Titanic last week have arrived back on land. Photos from the Canadian Press and Reuters news agency show crews unloading large pieces of the Titan submersible in Newfoundland.
The debris arrived in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Wednesday, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement.
The agency also said “presumed human remains” recovered from the sub’s wreckage would undergo analysis by American medical professionals.
Evidence recovered from the sea floor for the U.S.-led investigation into the implosion would be transported to a U.S. port for analysis and testing, the Coast Guard said.
Debris from the Titan submersible, recovered from the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic, is unloaded from the ship Horizon Arctic at the Canadian coast guard pier in St. John’s, Newfoundland, June 28, 2023.
Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP
“The evidence will provide investigators from several international jurisdictions with critical insights into the cause of this tragedy,” Coast Guard Capt. Jason Neubauer, the chief investigator, said in the statement. “There is still a substantial amount of work to be done to understand the factors that led to the catastrophic loss of the TITAN and help ensure a similar tragedy does not occur again.”
The emergence of images of the Titan comes about a week after the Coast Guard announced an underwater robot had discovered debris from the sub about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic. The Coast Guard said the debris was “consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel.”
Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, his 19-year-old son Suleman, billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush were on the sub and died in the disaster.
Debris from the Titan submersible, recovered from the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic, is unloaded from the ship Horizon Arctic at the Canadian coast guard pier in St. John’s, Newfoundland, June 28, 2023.
Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP
The debris field was found last Thursday by a deep-sea robot, also known as a remotely operated vehicle or ROV, from Pelagic Research Services, according to the company. On Wednesday, the company announced workers had completed “off-shore operations.”
“They have been working around the clock now for ten days, through the physical and mental challenges of this operation, and are anxious to finish the mission and return to their loved ones,” the company said in a statement on social media.
The company said it couldn’t comment on the investigation looking into what caused the implosion that will involve Canada, France and the U.K.
Pieces of debris from the doomed sub that carried five people to the wreckage of the Titanic have been pulled from the ocean and returned to land. https://t.co/0apdiUQIk4pic.twitter.com/yBZHUXn7jA
“It’s an opportunity to learn from the incident and then work with our international partners worldwide … to prevent a similar occurrence,” Neubauer told reporters Sunday.
The discovery of the debris followed a massive search effort for the sub. The Titan lost contact with a Canadian research vessel June 18 about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive to the wreckage of the famed ocean liner that sank on its maiden voyage in 1912.
A salvaged piece of the Titan submersible from OceanGate Expeditions is seen being offloaded from the Horizon Arctic ship in St. John’s, Newfoundland, June 28, 2023.
Reuters/David Hiscock
Planes and vessels from several countries, including the U.S., focused on the search area approximately 900 nautical miles from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for days before the debris field was located.
After the Coast Guard revealed the sub had imploded, a U.S. Navy official told CBS News the Navy detected “an acoustic anomaly consistent with an implosion” shortly after the sub lost contact with the surface. The information was relayed to the Coast Guard, which used it to narrow the search area, the official said.
Aliza Chasan contributed reporting.
Salvaged pieces of the Titan submersible from OceanGate Expeditions are seen in St. John’s, Newfoundland, June 28, 2023.
The U.S. Coast Guard has launched an investigation into the Titan submersible, which imploded with five people on board while attempting a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic. Roxana Saberi has the latest.
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As the operator of a tourist submersible designed to dive 4,000 meters below the sea’s surface, OceanGate asked its customers to sign liability waivers before stepping inside the 21-foot vessel — paperwork that outlined their risks in stark terms, including the possibility of death, emotional trauma or physical injury.
That waiver could play a critical role in whether the families of the passengers who died last week on an expedition to explore the wreckage of the Titanic have legal grounds to sue OceanGate, according to legal experts.
The company’s liability waiver was highlighted by CBS News correspondent David Pogue, who traveled on the sub last year and who noted that the document alludes to the risk of death three times as well as to other dangers. The waiver also described the vessel itself, which highlights some of the issues with the sub that experts had warned about in the years prior to its doomed voyage.
“This operation will be conducted inside an experimental submersible vessel that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and may be constructed of materials that have not been widely used in human-occupied submersibles,” the waiver stated.
Passengers also waived the right to take action for “personal injury, property damage or any other loss” that they experienced on the trip, according to The Associated Press.
Such waivers are common for recreational activities that carry risks, such as scuba diving or sky diving. Generally, these legal documents shield the company’s owner of liability if their customers accept the risks and dangers related to the activity and are subsequently injured.
The families and representatives of the four passengers on the Titan — British businessman Hamish Harding; Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son; and French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet — didn’t immediately return requests for comment. OceanGate’s CEO, Stockton Rush, was also on the vessel. The company declined to comment.
International waters
Complicating the question of liability is that the incident occurred in international waters, noted Craig Goldenfarb, founder of law firm Goldlaw and an attorney who practices maritime and admiralty law. As a result, a section of OceanGate’s waiver known as the “choice of law” provision becomes especially important, he noted.
“The choice of law provision gives jurisdiction to a country in case any litigation ensues from the contract,” Goldenfarb said.
The waiver reviewed by the AP found that any disputes would be governed by the laws of the Bahamas, where OceanGate is registered. The Bahamas, whose legal system is based on English Common Law, is considered a business-friendly jurisdiction, but whether the families have grounds to sue may depend on its laws governing liability waivers.
It’s important to note that waivers in general aren’t ironclad, Goldenfarb noted. For instance, if the waiver is signed by someone who can’t understand the waiver due to a disability or other issue, such as a language gap, and then who is injured, their families may be able to sue because the victim wasn’t properly informed of the risk.
Waivers can also be rejected by judges if there is evidence of gross negligence, attorneys noted.
“You can waive liability standard for negligence but not gross negligence,” said Patrick Luff, founding partner of Luff Law Firm and a former law school professor. “Gross negligence will vary, but it’s generally something like, ‘acting despite your knowledge of extreme risk’.”
“Experimental submersible”
The OceanGate waiver’s terms that outlined the risks of diving in the sub showed that the passengers had been informed, meaning that their families wouldn’t be able to sue simply because the vessel was an “experimental submersible” or hadn’t been certified by an industry group, some legal experts said.
“If that information had been hidden, then of course that would be actionable,” noted John Uustal, founding partner of Kelley | Uustal Trial Attorneys, in an email to CBS MoneyWatch. “It seems to me this kind of verification of informed consent is entirely appropriate, and in general they are legally valid.”
The section of the legal document that waived the passengers’ right to take action for injury or loss could also “insulate the company from any responsibility for its own misconduct, even when egregious,” Uustal noted.
Even so, Uustal said he would advise the passengers’ families to closely review the waiver for issues that weren’t covered or disclosed.
“I would suggest looking closely at the exact language of any release terms and see if there is any misconduct that was not covered,” he said. “That may provide grounds for a lawsuit, if indeed there was such misconduct.”
But as the investigation into the Titan’s failure emerges, with a deep-sea robot searching this weekend for debris from the sub, additional legal issues could come to light as more is learned about how and why the vessel imploded, Goldenfarb said.
“If one of the component parts failed, then you would be suing the manufacturer of a component part instead of suing OceanGate,” Goldenfarb said. “There may be areas of liability that nobody is aware of yet.”
—With reporting by Irina Ivanova and The Associated Press.
Officials are investigating what went wrong aboard the Titan submersible as passengers’ families mourn the loss of their loved ones. An international coalition remains on site scouring the Atlantic Ocean for more debris from the vessel. CBS News correspondent Roxana Saberi reports from Boston.
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OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, the owner and pilot of the doomed Titan sub, had offered millionaire Jay Bloom and his son discounted tickets to ride on it, and claimed it was safer than crossing the street, a Facebook post from Bloom said. The sub suffered a “catastrophic implosion” on its dive to view the Titanic earlier this week, killing Rush and the other four people on board.
On Thursday, just hours after the Coast Guard announced that the wreckage of the sub had been found, Bloom, a Las Vegas investor, revealed texts he had exchanged with Rush in the months leading up to the trip.
In one text conversation in late April, Rush reduced the price of the tickets from $250,000 to $150,000 per person to ride the submersible on a trip scheduled for May. As Bloom contemplated the offer, his son Sean raised safety concerns over the sub, while Rush — who once said he’d “broken some rules” in its design — tried to assure them.
“While there’s obviously risk it’s way safer than flying a helicopter or even scuba diving,” Rush wrote, according to a screen shot of the text exchange posted by Bloom.
Bloom said that in a previous in-person meeting with Rush, they’d discussed the dive and its safety.
“I am sure he really believed what he was saying. But he was very wrong,” Bloom wrote, adding, “He was absolutely convinced that it was safer than crossing the street.”
This photo provided by OceanGate Expeditions shows the submersible vessel named Titan used to visit the wreckage site of the Titanic.
OceanGate Expeditions via AP
Ultimately, the May trip was delayed until Father’s Day weekend in June, and Bloom decided not to go.
“I told him that due to scheduling we couldn’t go until next year,” Bloom wrote. “Our seats went to Shahzada Dawood and his 19 year old son, Suleman Dawood, two of the other three who lost their lives on this excursion (the fifth being Hamish Harding).”
Bloom wasn’t the only one who backed out of the trip. Chris Brown, a friend of Harding and self-described “modern explorer,” told CNN earlier this week he decided to not go because it “seemed to have too many risks out of my control” and didn’t come across as a “professional diving operation.” David Concannon, an Idaho-based attorney and a consultant for OceanGate Expeditions, said over Facebook that he canceled due to an “urgent client matter.”
The U.S. Coast Guard said it would continue its investigation of the debris from the sub, found near the Titanic shipwreck site, to try to determine more about how and when it imploded.
Industry experts and a former employee’s lawsuit had raised serious safety concerns about OceanGate’s operation years before the sub’s disappearance. In 2018, a professional trade group warned that OceanGate’s experimental approach to the design of the Titan could lead to potentially “catastrophic” outcomes, according to a letter from the group obtained by CBS News.
“Titanic” director James Cameron, an experienced deep-sea explorer who has been to the wreckage site more than 30 times, said that “OceanGate shouldn’t have been doing what it was doing.”
A co-founder of OceanGate, the company behind the ill-fated sub voyage to the wreckage of the Titanic that resulted in the deaths of five people, supported the trips during an interview in which he learned that the massive search for the sub uncovered debris.
Söhnlein co-founded OceanGate in 2009 with Stockton Rush, the company’s CEO who died with four others in the sub when officials say it imploded in the north Atlantic Ocean about 1,600 feet from the wreckage of the Titanic. Söhnlein stopped working at the company in 2013 but is a minority equity owner, according to a statement he posted to Facebook.
During Thursday’s interview, he was told about the U.S. Coast Guard’s announcement that an ROV, or remotely operated vehicle, found a debris field but didn’t immediately confirm that it was from the sub. Söhnlein said the conditions at the depth of the Titanic wreck — 2 1/2 miles underwater — are challenging for any sub.
“Regardless of the sub, when you’re operating at depths like 3,800 meters down, the pressure is so great on any sub that if there is a failure, it would be an instantaneous implosion, and so that, if that’s what happened, that’s what would have happened four days ago,” Söhnlein said.
The Titan submersible, operated by OceanGate Expeditions to explore the wreckage of the sunken Titanic off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, dives in an undated photograph.
OceanGate Expeditions/Handout via Reuters
The Coast Guard later announced that the underwater robot’s findings were consistent with a “catastrophic implosion.” Meanwhile, a U.S. Navy official told CBS News the Navy detected “an acoustic anomaly consistent with an implosion” shortly after the sub, named Titan, lost contact with the surface during Sunday’s dive. The information was relayed to the Coast Guard, which used it to narrow the radius of the search area, the official told CBS News.
Söhnlein said the company’s protocol for losing communications was to bring the sub to the surface and he had thought that’s what happened.
“My biggest fear through this whole thing watching the operations unfold was that they’re floating around on the surface and they’re just very difficult to find,” Söhnlein said.
The Coast Guard said authorities would collect as much information on the implosion as they could in an effort to explain what happened.
On Friday, Söhnlein told the Reuters news agency the implosion should be treated like catastrophes that have happened in space travel.
“Let’s figure out what went wrong, let’s learn lessons and let’s get down there again,” Söhnlein said. “If anything, what we’re feeling is an even stronger imperative to continue doing this kind of exploration work. I think it’s important for humanity, and it’s probably the best way to honor the five crew members who gave up their lives doing something that they loved.”
French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet was one of five passengers who died aboard the Titan submersible, which the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed on Thursday experienced a “catastrophic implosion” near the wreckage of the Titanic.
John Paschall, stepson of Nargeolet, spoke to CBS New York just hours after the Coast Guard reported that it had discovered two debris fields on the sea floor which were pieces of the missing OceanGate sub.
Paschall, who is also the son of late CBS New York anchor Michele Marsh, said Nargeolet was known affectionately as “Mr. Titanic” due to his expertise on the doomed cruise ship.
“We focus so much on everything he did in the water, but I feel like some of his greatest accomplishments, too, were out of the water,” Paschall said. “I understand that in life it is sometimes not easy to be a stepfather, when you are coming into a situation where my father was still in the picture and I had a great relationship with him, but he was always so respectful of my relationship with him and he was such an important part of my life.
Nargeolet was the director of underwater research for RMS Titanic, an American company that owns the salvage rights to the wreck and operates exhibits featuring artifacts from the ship. About 30 million people have visited its exhibits, according to the company.
In an interview with CBS News this week, G. Michael Harris, founder of RMS Titanic, said that he has worked with Nargeolet for the past 30 years, describing him as an “all-around good guy.”
“We first met in my freshman year of high school,” Paschall said. “I remember the first thing he did for me that was so meaningful was he helped me with a science project on the building of a cell and creating a model of it, and I ended up getting an ‘A’ on it. Science is now my favorite subject, and it was one of those things where he never forced any help. I went and asked and he just did it.”
Nargeolet leaves behind a wife and three other children. Paschall said it was rewarding to have his stepfather be part of his young son’s life, if only for a short period of time.
“I was very happy that we were able to have that meeting occur,” Paschall said. “My son was born early in 2022, in January, and to be able to have that moment with him, to have him hold him, meant a lot. P-H has just meant a lot to me, my family. He had such a close relationship with my mom. It was so meaningful to me in so many ways growing up.”
Paschall said he can take solace in the fact that his stepfather died doing what he loved — exploring and being an adventurer.
“Yeah, I think in my own opinion his home away from home was the ocean. He just felt so comfortable there,” Paschall said. “I know so much of the focus of this discussion is about risk, and I felt he just accepted the risk and knew what it was, but he loved what he did. The Titanic meant so much to him, every artifact he brought up, whether it was small or it was large, meant so much to him.”
The other four people aboard the sub — which went missing Sunday, less than two hours into its dive — were British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son Suleman, and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.
Five people who were on a sub that went missing during a voyage to the wreckage of the Titanic are believed to be dead, the company that planned the trip said in a statement to CBS News. The announcement was made after a deep-sea robot found a “debris field” while searching for the sub, the U.S. Coast Guard said Thursday.
Sub passenger Paul-Henri Nargeolet’s publicist, Mathieu Johann, confirmed to CBS News that fragments of the debris are from the sub. BBC News reported the debris includes “a landing frame and a rear cover from the submersible.”
The Coast Guard said Thursday morning that a robot from a Canadian vessel had reached the sea floor near the Titanic to look for the sub. Experts were evaluating the discovery by the ROV, or remotely operated vehicle. Officials were expected to discuss the findings during a news conference Thursday afternoon.
“A debris field was discovered within the search area by an ROV near the Titanic,” officials said.
Another robot from a French vessel was also launched into the water Thursday amid a massive international search effort for the lost 21-foot sub Titan.
In addition to the underwater robots, search planes and ships have been deployed to the northern Atlantic Ocean in the hopes of finding the sub approximately 900 nautical miles from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Coast Guard said Wednesday the search area was about twice the size of Connecticut.
This undated image provided by OceanGate Expeditions in June 2021 shows the company’s Titan submersible.
OceanGate Expeditions via AP
The sub launched into the Atlantic from a Canadian research vessel Sunday morning, and the ship lost contact with the Titan an hour and 45 minutes into the dive.
Officials previously said the sub had a limited amount of oxygen on board that could have lasted 96 hours, or roughly until Thursday morning.
On Wednesday, Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick said the amount of remaining oxygen was “a dialogue that’s happening” but not the only detail being considered in continuing the search.
The co-founder of the company that owns the sub, OceanGate, said Thursday was “a critical day” in the search. In a statement on Facebook, Guillermo Sohnlein said the group may have extended their life support supplies by “relaxing as much as possible.”
“I firmly believe that the time window available for their rescue is longer than what most people think,” Sohnlein said.
How to watch missing Titanic sub search briefing
What: U.S. Coast Guard officials are holding a briefing on the search for a sub that went missing while carrying five people to the wreckage of the Titanic
The frantic search near the Titanic wreckage site for the submersible that went missing carrying five people ramped up and expanded on Thursday with two ships deploying deep-sea robots — and at least one of the robots has already reached the ocean floor, officials said.
The U.S. Coast Guard said in a tweet that the French vessel L’Atalante had reached the area and deployed their ROV, or remote operated vehicle. The Coast Guard also said that the Canadian ship Horizon Arctic had deployed an ROV “that has reached the sea floor and began its search for the missing sub.”
There has been no confirmed contact from OceanGate Expeditions’ Titan submersible since it lost contact with its support ship on Sunday morning, but search planes detected banging noises at roughly half hour intervals both Tuesday and Wednesday, which they said were coming from under the water.
Five people are on the sub, including three tourists, a veteran French explorer and the owner of OceanGate Stockton Rush, who was piloting the sub.
Search crews were still hopeful Thursday morning that they could find the five people alive on the Titan submersible, but as the search area expanded to about double the size of Connecticut, fear was mounting that oxygen in the vessel may already have run out.
Yasin Demirci/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The Titan is believed to have carried enough oxygen to last the crew 96 hours, which means it could run out Thursday morning if it hasn’t already.
Rescuers turned their focus to a remote area of the North Atlantic where the underwater banging noises were detected.
“We’re searching where the noises are. That’s all we can do at this point,” U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Fredrick said Wednesday, stressing that it was still “a search and rescue mission — 100%.”
There were no further reports on Thursday of noises being detected from under the water, and while there were many questions, there was no doubt that both time and oxygen were running out.
“In any search and rescue case, you look at all the different factors,” Fredrick told CBS News. “How long we’ve been searching, the survivability, the oxygen on board — it’s kind of a complex set of data we look at, but again, there is more than just one piece and right now we’re focusing on the search.”
More rescue vessels and equipment were joining the effort, but searching for the 21-foot-long Titan in the near-freezing, pitch-black conditions on the seafloor in an area with depths of up to 2.5 miles is undoubtedly challenging.
“If I were a family member, I would remain hopeful,” Capt. David Marquet, who commanded the U.S. Navy submarine USS Santa Fe, told CBS News. “But people generally do not come back from the bottom of the ocean.”
He said it was “ominous” that there had been no communication whatsoever from the Titan since early Sunday.
“It’s a signal that crew is incapacitated,” he said of the sub’s, which apparently relied on simple text messages to communicate with its support ship on the surface during dives.
“It’s a commercial organization,” Marquet said. “They’re trying to be really innovative and cutting edge… on the, our submarines, we would have more devices… but we have a nuclear submarine that costs $2 billion. So, we have a luxury of having all those kinds of things.”
OceanGate has faced criticism for years for its seemingly maverick approach to highly-risky deep-sea exploration.
“This company decided to self-certify” its submersible, engineer Bart Kemper, who was part of the Marine Technology Society that expressed concerns in 2018, told CBS News. “It follows no code and follows no jurisdiction.”
Kemper said the company agreed to be more transparent with its passengers after his organization raised its serious concerns, but continued to operate the experimental vessel without what the group said was typical certification for such manned underwater vehicles.
He said the global community of explorers and engineers who build such non-military vessels had never previously lost a submersible, “and that’s the thing that we’ve lost. We’ve lost it.”
“We’ve had failures, we’ve had, we’ve had fatalities,” he said. “But we’ve never had this type of incident happen before.”
The pilot of the submersible that has gone missing on a quest to take tourists to see the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean has a personal connection to two victims of the doomed shipwreck. Records show that OceanGate CEO and pilot Stockton Rush’s wife, Wendy Rush, is a descendant of a famous elderly couple who died during the 1912 incident.
OceanGate co-founder and CEO Stockton Rush speaks in front of a projected image of the wreck of the ocean liner SS Andrea Doria during a presentation on June 13, 2016.
Bill Sikes / AP
Wendy Rush, who is the director of communications and an expedition team member for OceanGate, according to her LinkedIn, is related to Ida and Isidor Straus, the latter of whom was a co-owner of Macy’s. New York Times archives show that Rush – born Wendy Hollings Weil – is the great-great-grandaughter of the couple, with her father, Dr. Richard Weil III, being the grandson of the couple’s daughter, Minnie Straus Weil.
The Strauses were among first-class passengers aboard the Titanic on its maiden voyage. And witnesses at the time said their final trip together was heroic.
Wendy Rush, the wife of missing OceanGate CEO and pilot Stockton Rush, is a direct descendent of a heroic couple who died on the Titanic.
Wendy Rush LinkedIn
According to the U.K. government’s National Archives, Ida and Isidor had been directed to a lifeboat after the ship hit the iceberg, but Isidor refused to take a seat, saying he wanted younger men to be able to do so. And when he refused, so did Ida, reportedly saying, “Where you go, I go.” Instead, Ida helped their maid Ellen Bird onto a boat and gave her her fur coat, saying she would no longer need it. Bird survived.
The last time the couple was seen, the National Archives says, they were “on deck holding hands before a wave swept them both into the sea.”
Ida and Isidor Straus, photographed around 1910.
Straus Historical Society
The story was apparently confirmed at Carnegie Hall in May 1912 while thousands were gathered at a memorial for the couple. During the service, then New York City Mayor William Jay Gaynor recounted testimony from other passengers who had survived.
“The women were being taken off in boats, and many women refused to go. They would not leave their husbands,” the New York Times reported him as saying on May 13, 1912. “…And when Mr. Straus and those around her tried to induce her to take to a boat, we have it authentic that she said: ‘We have been together a long time. I will not leave you. Where you go, I shall go.’ And she stayed and met cheerfully his fate. She was content to go with him.”
Their story has also been told by other descendants. In 2017, their great-grandson Paul Kurzman told the Today Show that when Isidor was offered a seat, he responded, “Until I see that every woman and child on board this ship is in a lifeboat, I will not enter into a lifeboat myself.” Kurzman had heard the story from the couple’s oldest daughter during Sunday dinners.
He also learned that the coat Ida had given Bird had long remained in her possession. At one point, Bird tried to return the coat to Kurzman’s grandmother, who reportedly told her, “This coat is yours. I want you to keep it in memory of my mother.”
Kurzamn said James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster movie paid homage to the couple’s story. In perhaps one of the film’s most emotional scenes, as the band plays a final song on the ship’s deck, and elderly first-class passenger couple is seen holding each other in bed as water rushes into their room. A deleted scene from the film also shows the famed scene in which they refuse to leave each other.
Ida’s body was never recovered from the sea, according to the National Archives, while Isidor’s was eventually found and buried in New York’s Woodlawn Cemetary. Ida and Isidor, both born on February 6, were 63 and 67 years old, respectively, at the time of their deaths.
As crews continued the frantic search for a submersible that went missing while taking five people to the wreckage of the Titanic Wednesday, a former passenger of the Titan is holding onto hope it will be found.
Early Tuesday morning, the U.S. Coast Guard said a Canadian search plane had detected noises underwater in the search area.
“It’s hard to tell what that noise could be,” Aaron Newman, who rode the Titan sub in August 2021, told CBS News Wednesday evening. “We are just hoping with every ounce that we can, that this is somebody on the inside, hitting the side with a wrench or doing something to try to signal, and doing it in a way on a regular basis to make it more obvious that this is a human doing it.”
The U.S. Coast Guard said at a briefing Wednesday it was “searching in the area where the noises were detected,” but did not know what made them.
Newman said the sounds could have been “a piece of the Titanic banging against something, or an animal making some noise.”
Newman, who said he knew several of the passengers aboard the missing Titan, described them as “skilled people” who would try to signal for help.
“You take somebody like P.H. Nargeolet…he’s been diving for 60 years,” Newman said of the French explorer who has made multiple dives over the years to explore the Titanic. “There is no team better that would be able to handle this scenario than the people aboard this craft right now.”
Newman is also an investor in OceanGate Expeditions — the company that owns the Titan submersible. He said “safety was a No. 1 protocol” when preparing for an underwater trip, and passengers would spend “multiple days” learning about the sub’s design and the Titanic’s history.
“We covered everything from what would happen in a fire, to what would happen if weights didn’t drop, what are the backup systems, to communicating in the worst case scenario, so there was a lot of training,” he said.
When asked about the interior of the sub, Newman called it “comfortable, but not luxurious.”
“There’s room to move around, but you’re not walking around or anything,” he said. “It doesn’t have seats or anything like that … it’s designed to take people down in the most efficient way possible.”
The sub disappeared on Sunday, losing contact with a Canadian research vessel about one hour and 45 minutes into its dive.
A submersible carrying five people to the ocean floor to see the long-sunken RMS Titanic has gone missing — and one of those passengers knew from a previous expedition to far greater depths that a situation like this could be deadly.
Just two years ago, wealthy British businessman Hamish Harding made it to the deepest part of the ocean. He traveled with U.S. explorer Victor Vescovo more than 2 and a half miles along the floor of the Mariana Trench, 35,876 feet below the sea surface. That trip, in a $48 million submersible, earned both explorers the Guinness World Record for the longest distance traveled at the deepest part of the ocean by a crewed vessel.
It was a mission he was proud to accomplish, but also one that he knew could pose disastrous consequences.
“It was potentially scary, but I was so busy doing so many things—navigating and triangulating my position—that I did not really have time to be scared,” Harding told India news outlet The Week after the excursion.
Just like the now-missing Titanic submersible, the one he took down to the trench had an estimated four days of oxygen on board as a safety measure. But he told The Week that amount wouldn’t be enough should problems arise at great ocean depths.
“The only problem is that there is no other sub that is capable of going down there to rescue you,” he said. “…So, having four days of supply doesn’t make a difference really. If something goes wrong, you are not coming back.”
On the current OceanGate expedition, Harding and his fellow passengers encountered just such a harrowing situation. The sub, which went missing on Sunday about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, had less than an estimated 40 hours of breathable air left as of Tuesday afternoon, making search and rescue operations dire.
The tourist sub that disappeared on an expedition to the Titanic wreck has approximately 41 hours left of oxygen for five on board, U.S. Coast Guard official says. https://t.co/59Cw4K036Hpic.twitter.com/ddjkbbwVTk
Once that time expires, there wouldn’t be an automatic transition to a recovery operation, Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick said Tuesday, adding that the future of the “incredibly complex operation” is determined by several factors.
Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, the Coast Guard said crews had picked up underwater noises in the search for the sub. So far, however, they have not found what created the noises.
OceanGate, the company leading the trip to see the Titanic wreckage, also led expeditions to the site in 2021 and 2022, and says on its website that it planned to do so every year. Along with including “qualified” civilians on the trip, OceanGate also sends crewmembers who can lead research on the ship’s debris.
In this photograph released by Action Aviation, company chairman and billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding looks out to sea before boarding the submersible Titan for a dive into the Atlantic Ocean on an expedition to the Titanic on Sunday, June 18, 2023.
/ AP
Harding shared a message on his Facebook page Saturday about plans for his upcoming adventure: “I am proud to finally announce that I joined OceanGate Expeditions for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic.”
“A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow,” he wrote. “…More expedition updates to follow IF the weather holds!”
London — There has been much discussion about how to find the Titan, the tourist submersible that disappeared Sunday while carrying five people down to the wreckage of the Titanic, and how difficult it will be to locate the small vessel in the vast North Atlantic. But even if the monumental effort by U.S. and Canadian authorities to find the sub is successful, that’s only the first challenge.
Rescuing the five people from the sub would be another challenge entirely.
Without any sightings at the surface, the only clue rescuers had to go on by Wednesday afternoon was the sound described as banging noises detected by surveillance planes. That left open the possibility of a scenario where the submersible could still be found floating on or near the surface, which would allow rescuers to open it — it can only be opened from the outside — and rescue the crew.
But if it is on the seafloor near the Titanic wreckage, it will be a much more challenging proposition.
“I think if it’s on the seabed, there are so few submarines that are capable of going that deep, and so therefore, I think it was going to be almost impossible to affect a sub-to-sub rescue,” Titanic expert Tim Matlin told the Reuters news agency.
The Titan submersible, operated by OceanGate Expeditions to explore the wreckage of the Titanic, dives in an undated photograph.
OceanGate Expeditions/Handout via Reuters
Two possible rescue options
Ralf Bachmayer, a professor of marine environmental technology and deep-sea engineering at the University of Bremen in Germany, told CBS News on Wednesday there were two main possibilities for a rescue if the sub is on the seafloor. It could be winched up, which he said would be “very difficult” at the depth in the area, which is around 13,000 feet, or almost two and a half miles.
Matlin cast doubt on the feasibility of such an operation, telling Reuters that rescuers “can’t have a line tethering it all the way down because it would be too heavy and too much drag,” given the length of cabling that would be required.
The other possibility could be a flotation device, which Bachmayer called a lift bag, that could be slid under the sub to help lift it to the surface.
But the Titan could be entangled in debris in the wide field of the Titanic’s wreckage, and that type of rescue attempt would require remotely operated vehicles to gain sufficient access to slide such a device under the 21-foot-long submersible.
The use of ROVs, or Remotely Operated Vehicles, would be vital to either rescue option, should one be deemed viable.
In the first scenario, an ROV or multiple ROVs could be used to attach a cable to haul the Titan to the surface. They could also be used to dislodge it from anything it’s caught on.
Blair Thornton, a professor of marine autonomy at the University of Southampton in England, said modern ROVs “typically have high-definition cameras, lights, and will be physically connected with a tether to a ship, with very experienced pilots operating them.”
A rescue operation at the depth of the area around the Titanic shipwreck, he said, would likely involve attaching a cable to the stricken vessel with an ROV, and then winching it slowly to the surface.
But Thornton said this particular scenario would be a highly unusual task for available ROVs, and it would likely require them to be adapted to the challenges of operating so deep.
ROV operators, he said, are accustomed to “thinking on their feet, assessing the situation and trying to dislodge or move objects that were never designed to be grabbed by an ROV.”
Bachmayer agreed that the missing Titan had presented rescuers with an unprecedented situation.
“We had the situation with the Kursk,” said Bachmayer, referring to the nuclear-powered Russian submarine that sank in the Barents Sea in 2000. “They tried to get the people out. But that’s not possible in this case, because it’s much too deep, and the rescue submarine used then, it is not suitable for such depths.”
None of the 118 crew members of the Kursk survived that disaster.
Both of the experts who spoke to CBS News said using ROVs at such depths had been done before — in order to retrieve instruments from the seabed, for instance — but that recovering a manned submersible vehicle would present new challenges, and even if and when the Titan is located, there will still be many questions to answer.
For example, “Is the vehicle’s housing still intact?” asked Thornton. “What is keeping it on the bottom? The response will depend on those situations.”
If the main housing, the body of the sub that keeps water out and oxygen in, is still intact, he said the sub would be essentially weightless in the sea, and as long as it isn’t entangled, it should be moveable. On land, it would weigh several tons.
Thornton was quick to stress that finding the Titan was the essential first step, and he said it was undeniable that time was running out quickly, given the limited oxygen supply it went down with.
The U.S. Coast Guard said Tuesday that the submersible was believed to have enough air left to last the crew about 41 hours, and rescue officials said they continued to hold out hope. But experts on the deep sea and on the Titanic didn’t voice much optimism.
“Titanic’s wreck is two and a half miles down. It’s pitch black down there. It’s freezing cold. The seabed is mud and it’s undulating. You can’t see your hand in front of your face. The only way you can find where you are is by a thing called sonar. Not even radar works,” Matlin, who has authored three books on the Titanic disaster, told Reuters. “It’s really a bit like a moon shot. … So, I do fear for the lives of those explorers who are on board.”
Years before a tourist submersible went missing on an expedition to explore the Titanic shipwreck with five passengers on board, red flags about safety issues emerged about the company that designed and operated the vessel.
OceanGate, which charged $250,000 per person for the Titanic voyage, is a privately held company that touts its “innovative use of materials and state-of-the-art technology” in developing submersibles that can fit five passengers.
But behind the marketing lingo, lawsuits and industry experts had raised serious safety concerns about the project years before the sub’s disappearance. In 2018, a professional trade group warned that OceanGate’s experimental approach to the design of the Titan could lead to potentially “catastrophic” outcomes, according to a letter from the group obtained by CBS News.
That same year, an employee of OceanGate raised safety concerns about the Titan’s design and the company’s protocol for testing the hull’s reliability. That employee, David Lochridge, was fired by OceanGate after airing his complaints to government regulators and OceanGate’s management, with the latter then suing him for breach of contract.
In response to OceanGate’s lawsuit, Lochridge counter-sued, airing his concerns about Titan’s safety in a 2018 court document.
Lochridge claimed he believed the company could “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible,” according to the legal filing.
In February, the CEO of OceanGate, Stockton Rush, was sued by a Florida couple after they struggled to get a refund on their deposits for several canceled trips on the Titan. The pair, Marc and Sharon Hagle, said in their lawsuit that OceanGate canceled one expedition saying it hadn’t had enough time to certify that the Titan could reach the depths of the Titanic. Another trip was canceled because of “equipment failure,” according to a copy of the Hagles’ lawsuit published by the Fort-Myers News Press.
Attorneys for the Hagles didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
OceanGate didn’t respond to requests for comment about the lawsuits and allegations. In a statement to CBS News, Lochridge’s attorney said he had no comment regarding his allegations. “We pray for everyone’s safe return,” the attorney said.
Certification issues
One of the red flags about the Titan was its certification — or lack thereof.
The 2018 letter from a professional trade group, the Marine Technology Society, flagged the company’s marketing materials which advertised that the Titan’s design would meet or exceed a certification called DNV-GL. Stemming from the independent Norwegian foundation Det Norske Veritas, or DNV, the certification is considered the gold standard for marine equipment.
But, the Marine Technology Society noted, “it does not appear that OceanGate has the intention of following DNV-GL class rules.” Such representations would be “misleading to the public and breaches an industry-wide professional code of conduct we all endeavor to uphold,” the letter added.
A factsheet about the Titan on OceanGate’s website doesn’t mention if the vessel had received DNV certification.
“Refused to pay”
Certification and testing was also a focus of Lochridge’s countersuit, in which he refuted OceanGate’s claims that he breached his employment contract when he filed a whistleblower complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Lochridge wrote that he learned the viewport on the sub was only built to a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, even though the Titan intended to go down to 4,000 meters in depth. He also urged OceanGate to use an agency such as the American Bureau of Shipping to inspect and certify the Titan.
“OceanGate refused to pay for the manufacturer to build a viewport that would meet the required depth of 4,000 meters,” Lochridge’s filing alleges.
He claims that rather than address his concerns or use “a standard classification agency to inspect the Titan,” OceanGate immediately fired him.
OceanGate’s lawsuit against Lochridge stresses that he wasn’t an engineer, and that he refused to accept its lead engineer’s “veracity of information,” leading to his firing. In his legal response, Lochridge admitted he wasn’t an engineer, but noted that “he was hired to ensure the safety of all crew and clients during submersible and surface operations.”
Crews searching for a sub that went missing while taking five people to the wreckage of the Titanic continued to hear noises Wednesday and were “actively searching” the area, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
Overnight, the agency said a Canadian search plane detected noises underwater in the search area Tuesday and crews were focused on finding the origin of the sounds. Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick said a plane heard the noises Wednesday as well.
“With respect to the noises, specifically, we don’t know what they are, to be frank with you,” Frederick said at a briefing Wednesday. “…We’re searching in the area where the noises were detected.”
He said the team has two ROVs — remotely operated underwater vehicles — “actively searching,” plus several more are on the way and expected to join the search operation Thursday.
Search flights were scheduled to continue throughout the day and into the evening, Frederick said.
The Titan submersible, operated by OceanGate Expeditions to explore the wreckage of the sunken Titanic off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, dives in an undated photograph.
OceanGate Expeditions/Handout via Reuters
Carl Hartsfield of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said the noises have been described as banging noises, but he also said it was difficult to discern the source of noises underwater.
“They have to put the whole picture together in context and they have to eliminate potential manmade sources other than the Titan,” Hartsfield said, referring to the sub’s name. “…The team is searching in the right area, so if you continue to do the analysis, look for different patterns and search in the right area, you’re doing, you know, the best you possibly can do with the best people on the case.”
The sub’s disappearance on Sunday has spurred a massive response from the U.S. and Canada as search crews rush to find the missing group in the north Atlantic Ocean. Five vessels were searching for the sub on the water’s surface, and that number was expected to double to 10 within 24-48 hours, Frederick said.
A Canadian research vessel lost contact with the 21-foot sub an hour and 45 minutes into its dive Sunday morning about 900 nautical miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It had been expected to resurface Sunday afternoon.
The size of the search area has expanded to approximately twice the size of Connecticut with a depth of up to 2-and-a-half miles, Frederick said.
Frederick expressed optimism about the search in its third full day.
“When you’re in the middle of a search-and-rescue case, you have to have hope,” he said. “That’s why we’re doing what we do.”
Underwater noises have been detected in the area of the search for a sub that went missing while carrying five people to the wreckage of the Titanic, the U.S. Coast Guard says.
In a tweet just after midnight EDT, the Coast Guard said the noises were picked up by Canadian P-3 aircraft and as a result, underwater operations were relocated to try to locate the origin of the noises.
Those operations haven’t turned up any results yet but the underwater operations are continuing, the Coast Guard said, adding that, “The data from the P-3 aircraft has been shared with our U.S. Navy experts for further analysis which will be considered in future search plans.”
A Canadian research vessel lost contact with the vessel during a dive Sunday morning about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and U.S. and Canadian authorities have been looking for it.
Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick told reporters during a news conference Tuesday afternoon that “about 40 hours of breathable air left” was an estimate based off the vessel’s original 96 hours of available oxygen.
Chief Petty Officer Robert Simpson, a Coast Guard spokesman, said there wouldn’t be a “hard-and-fast” transition from a search-and-rescue mission to a recovery operation when those hours are up, since there were several factors that could extend the search.
Frederick said authorities were working around the clock on the search in the Atlantic for the missing sub, calling the effort “an incredibly complex operation.”
“We will do everything in our power to effect a rescue,” Frederick said. “…There is a full-court press effort to get equipment on scene as quickly as we can.”
Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, his son Suleman, British explorer Hamish Harding and French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet were on the sub, along with Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, the U.S.-based company that planned the voyage.
If the sub is found in time, Frederick said, it was difficult to describe what a deep-sea rescue would entail.
“That’s a question that then the experts need to look at what is the best course of action for recovering the sub, but I think it’s going to depend on that particular situation,” he said.
The Coast Guard said the last recorded communication from the sub was about an hour and 45 minutes into Sunday’s dive.
Since the sub went missing, the U.S. and Canadian coast guards and the U.S. Navy and Air National Guard have combed a combined area of about 7,600 square miles, which is larger than the state of Connecticut, Frederick said.
This undated photo provided by OceanGate Expeditions in June 2021 shows the company’s Titan submersible.
OceanGate Expeditions via AP
A pipe-laying vessel arrived in the search area Tuesday and sent a remotely operated vehicle into the water to look for the sub at its last-known position, he said.
The U.S. Navy was working on deploying military assets to aid the search, Frederick said.
The U.S. Navy is sending a deep ocean salvage system to help in the search for a missing submersible with five people inside. The sub went to see the wreckage of the Titanic but then lost contact. G. Michael Harris, Titanic expedition leader and explorer, joins CBS News to discuss the dangers of these expeditions and the typical safety protocols put in place.
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A submersible headed for the wreckage of the Titanic went missing in the Atlantic this week, prompting the Coast Guard to launch a search and rescue mission. The Titanic, which sank in 1912, has been explored dozens of times. Where is the wreckage located and how deep underwater is it?
What was the Titanic’s planned path?
The RMS Titanic was dubbed “unsinkable” before it embarked on its maiden voyage in April 1912. It took off from Southampton, England, for New York City.
It first made stops in Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland, before heading across the Atlantic. It was supposed to return via Plymouth, England, and Cherbourg — but never made it to New York. On April 15, 1912, with about 2,240 people on board, it hit an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean. The massive ship broke into two parts and sank to the bottom of the ocean, killing about 1,500 people.
This area off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada has been dubbed “Iceberg Alley.” Icebergs are large chunks of ice that break off of glaciers and float in the ocean. The icebergs in Iceberg Alley – located between Labrador and Newfoundland – come from the glaciers of Greenland, usually floating through in spring and summer.
Carpathia, another passenger liner that had departed from New York in April, was tasked with sailing toward the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. The ship helped rescue 705 people in lifeboats, then sailed back to New York City, arriving on April 18.
A map shows the point where the RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic, on April 15, 1912, about 380 miles southeast of the Newfoundland, Canada coast and some 1,300 miles east of its destination in New York City.
Most of the Titanic wreckage remains about 350 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, according to NOAA. The wreckage was first located in 1985 by marine explorer Robert Ballard, who returned about 20 years later to study the deterioration of the boat.
A Google Map by NOAA shows where in the Atlantic Ocean the Titanic wreckage is located, hundreds of miles from Newfoundland, Canada.
NOAA/Google Maps
How deep is the Titanic wreckage?
The Titanic is sitting on the ocean floor, about 12,500 feet below sea level. The two broken parts of the ship – the bow and the stern — are more than 2,600 feet apart and are surrounded by debris.
Several expeditions have captured images of the ship before. In May, the first full-sized digital scan of the wreckage was released, showing the entirety of the wrecked ship in 3D.
The scan was carried out last year by Magellan Ltd, a deep-sea mapping company, in partnership with Atlantic Productions.
Atlantic/Magellan
What happened to the sub?
The submersible heading to the wreckage was run by OceanGate Expeditions, which organizes deep-sea expeditions that cost about $250,000 per person.
Five people were on board the sub when it went missing and the U.S. Coast Guard said it was searching for it about 900 miles off of Cape Cod, which is parallel to where the Titanic wreckage is.
The submersible crew started their dive on Sunday, after being ferried out by the Polar Prince, which lost contact with the underwater craft about 1 hour and 45 minutes after it began its dive, according to the Coast Guard.
Submarine heading on expedition of the Titanic wreckage goes missing off of coast of Newfoundland.
Yasin Demirci/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
British businessman Hamish Harding said in a Facebook post ahead of the expedition that he would be on the OceanGate trip, which he said took off from St. Johns, Newfoundland.
“The team on the sub has a couple of legendary explorers, some of which have done over 30 dives to the RMS Titanic since the 1980s,” Harding wrote the day before they departed. “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023. A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.”
