U.S Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick, updating the media Tuesday afternoon on the search effort to find the Titan submersible missing in the North Atlantic ocean. Photo: Getty Images
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — U.S. Coast Guard crews have widened the search for a missing submersible near the wreck of the RMS Titanic, one day after search crews heard underwater "noises" in the search area, 900 miles off Cape Cod.
Speaking to the media on Wednesday, Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick said the surface search is now approximately two times the size of Connecticut, and the sub-surface search is up to two-and-a-half miles deep.
"We also have to factor in the ever-changing weather conditions, currents, and sea states that expand the search area every hour," Frederick said.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Coast Guard said a Canadian P-3 Orion sub-hunter aircraft heard noises. An internal memo from the search team described the noises as "banging in 30 minute intervals," according to Rolling Stone magazine. An underwater drone search of the area didn't yield any results.
Frederick said Wednesday that the Coast Guard does not know what the noises are.
Frederick also stressed that even with a dwindling oxygen supply onboard the vessel, the search for the sub is still considered a search-and-rescue mission.
The Titan, operated and owned by the sea exploration company OceanGate, has run annual trips to the wreck of the Titanic off of Newfoundland since 2021. The submersible stop communicating with its mothership, the Polar Prince, on Sunday morning. It has five crew members aboard, according to the New York Times: OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, and his young son, Suleiman.
OceanGate has made scant comment on the situation, outside of a short statement on Monday that thanked the rescue crews for their help in the search and said its "entire focus is the crewmembers in the submersible."
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