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S?earchers aren't giving up in the effort to find the missing submersible that was carrying five people to the wreckage of the Titanic.
"We will continue to work as hard and as quickly as possible to locate them," U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick said in a news conference this afternoon.
"W?hen you're in the middle of a search and rescue, you always have hope."
T?he sub, named Titan, lost contact with its mother ship during a dive to the site of the Titanic, located 2.5 miles below the ocean surface about 400 miles south of Newfoundland, Canada. Five people are on board, including some who are paying passengers. Titan is owned by OceanGate Expeditions, a company that has run annual tours to the site since 2021.
(MORE: What It's Like Inside The Missing Titanic Submersible)
Frederick confirmed that tapping was heard yesterday from the area where the sub is missing.
"?With respect to the noises specifically, we don't know what they are," he said. "?I can tell you that it's inconclusive. But again, we're searching in the area where we know the noise is."
C?arl Hartsfield, a senior project at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, said at the news conference that there are many possible sources of the sounds.
A?rthur Allen, who retired four years ago as the oceanographer for U.S. Coast Guard Search and Rescue, said in an interview with weather.com Wednesday morning that, assuming the noises are from Titan, that "is a reasonable, strong indication that there are folks inside an intact submersible, still alive."
I?t's also not known if the sub is intact or not.
If it is, the amount of breathable air is one issue affecting survivability. F?rederick skirted questions about that in today's briefing, but previous estimates indicated that the sub's oxygen supply could run out by Thursday morning.
If there are survivors, other issues also come into play, Allen said. At the depths where the sub was diving, water temperatures are around 39 degrees. It is dark, with no surface light penetrating.
"While this has some insulation and who knows what it has for heat, we've lost some sort of power," Allen said. "So maybe we've lost the ability to keep this thing heated."
D?ehydration would also be a concern.
"If it's cold, then your metabolism has to kind of go up and therefore your consumption of oxygen goes up and therefore your need for water goes up," Allen said. "So there's a survival battle going on here, a physiological survival battle."
T?he Titanic sank when it hit an iceberg in 1912, killing some 1,500 people on board.
A?llen said weather conditions on the surface in the area of the wreck are generally foggy and whitecaps make it hard to see.
F?rederick wouldn't comment on when the mission might switch from rescue to recovery, other than to say:
"We're not there yet."
Weather.com reporter Jan Childs covers breaking news and features related to weather, space, climate change, the environment and everything in between.
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