‘Banging sounds’ heard underwater in search for missing Titanic submersible 

In a frantic search for the missing OceanGate Titan submarine, a Canadian maritime surveillance aircraft is reported by Al-Jazeera to have detected ‘banging sounds in the area every 30 minutes.’ 

On Sunday, the submersible went missing in the North Atlantic Ocean 100 minutes into its voyage to see the wreck of the Titanic. Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman Dawood are onboard the vessel.

The United States Coast Guard said that one of the Canadian aircrafts involved in the search for the deep-sea vessel has detected “underwater noises in the search area”. 

Additionally, 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. 2/2 #Titanic

— USCGNortheast (@USCGNortheast) June 21, 2023

Remotely operated vehicles  (ROVs) were then relocated “in an attempt to explore the origin of the noises”, the coastguard said on Wednesday, Al-Jazeera reports.

So far, the ROVs have “yielded negative results”, said the coastguard in a tweet. Still, they are continuing their search.

Rolling Stone magazine, citing internal US government communications, was the first to report the news of what was described as “banging sounds in the area every 30 minutes”. 

The magazine cited an internal email sent to U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials. “Four hours later additional sonar was deployed and banging was still heard,” the magazine reported.

The oxygen supply on OceanGate’s Titan will run out by Thursday morning, according to officials. 

A foreseeable tragedy?

The former director of marine operations for OceanGate, David Lochridge, had previously raised safety concerns about Titan before being fired from his position.

Lochridge’s concerns about the safety of the missing submersible are still contained in a response he filed to the lawsuit that OceanGate brought against him for breaching a non-disclosure agreement.

Lochridge wrote an engineering report in 2018 that said the craft under development needed more testing and that passengers might be endangered when it reached “extreme depths”. 

According to his claim, he learned the vessel was built to withstand a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, although OceanGate planned to take passengers to 4,000 meters, CBS news reports.