Where is the Titanic wreckage? Location revealed as tourist submarine goes missing

A tourist submarine visiting the wreckage site of the RMS Titanic went missing on Sunday, June 18. The deteriorating wreckage of Titanic, the British passenger liner which is in two pieces, lies about 12,500 feet below the surface at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean, about 370 miles off the coast of Canada’s Newfoundland.

The disappearance of the tourist submersible named “Titan” sparked a race against time as a search-and-rescue operation began on Monday, June 19, to find the missing people on board.

OceanGate Expeditions, the company that built the submersible, can carry five people. It is capable of extremely deep-dive explorations and carries enough life-support equipment to sustain the crew members for up to 96 hours.

Crews with the Canadian and the U.S. coast guards started scouring the North Atlantic’s surface about 900 miles east of Cape Cod. The U.S. Coast Guard said that Titan began its journey from St. John’s and started its dive on Sunday morning. But The Polar Prince, the Canadian ship supporting the submersible, lost contact with it an hour and 45 minutes later.

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Commercial ships and aircraft are searching for Titanic tourist submersible

Commander of the U.S. Coast Guard’s First District, Rear Admiral John Mauger, said at a news conference on Monday, June 19, that the five people on board the Titan, include one pilot and four passengers, also known as “mission specialists.” He did not identify the five people yet and said that authorities were still trying to contact their family members.

Hamish Harding, a British billionaire, a UAE-based aircraft pilot, and the chairman of Action Aviation, is said to be one of the five crew members aboard the missing watercraft. He also shared about the mission on his Instagram on June 17.

John Mauger explained that the location of the rescue operation, i.e., the wreckage site of the Titanic, is about 900 miles east of Cape Cod and about 13,000 feet deep. He said that conducting a search in a remote area is challenging. However, he assured that they were deploying all available assets to ensure they can locate the watercraft and rescue the people aboard.

Search assets to find the Titan include two P-8 planes and a C-130 aircraft. The C-130 searches the surface, while the P-8 planes use sonar to look for sounds from far below the water. Commercial ships are involved in the search mission as well, and one of the ships is also using sonar.

“Oftentimes, we rely on commercial operators to be the first vessels on scene. And so we’ve been in touch with additional commercial vessels that are operating in the area as well as initiating the movement of additional Canadian Coast Guard assets and US Coast Guard surface assets into the area over the course of the next couple of days,” Rear Adm. John Mauger added.

The U.S. Coast Guard is keeping in touch with the Canadian military and the U.S. Navy to determine what underwater rescue capabilities are available. Mauger added that OceanGate is also assisting the search-and-rescue mission and exploring and mobilizing all options to bring back the crew safely.

According to OceanGate, the tourist submersible Titan is a 23,000-pound vessel made of titanium and carbon fiber. As a safety feature, it uses a proprietary RTM, aka real-time hull health system, which analyzes the water pressure on the vessel and the integrity of the structure.

The Titanic set out on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to reach New York City in April 1912, when it collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic about 400 miles from Newfoundland. The ship sank on April 15, 1912. The shipwreck of the Titanic killed more than 1500 people. The wreckage was first discovered in 1985.

OceanGate Expeditions arranges and operates a trip that takes passengers to the wreckage site of the Titanic.