June 21, 2023 - Missing Titanic sub search news

OceanGate Expeditions, the company that operates the missing submersible, faced a series of mechanical problems and inclement weather conditions that forced the cancellation or delays of trips in recent years, according to court records. 

The scuttled excursions led to a pair of lawsuits in which some high-paying customers sought to recoup the cost of trips they said they didn’t take. The complaints alleged that the company overstated its ability to reach the Titanic wreckage.  

A London-based travel company, Henry Cookson Adventures Ltd, accused OceanGate of not having a “seaworthy vessel” when it entered an agreement in 2016 to take up to nine passengers to the Titanic in 2018. The travel company sought to recover roughly $850,000 it paid OceanGate, according to a civil suit filed in 2021.

OceanGate did not respond to the claims in court and could not be reached for comment.  

A post on OceanGate’s website in 2018 stated “delays caused by weather and lightning” prevented the company from completing a series of test dives, but the Henry Cookson Adventures’ lawsuit questioned that description. 

The case was dismissed last July by the plaintiff, which did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. 

More recently, a Florida couple alleged in a lawsuit earlier this year that they were unable to get a refund after their planned Titanic expedition in 2018 with OceanGate was repeatedly postponed, CNN previously reported. The online docket for the case shows no response to the lawsuit.

Some expeditions were delayed after OceanGate was forced to rebuild the Titan’s hull because it showed “cyclic fatigue” and wouldn’t be able to travel deep enough to reach the Titanic’s wreckage, according to a 2020 article by GeekWire, which interviewed the company’s CEO. 

In another high-profile cancellation, OceanGate took CBS News’ David Pogue for a dive on its submersible last year, but called off the trip due to an equipment malfunction after descending just 37 feet, Pogue said in the broadcast.

In a later dive, the vessel lost contact with its ship and was unable to find the wreckage. “We were lost for two-and-a-half-hours,” said a passenger who spoke with CBS News. 

The company has completed a number of dives to the bottom of the North Atlantic. At least 28 people visited the Titanic with OceanGate last year, according to a November court filing from an advisor to the company. 

But on one of those dives, the sub encountered a battery issue and had to be “manually attached to its lifting platform,” which led to “sustained modest damage to its external components,” according to that filing. OceanGate canceled a subsequent mission “for repairs and operational enhancements,” but reached the wreck on others, the filing stated.

The company also completed a series of Titanic-wreckage dives in 2021, according to its website.

A US Navy salvage system has arrived in St. John’s, Newfoundland, a Navy official said Wednesday, as crews prepare it for mobilization to the site of the ongoing search for a missing submersible. 

The Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System (FADOSS) is capable of retrieving objects or vessels off the bottom of the ocean floor up to a depth of 20,000 feet, more than enough to reach the wreckage of the Titanic.

But before the FADOSS system can be used, it must be welded to the deck of a ship, a process which can take a full day, the official said.

The Navy does not currently have a vessel lined up to carry the FADOSS to the site, but the official said they are trying to contract a vessel soon. 

“We have a vessel of opportunity that we are looking to put under charter, but it is not currently under charter,” said the official. 

The FADOSS was most recently used to recover a F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet from the Mediterranean Sea last July. Its deepest recovery to date was at 19,075 feet, the Navy official said.

Asked if it had ever recovered someone alive, the official said, “Usually, we’re recovering objects from the bottom or aircraft from a mishap.”

Searching a remote part of the ocean comes with myriad challenges for rescuers, but the weather has at least been on their side for the last 96 hours, CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers said Wednesday.

There are 3 to 6-foot ocean swells in the area of the search, which is about 900 miles off Cape Cod, he said. There are a few clouds hanging around Wednesday afternoon, but forecasts have not shown a big change in wind direction or any systems that could make efforts more difficult, Myers said.

The temperature is somewhere between 55 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit near the Titanic wreck site, he said, but that dramatically changes once in the water. Water temperatures at deeper depths where the submersible could be located are near 39 degrees, Myers said.

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Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate and one of five people on the submersible missing in the North Atlantic, has cultivated a reputation as a kind of modern-day Jacques Cousteau — a nature lover, adventurer and visionary.

Rush has approached his dream of deep-sea exploration with child-like verve and an antipathy toward regulations — a pattern that has come into sharp relief since Sunday night, when his vessel, the Titan, went missing.

Rush, who graduated from Princeton in 1984 with a degree in aerospace engineering, has said that he never really grew out of his childhood dream of wanting to be an astronaut, but his eyesight wasn’t good enough, according to an interview he gave Smithsonian Magazine in 2019. He founded OceanGate in 2009, with a stated mission of “increasing access to the deep ocean through innovation.”

OceanGate currently operates three submersibles for conducting research, film production, and “exploration travel,” including tours of the site of the Titanic more than 13,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. A seat on that eight-day mission costs $250,000 per person.

Rush, who is 61, said he believes deeply that the sea, rather than the sky, offers humanity the best shot at survival when the Earth’s surface becomes uninhabitable.

In his eagerness to explore, Rush has often appeared skeptical, if not dismissive, of regulations that might slow innovation.

The commercial subversive industry is “obscenely safe” he told Smithsonian, “because they have all these regulations. But it also hasn’t innovated or grown — because they have all these regulations.” Even within OceanGate, warnings from employees about safety appear to have been ignored or disregarded.

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The school attended by Suleman Dawood, a Pakistani national onboard the submersible that went missing near the Titanic wreckage, said it is “deeply concerned” by the vessel’s disappearance. 

ACS Cobham, an international school south of London, said in a statement that its “thoughts are with the Dawood family” and it offered support during “this unprecedented event.”

Suleman Dawood, who attended ACS Cobham, was accompanied on the submersible by his father, Shahzada Dawood, a Pakistani billionaire and the vice chairman of Engro Corporation Limited, one of Pakistan’s largest conglomerates. 

The company that owns the Polar Prince told reporters Wednesday that “we have to hold out hope,” as the search and rescue mission for the Titan continues.

The Polar Prince is the support vessel to that took OceanGate’s Titan out for its expedition and is now assisting with search and rescue.

Leet also said he’s never seen such a response for a search and rescue mission.

“I’ve been in the marine industry since a very young age and seen a lot of different situations, and I’ve never seen equipment of that nature move that quickly,” Leet added. “The response from the US Coast Guard, the US Military, folks at the airport, the people here, various companies who were involved in the mobilization of that equipment…it was done flawlessly.”

Various environmental factors in the ocean are likely complicating efforts to identify noises heard on sonar as the search for a missing submersible continues into its fourth day, according to one diving expert.

Rick Murcar, who is the international training director for the National Association of Cave Divers and the owner of Aquatic Adventures of Florida Inc., explained that sound travels faster in the water — which is making it more challenging for rescuers to pinpoint where it is coming from. 

Things like the currents can deflect the sound so that it appears like it is coming from miles away from where the actual source is.

The Coast Guard said an aircraft picked up on noises Tuesday and Wednesday in the Atlantic Ocean. It relocated equipment to the area, but so far, efforts to figure out what was making the sound have not yielded any results, the Coast Guard said.

Murcar said to think of this effort to locate the noise as trying to pinpoint a specific drum in a stadium full of cheering fans and other instruments.

“Picture a massive stadium that has a roof on it, and you have an aircraft flying over top and it drops sensors down to listen to the sound inside that stadium,” he said. The person inside the stadium is playing a snare in a constant, beating pattern, in addition to all of the other drums he has, Murcar said.

Now, to narrow down the location of that snare, he said, analysts have to first get rid of all of the other environmental noises.

“They have to negate any aspect of the impact that the boating plays into the equation,” he said. In the stadium analogy, this would be things like the fans, the guitars and the keyboards.

"Then they're going to go look for it with an ROV (a remotely operated vehicle) — with a flashlight in their hand,” he added, completing the analogy.

Searchers are “very aware of the time sensitivity around this mission,” a representative of the company that owns the Polar Prince said Wednesday afternoon.

The Polar Prince is the support vessel that carried OceanGate’s Titan submersible to the site of the Titanic shipwreck, and it's now assisting with search and rescue.

Sean Leet, the co-founder and chairman of Horizon Maritime Services, which owns the Polar Prince, also said the company mobilized additional equipment to help with the search Thursday morning.“We are very aware of the time sensitivity around this mission,” Leet said.

He acknowledged how hard it must be for those on the submersible and their families.

The Polar Prince, the vessel that transported the Titan submersible to the dive site, will be assisting in search efforts until the mission is complete, according to the co-founder of the company that owns the support ship.

The role of the Polar Prince is to help the US Coast Guard which is leading the search and rescue, said Sean Leet, the co-founder and Chairman of Horizon Maritime Services.

The former Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker has been supporting the Titanic expedition for several years, Leet said, adding that the emergency procedures on the Polar Prince "kicked in immediately."

He said he remains in contact with the crew of 17 people on board the Polar Prince.

"Our crews and on-shore teams are experts in their fields and will continue to support this effort in any way we can," Leet said.