The U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday it had launched a search and rescue mission to try to locate a small tourist submarine used to travel to the sinking area of the Titanic, missing in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of ‘North America.
“We are looking for him,” an official from the Boston Coastguard Rescue Coordination Center told AFP, confirming press reports.
Canada is also involved, helping the search with a boat and a plane, the Canadian Coast Guard told AFP.
The mobilized boat “was off eastern Newfoundland and left for the search area,” they said.
Without saying how many people were on board, the company organizing this trip, OceanGate Expeditions, said in a press release quoted by the media “to explore and mobilize all options to bring the crew back safely”.
The company did not respond to requests from AFP.
According to Guardianfive people would be on board.
Leaving Southampton on April 10, 1912 to reach New York, the Titanic, a gigantic ocean liner, the largest in the world when it was launched, was shipwrecked after hitting an iceberg five days later. Of the 2,224 passengers and crew, nearly 1,500 perished.
The wreck was discovered in 1985 650 kilometers off the Canadian coast, at a depth of 4000 meters in the international waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Since then, treasure seekers and tourists have been visiting it.