Pictures from inside the missing Titan sub have emerged, and they are leaving people terrified.
The submersive was carrying 5 people down to the bottom of the Ocean to see the Titanic’s shipwreck in real life. It vanished on Sunday morning after losing contact with its mothership MV Polar Prince roughly 1 hour and 45 minutes into the vessel’s 2 hour descent. Then, on Monday, it was officially reported as missing.
On board the sub is Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, the company who own the vessel and conduct the tourist trips. Alongside him is the British billionaire Hamish Harding, British-based Pakistani millionaire Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Sulaiman. The fifth person on board is Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a French submersible pilot who is considered one of the world’s leading experts on the Titanic.
Since the underwater vessel lost contact on Sunday, the search effort has hugely ramped up after authorities estimated that there was very little breathable oxygen remaining.
As of Tuesday afternoon, a combination of US and Canadian forces and private vessels had searched a 7,600 square mile area, equating to the size of the US state of Connecticut.
However, the next update gave authorities more hope, as the Canadian P-3 aircraft have detected “underwater noises in the search area.”
“As a result, ROV (remotely operated vehicle) operations were relocated in an attempt to explore the origin of the noises. Those ROV searches have yielded negative results but continue,” the coast guard tweeted.
It has additionally been reported that a second aircraft, a P-8, with underwater detection abilities detected “banging sounds.”
Two of the people on board are members of the scientific society The Explorers Club, who have shared a hopeful message in the wake of the news.
“There is cause for hope, that based on data from the field, we understand that likely signs of life have been detected at the site,” the president of the organisation shared.
Chris Brown, a friend of Harding, said the reports of banging has “got them written all over it,” and that it was “just the sort of thing I would have expected Hamish to come up with.”
“If you made a continuous noise, that’s not going to get picked up, but doing it every 30 minutes, that suggests humans,” he said, per BBC News.
“I’m sure they’re all conserving oxygen and energy, because it’s cold and dark down there.”
Photos of the vessel have been emerging online following its disappearance, and a glimpse inside the tiny space is leaving people petrified.
It measures just 22ft x 9.2ft x 8.3ft in total, with about enough room for 5 people to sit, but for only one to have their legs outstretched.
The sub also features a toilet, but not in the traditional sense – it is right next to the vessel’s only window and a plastic bottle is one of its main components.
People have been reacting to the pictures on social media, and they are understandably terrified.
“The picture ALONE of the inside of the sub gave me paranoia,” one person wrote.
Another said: “I didn’t consider myself claustrophobic until right this second. No! Very very no!!”
