‘Tapping sounds’ detected by sonar in search for missing Titanic tourist submarine

OceanGate Expeditions submersible with five onboard vanish during tourist trip to wreckage of Titanic

“Tapping sounds” have been detected by sonar in the search area for the missing Titanic tourist submarine.

A Canadian military surveillance aircraft detected underwater noises as a massive operation continued early on Wednesday in a remote part of the North Atlantic, for a submersible that vanished while taking five people down to the famous wreck.

The discovery offers a glimmer of hope for those lost aboard the Titan as estimates suggest as little as a day’s worth of oxygen could be left if the vessel is still functioning.

Rescue teams are continuing the search for the submersible tourist vessel Titan which went missing during a voyage to the Titanic shipwreck (PA Media)

A letter shared with The Independent by a member of The Explorers Club, a global network promoting scientific exploration, read: “Most importantly, it is being reported that at 2:00 am local time, sonar detected potential ‘tapping sounds’ implying that crew may be alive and signalling.”

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The group’s president President Richard Garriott sent the letter out on Tuesday after discovering two of their community are on board the missing vessel, according to member Professor Hannaford, founder of World Extreme Medicine.

Mr Hannaford is close friends with British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, who is a founding member of The Explorers Club and is one of the five stranded.

British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding is a founding member of The Explorers Club and is one of the five stranded (Action Aviation)

The professor said: “Putting yourself in their shoes is incomprehensible, especially for the families. It’s very hard to imagine people you know in that situation - and what they’re likely to be going through.

“But Hamish is so accomplished, extremely bright, a great pilot and engineer - if there’s anybody who can fix their way out of this situation, Hamish is one of them.”

Chris Brown, an explorer and friend of Mr Harding, said making “banging sounds” is the kind of thing his missing friend would do.

“That is just the sort of thing I would have expected Hamish to come up with,” he told BBC Breakfast. “There’s always hope. As an explorer, you never give up anyway.”

A massive search and rescue operation is still underway to find the Titanic tourist submersible which has been missing for three days in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Titan submersible disappeared on Sunday (OceanGate Expeditions/AFP via Ge)

Mr Harding, CEO and founder of OceanGate Expeditions Stockton Rush, renowned French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood are on the OceanGate Expeditions’s submersible Titan.

The watercraft submerged on Sunday (18 June) morning with its support vessel, the Canadian research vessel Polar Prince. About an hour and 45 minutes later, the Titan lost contact with Polar Prince, authorities said. The Titan is equipped with a four-day emergency oxygen supply.

As Canadian and US authorities stepped up the search, previous questions about the safety design and development of the submersible by its owner, US-based OceanGate Expeditions, came to light.

The wreck of the Titanic, a British ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912, lies about 900 miles (1,450 km) east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and 400 miles (644 km) south of St John’s, Newfoundland.

US and Canadian aircraft have searched more than 7,600 square miles of open sea, an area larger than the state of Connecticut, US coast guard captain Jamie Frederick told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday.

The Canadian military has dropped sonar buoys to listen for any sounds that might come from the Titan, and a commercial vessel with a remote-controlled deepwater submersible was also searching near the site, Mr Frederick said.