The US Coast Guard said late on Monday that its search for a missing submersible vessel, with two Pakistanis on board, near the Titanic wreck had been completed for the day but that a national guard unit and the company operating the five-passenger underwater mission would continue scouring the surface overnight.
The 21-foot craft, operated by OceanGate Expeditions, began its descent on Sunday but lost contact with the surface less than two hours later, according to authorities.
The US Coast Guard said it had launched two planes to survey the remote area in the North Atlantic, while its Canadian counterparts had also sent a plane and a ship.
The Polar Prince and @Rescue106 will continue to do surface searches throughout the evening.
Two C-130 flights have been completed from @USCG CG Air Station Elizabeth City.@hfxjrcc Surface/subsurface search by Canadian P8 Poseidon aircraft to continue in the morning.
— USCGNortheast (@USCGNortheast) June 20, 2023
But with no reported sightings of the vessel or communication signals throughout the day, the US Coast Guard’s Boston-based unit said in a tweet around 9:00pm (0100 GMT on Tuesday) that its flights for the day “have been completed”.
“The Polar Prince and @Rescue106 will continue to do surface searches throughout the evening,” the tweet said, referring to the research ship that launched the submersible, and a US Air National Guard unit, respectively.
Searches by Canadian aircraft, which had been using buoys to scan underneath the surface, will continue Tuesday morning, it added.
Businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman, were also on board, their family said in a statement. The statement said the father and son had planned the journey to visit the remnants of the Titanic shipwreck.
Shahzada is the vice chairman of one of Pakistan’s largest conglomerates, Engro Corporation, which has investments in fertilisers, vehicle manufacturing, energy and digital technologies.
According to the website of SETI, the California-based research institute of which he is a trustee, he lives in Britain with his wife and two children.
In a statement, Engro corporation said that all it knew was that contact was lost with the submersible craft. “There is limited information available beyond this that we know, and we humbly request that speculation and theorisation is avoided,” the company said.
“We, at Engro, remain in prayer for their swift and safe return, and will share updates we may have as and when they come,” it added.
Another one of the passengers has been identified as British businessman Hamish Harding, whose aviation business had posted on social media about his expedition.
“It is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area, but we are deploying all available assets to make sure that we can locate the craft and rescue the people on board,” US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger told reporters in Boston, where he was overseeing the operation.
Time is a critical factor. The vessel has a range of 96 hours for the crew of five, and Mauger said on Monday afternoon he believed it still had 70 or more hours of remaining oxygen.
