Titanic curses: Is missing sub fated to be deposited in Davy Jones's locker?

Marine authorities from Canada, France, and the US are utilising all their resources to find the missing submersible Titan, which lost contact with the world Sunday after an hour and a half into the sea — nearly 1,450km east and 643km south of Newfoundland —  with five people onboard left with less than 24 hours of oxygen.

The OceanGate-owned Titan was launched from the Polar Prince — the submersible’s mothership — at 08:00 local time which was thought to come back to the sea surface at 15:00 Instead, it lost contact.

According to the Coast Guard, they were intimated about the missing submersible after eight hours.

In the latest update, a Canadian search plane detected some underwater banging or noises with deep-sea experts saying it is hard to determine what these noises might be.

However, according to media reports, it is suggested that it could be short, sharp, relatively high-frequency noises by hitting a hard object against the end of the sub.

Authorities are also searching through the air in case of submersible emerged on the surface.

What is the difference between a submersible and a submarine?

The submersible Titan is a tourism vessel owned by a private company OceanGate which takes tourists to visit the wreckage site of the Titanic in the North Atlantic.

Submersibles and submarines are not interchangeable thus both are different. A submarine is an independent vessel which stores enough fuel to travel from the port and come back whereas a submersible does not have enough power and is launched through a mothership and is recovered. A Submersible is a kind of scuba diver which explores deep sea and comes back at a particular point and is then later brought to port.

What is the submersible 'Titan'?

The submersible — named Titan — is capable of carrying five people including one pilot and going deep into seawater of 4,000 metres, allowing the crew members to inspect, conduct deep sea surveys, research and other underwater tasks.

OceanGate notes that Titan makes “innovative use of modern materials” to be “lighter in weight and more cost-efficient to mobilise than any other deep diving submersible.” The materials the company is referring to are carbon fibre and titanium.

Titan’s length is 6.7 metres, its width is 2.8 metres and its height is 2.5 metres, as per OceanGate. It has 10,432 kilograms of weight and has a payload capacity of up to 685 kilograms.

Its four Innerspace 1002 electric thrusters are capable of propelling the vessel to a maximum speed of 3 knots (around 5.5 kilometres per hour) underwater.

It has the capability to keep the crew members supplied with oxygen for up to 96 hours.

According to the company, the submersible uses a proprietary “Real Time Hull Health Monitoring” (RTM) system, which, provides “an unparalleled safety feature that assesses the integrity of the hull throughout every dive.”

Despite all-out efforts by the three countries combined, it remains to be seen when the submersible is found and it remains too early to say.