Titanic sub search: ‘underwater noises’ picked up by Canadian plane, US coast guard says | Titanic sub incident

Canadian aircraft have detected “underwater noises in the search area” for the missing Titan submersible, the US Coast Guard said early on Wednesday, amid US media reports that regular “banging sounds” have been picked up.

The Coast Guard said remotely operated vehicles were relocated to the area. Those “searches have yielded negative results but continue”, it said.

The announcement came after US reports citing internal government memos said banging sounds at 30-minute intervals had been picked up by crews searching for the submersible, and an explorers organisation co-founded by one of the people missing said “we understand that likely signs of life” have been picked up.

Search aircraft picked up a “banging sound” every 30 minutes for hours, CNN and Rolling Stone reported, citing US government memos. Canadian aircraft with underwater detection capabilities picked up the sounds over a period of hours, emails to the Department for Homeland Security said, according to Rolling Stone. The emails did not make clear when the sounds were picked up

The sounds were still heard after four hours, reported CNN, citing an internal government memo, and said an update sent on Tuesday night suggested more sounds were heard, though they were not described as banging.

In a statement on Tuesday night, the Explorers Club, of which missing British billionaire Hamish Harding is a founder member, thanked those behind the rescue effort, and said “We have much greater confidence that 1.) there is cause for hope, based on data from the field – we understand that likely signs of life have been detected at the site.”

US and Canadian rescue teams are scrambling to search for a tourist submarine that went missing on Sunday during a voyage to the Titanic shipwreck with five people onboard.

Fresh equipment and craft, ranging from undersea recovery vehicles to hyperbaric chambers, have been sent to the search area to boost the rescue effort as oxygen levels in the submersible run ever lower.

The US navy has sent a deep ocean salvage system called Fadoss that was expected to arrive in Newfoundland on Tuesday evening, a US spokesperson told CBC News in Canada. It was due to arrive along with other equipment and personnel.

On Tuesday night, three US air force C-17 aircraft were confirmed as having landed in Newfoundland, carrying equipment headed for the search area, 370 nautical miles to the south-east.

The Fadoss system is designed to provide “reliable deep ocean lifting capacity of up to 60,000lbs (27,200kg) for the recovery of large, bulky, and heavy sunken objects such as aircraft or small vessels”. The missing Titan submersible weighs 10,432kg (23,000lbs).

The system has previously been deployed alongside a US Navy remotely operated vehicle called Curv-21, the Cable-controlled Undersea Recovery Vehicle, a 2.4-metre (8ft) craft that can operate as far down as 6km (20,000ft). However it is unclear if it is being deployed for this search.

The Royal Canadian Navy ship HMCS Glace Bay is en route to provide a medical team specialising in dive medicine, as well as a six person mobile hyperbaric recompression chamber. It is expected to be on scene by midday on Thursday.

The Canadian Coast Guard Ship (CCGS) John Cabot is expected to arrive later on Tuesday, the CCGS Ann Harvey is enroute, and the CCGS Terry Fox is at base in St John’s, Newfoundland.

Magellan, a British firm that specialises in deep ocean investigations and recovery operations, has also said it is supporting the rescue mission for the Titan.

A French research ship carrying its own deep-sea diving robot vessel has also been dispatched to the search area at the request of the US Navy and was expected to arrive Wednesday night local time, the Ifremer research institute said.