MH370 search team ‘joins hunt for Titanic submarine’

A search team involved in the hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is now helping in the desperate race to locate the Titan submersible, according to reports.

The company – Phoenix International Deep Ocean Search and Recovery – specialises in underwater rescue and salvage orations.

On its website, it boasts of being ‘well versed in conducting worldwide underwater projects with a wide range of subsea systems’ having been involved in the search for MH370, which vanished into the abyss in 2014 with 239 people on board. 

The full wreckage has never been found.

Now, according to German tabloid Bild, Phoenix International has joined a multinational mission to find the missing Titan submersible after its five-man crew lost contact with its mother ship on Sunday on a dive to the wreck of the Titanic.

French research vessel The Atalante – viewed as the final hope for the missing Titan sub – has arrived at the search site. It is dropping in a deep sea robot called the Victor 6000 -seen at the stern. The vessel is one of many involved in the multinational search efforts for the missing Titan sub, which now also includes a team involved in the search for MH370, reports say

On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (pictured) and the 239 people on-board took off into the night’s sky from Kuala Lumpur, never to be seen or heard from again. Phoenix International Deep Ocean Search and Recovery was one of the ocean rescue companies involved in the search for the Boeing 777

The US coast guard insisted on Thursday that the operation was still a rescue mission, despite fears that the vessel’s oxygen may already have run out.

Not long after, it announced that a debris field had been found within the search area by a remotely operated vehicle. The Coast Guard’s post on Twitter gave no details, such as whether officials believe the debris is connected to the Titan.

Two more unmanned subs were deployed Thursday as the massive hunt for the Titan, lost somewhere in a vast swathe of the North Atlantic between the ocean’s surface and more than two miles below, moved to the critical stage. 

On Thursday afternoon, Bild said one of its reporters ‘on site’ witnessed a large, newly docked boat from Phoenix International in in St. John’s on Newfoundland, Canada.

They said a team of 10 to 12 people wore life jackets bearing the name of the rescue company, and looked like they were ready to set out to sea.

The company says it has been involved in more than 60 military aircraft recoveries, a ‘world record recovery’ of a helicopter at a depth of more than 19,000ft (deeper than the Titanic’s wreckage) as well as the search for MH370.

Its website also says it was involved in the search for Argentinean Submarine ARA San Juan, which was lost in the Southern Atlantic Ocean in 2017.

Based on the Titan sub’s capacity to hold up to 96 hours of emergency air, rescuers had estimated that the passengers could run out of oxygen in the early hours of Thursday.

But as that possible deadline passed US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger said rescuers were ‘fully committed.’

US Coast Guard (USCG) Captain Jamie Frederick speaks to reporters about the search efforts for the Titan submersible that went missing near the wreck of the Titanic, at Coast Guard Base in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 21

This is how Titan could be saved by the French ship, if it is found

The area of ocean is teeming with boats and equipment trying to find the missing sub

‘People’s will to live really needs to be accounted for as well. And so we’re continuing to search and proceed with rescue efforts,’ he told NBC’s Today show.

A surge of assets and experts have joined the operation in the past day, and sonar has picked up unidentified underwater noises.

Organisers of the multinational response – which includes US and Canadian military planes, coast guard ships and teleguided robots – are focusing their efforts in the North Atlantic close to the underwater noises detected by sonar.

Those stuck onboard the sub include British billionaire Hamish Harding, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French navy veteran PH Nargeolet and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who is just 19.

A deep water robot sub has reached the Atlantic floor – and another is descending the 12,500ft of ocean fast.

‘The Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic has deployed an ROV that has reached the sea floor and began its search for the missing sub’, a spokesman said.

And a French ship viewed as the best and final hope of finding the missing Titanic submersible has also dropped its remote-controlled sub to missing five.

L’Atalante arrived on the scene at 11.48am GMT (7.48ET) and has deployed Victor 6000, which can reach depths of 20,000ft.

Victor 6000 has arms that can cut cables – or dislodge a trapped or stranded vessel – and may be able to fix a cable onto the sub before it is hauled several miles to the surface by a giant winch with more than three miles of cable called a Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System on Horizon Arctic.

The sounds raised hopes that the passengers on the small tourist craft are still alive, though experts have not been able to confirm their source.

‘We don’t know what they are, to be frank with you,’ said US Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick.

‘We have to remain optimistic and hopeful.’

The submersible, named Titan, began its descent on Sunday and had been due to resurface seven hours later, according to the US Coast Guard.

The 21-foot (6.5-meter) tourist craft lost communication with its mothership less than two hours into its trip to see the Titanic, which sits more than two miles (nearly four kilometers) below the surface of the North Atlantic.

OceanGate Expeditions charges $250,000 for a seat on the sub. 

Five people are onboard, including British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding and Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who is just 19

French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet (left) is in the sub along with Stockton Rush (right), CEO of the OceanGate Expedition

Ships and planes have scoured 10,000 square miles of surface water – roughly the size of the US state of Massachusetts – for the vessel, which attempted to dive about 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

After the noises were detected by a Canadian P-3 aircraft, rescuers relocated two remotely operated vehicles (ROV) that search under the water and one surface vessel with sonar capability.

The U.S. Coast Guard said Thursday that an underwater vessel has located a debris field near the Titanic.

The Navy has sent a specialized winch system for lifting heavy objects from extreme depths along with other equipment and personnel, while the Pentagon has deployed three C-130 aircraft and three C-17s.

The Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in 1912 during its maiden voyage from England to New York with 2,224 passengers and crew on board. More than 1,500 people died.

It was found in 1985 and remains a lure for nautical experts and underwater tourists.

The pressure at that depth as measured in atmospheres is 400 times what it is at sea level.

In 2018, OceanGate Expeditions’ former director of marine operations David Lochridge alleged in a lawsuit that he had been fired after raising concerns about the company’s ‘experimental and untested design’ of the craft.

As for MH370, the plane took off on March 8, 2014 from Kuala Lumpur, never to be seen or heard from again.

In the nine years since, one of the world’s largest aviation disasters still remains one of the great mysteries of our age, with no investigation resulting in a definitive answer to the question of what happened to the plane, its passengers and its crew.

What we do know is that MH370 – a Boeing 777 – left Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12:41am local time and travelled north-east over Malaysia and out over the South China Sea, destined for Beijing Capital International Airport. 

Pilot Ahmad Shah, the pilot and first officer of missing Malaysian airlines Flight MH370

What we do know is that MH370 – a Boeing 777 – left Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12:41am local time and travelled north-east over Malaysia and out over the South China Sea, destined for Beijing Capital International Airport. Pictured: A map showing its route

The crew last communicated with air traffic control 38 minutes after takeoff, around halfway between Malaysia and Vietnam.

Minutes after, it is believed to have suddenly deviated westward from its planned flight path. Military radar tracked MH370 across the Malay Peninsular and over the Andaman Sea, before it left radar range 230 miles northwest of Penang Island. 

The last primary radar contact was made at 2.22am, when it vanished, as if into thin air. All 239 people on the aircraft are presumed dead. 

The most expensive search in the history of aviation was launched. In the following years, debris confirmed or believed to be from the MH370 aircraft was found washed up along the African coast and on islands in the Indian Ocean.