Size that does not exceed a large barrel features the OceanGate Expeditions submersible tourist Titan that has been lost in the icy waters of the Atlantic with five passengers aboard.

It is indicative that the boat does not even have seats, with passengers having to sit barefoot on the floor, while the only toilet is separated from the main area only by a curtain.

Desperate efforts are currently underway for the vessel, which does not even reach seven meters, and was lost while en route to the site of the Titanic wreck. Its passengers are cut off from the outside world in claustrophobic conditions. According to reports, OceanGate Expeditions was reportedly eight hours late in notifying authorities of the submarine’s disappearance.

US Coast Guard officials said the boat only had about 40 hours of oxygen left. “This operation is our top priority,” an American official emphasized.

Daily Mail

The submarine Titan was heading for its destination when it was lost track of its support ship Polar Prince. The only hope of finding them alive is that they may have had oxygen for three to five days. But “if the passengers panic and start having intense activity inside the cabinthe oxygen will run out much faster,” Frank Owen, former director of the Australian Search and Rescue team, told the BBC.

The rescue operation by US and Canadian authorities continues.

All five crew members have been identified. They are Stockton Rush, president and founder of Oceangate Stockton Rush, billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman and operator Paul Narzole.

Read about: Who are the missing people in the Titanic submarine?

Two video documentaries show Oceangate Expeditions president and founder Stockton Rush introducing the submarine. It is noted that the vessel has mechanisms to go to the surface even if power is lost. However, the Titan to have been involved in the debris of the Titanic – a vast expanse at a depth of 3,800 meters to be explored.

According to ocean explorer Robert Baziak, if the submarine has fallen to the bottom of the ocean the conditions will be difficult, while the pressure of the atmosphere will be about 380 times more than at the surface.

According to CBS reporter David Pogue, who dived on the Titanic wreck last year with a submarine, the passengers enter the submarine and it is then sealed from the outside with several bolts.

The French Institute for Research on the Exploitation of the Seas (IFERMER – Institut Français de Recherche pour l’Exploitation de la Mer) sent the ship Atalante with a robotic submersible in the area of ​​the North Atlantic where the tourist submarine disappeared on Sunday.

The research ship Atalante it is expected to reach its destination tomorrow Wednesday around 9 pm (Greece time) and will be followed by the dive of the robotic submersible.