Rescuers cannot yet confirm what the banging noises picked up by a surveillance plane are, but the sounds first detected on Tuesday have continued into today. It comes as the surface the search extends across an area twice the size of Connecticut.
US Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick told reporters in Boston: “With respect to the noises specifically, we don’t know what they are to be frank… The good news is we’re searching in the area where the noises were detected and will continue to do so.
“We hope that when we’re able to get additional ROVs, which should be there in the morning, the intent will be to continue to search in those areas where the noise was detected.”
The search at the surface now covers an area twice the size of the US state of Connecticut, roughly 10,000 square miles, and extends two and a half miles below the surface of the ocean.
Asked if rescuers still expect to find the explorers, Captain Frederick added: “This is a search and rescue mission, 100 percent. When you’re in the middle of a search and rescue case, you always have hope.”
Meanwhile, a French vessel carrying the only underwater vehicle able to rescue those trapped on the Titan is racing towards Newfoundland, but will not get there until midnight UK time.
Hopes of finding the sub rest on the Victor 6000, which can reach depths of 20,000ft, but rescuers are racing against time as US Coast Guards estimate the Titan may have less than 20 hours of oxygen left.
More than 10,000 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean around the Titanic wreckage, roughly 400 miles off the eastern Canadian coast, have been trawled by planes, submarines and explorers in a concerted international effort to find the explorers.
A Canadian military surveillance aircraft has reportedly detected underwater noises in a remote part of the North Atlantic in what constitutes the most promising signs of life since the search began.
The US Coast Guard wrote on Twitter that a Canadian P-3 Orion had “detected underwater noises in the search area.” Searchers then moved an underwater robot to that area to search. However, those searches “have yielded negative results but continue.”
The Coast Guard statement came after Rolling Stone, citing what it described as internal US Department of Homeland Security emails on the search, said that teams heard “banging sounds in the area every 30 minutes.”
In underwater disasters, a crew unable to communicate with the surface relies on banging on their submersible’s hull to be detected by sonar. However, no official has publicly suggested that’s the case and noises underwater can come from a variety of sources.
Yet the reports have sparked hope in some, including Richard Garriott de Cayeux, the president of The Explorers Club. He wrote an open letter to his club’s adventurers, who include the missing British man and the Titanic expert aboard the Titan, that they had “much greater confidence” now after they spoke to officials in Congress, the US military and the White House about the search.
Three C-17 transport planes from the US military have been used to move commercial submarines and support equipment from Buffalo, New York, to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to aid in the search, a spokesperson for the US Air Mobility Command said.
FOLLOW BELOW FOR MORE LIVE UPDATES…