A debris field has been discovered during a search for a missing submersible that was carrying five people near the Titanic wreckage, the U.S. Coast Guard said Thursday.
The discovery was made by a remotely operated vehicle searching the area, which is being evaluated by experts within the unified command. That group reportedly consists of the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, Canadian Coast Guard and OceanGate Expeditions.
A press briefing will be held at 3 p.m. EST to discuss the findings from the Horizon Arctic’s remotely operated vehicle or ROV, the Coast Guard said.
The announced discovery came only five hours after the Coast Guard shared the news that the Horizon Arctic’s ROV had been deployed into the depths to help aid the search. The ROV was one of several deployed to search the area 2.5 miles deep.
Horizon Arctic’s operator, Horizon Maritime Services, said Horizon Arctic was supplied a ROV by the U.S. military late Tuesday night.
The Canadian ship was headed to the remote search site on Sunday but was called back to port in Newfoundland, Canada, to retrieve search equipment, the company said in a statement. The massive 94-meter vessel then headed back to sea at 5 a.m. Wednesday, but wasn’t expected to arrive at the site until Thursday morning. The company said it is in a joint venture with the Polar Prince, which the submersible launched from.
The Coast Guard said the 21-foot submersible, operated by OceanGate Expeditions, launched into the Atlantic Ocean, about 300 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, at 8 a.m. Sunday. It had enough oxygen on board to last approximately 96 hours.
The submersible was expected to resurface at 3 p.m. Sunday, but an hour and 45 minutes into the dive, it lost contact with Research Vessel Polar Prince, which it launched from. Authorities received a report about the missing submersible at 5:40 p.m., the Coast Guard said Wednesday.
The vessel’s oxygen supply was expected to run out around 7 a.m. Thursday.