Crews exploring undersea noises in ‘complex’ search for missing submersible

Rescue crews looking for the submersible vessel that went missing in the northern Atlantic Ocean are moving assets and focusing their search on an area where undersea noises have been detected, a US Coast Guard official has said.

While Captain Jamie Frederick said on Wednesday that authorities still do not know what these noises may be, he stressed that there is still hope to rescue the five people on board the sub, which was exploring the wreckage of the Titanic before it lost contact with the ship monitoring it on Sunday.

“When you’re in the middle of a search and rescue operation, you always have hope. That’s why we’re doing what we do,” Frederick told reporters.

He said a Canadian aircraft first detected the noises on Tuesday, and they were also heard on Wednesday.

Frederick said remotely operated vehicle (ROV) operations were relocated in “an attempt to explore the origin of the noises”, adding that crews are “searching in the area where the noises were detected and will continue to do so”.

Carl Hartsfield, an expert with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who is involved in the search operation, said the undersea sounds have been described as “banging noises”, and scientists are working to figure out what they are. “The ocean is a very complex place obviously – human sounds, nature sounds, and it’s very difficult to discern what the source of those noises are at times,” Hartsfield said. “But I can tell you that this team has multiple sensors. They’re in the area. They’re sending data back expeditiously to the best-in-the-world people to analyse that data.”

The vessel, named Titan is operated by the US-based company OceanGate Expeditions.

(Aljazeera)