The passengers trapped on the missing Titan submersible in the depths of the Atlantic ocean are likely in ‘intense emotional turmoil’ as they enter their final 24 hours of oxygen supply, a forensic psychiatrist said.
Rescue teams are mobilised and are in a race against time to find the missing vessel with five people on board, that vanished on Sunday on its descent to the century-old wreck of the Titanic that lies 12,500 feet below the ocean’s surface.
Remotely operated vehicle (ROV) searches have been deployed in the area where Canadian aircraft detected undersea noises on Tuesday.
According to Doctor Sohom Das, a British forensic psychiatrist, those on-board the OceanGate Expeditions vessel are likely clinging to hope that they could still be found, but as the clock ticks down, he says ‘reality is going to seep in’.
Those aboard the submersible includes British billionaire and adventurer Hamish Harding, 58, and Pakistani-born businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, with his 19-year-old son Suleman, who are both British citizens.
‘I think they must be in just intense emotional turmoil,’ Das told DailyMail.
‘On the one hand, part of them is still going to be clinging on to hope. There’s going to be a part of them that believes that they will be found and they will be rescued.
‘But I think as time passes, reality is going to seep in,’ he said.
As time passes, the NHS doctors said the trapped passengers will have lots of different reactions to their situation, and that their ‘reactions, their emotions might change over time.
‘So at some point they’re going to be quite reflective upon their lives when they’re literally staring into the jaws of death and at other points, they’re likely to feel extremely panicked, extremely anxious,’ he said.
The small, 22-foot long submarine is only just big enough for the five passengers. There are no seats and just a single toilet with a curtain for privacy.
The vessel set off on Sunday morning at around 12pm GMT but lost contact with its mothership soon after that during what should have been a two-hour dive to the Titanic.
‘They’re going to suffer from physical symptoms,’ Dr Das said, ‘from hyperventilation to feeling dizzy to chest pains. They’re just going to be overwhelmed emotionally with trying to get to grips with what’s happening to them.
‘I imagine that none of them have a claustrophobic disorder. Otherwise they wouldn’t be in that situation in the first place.
‘But nevertheless, I’m sure the intense, claustrophobic nature of the scenario that they’re in as they come to grips with the possibility of losing their lives will just add to the overall tension and the feelings of anxiety that they have,’ he added.
‘The sonobuoys detected noise in the water. We don’t know the source of that noise,’ US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger told CBS on Wednesday.
Two ROVs and a surface vessel are being used to locate the source of the noise, he said.
‘This is an incredibly complex site,’ Mauger said, noting that metal and other objects under the water made it difficult to determine the source.
‘The wreck of the British ocean liner, which sank when it hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage in 1912, lies on the seabed at a depth of about 12,500 feet.
It is about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and 400 miles south of St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Teams from the United States, Canada and France have been involved in the search covering an area of open sea larger than the US state of Connecticut or about half the size of Belgium.
Aircraft and ships from the US Coast Guard, US Navy and Canadian armed forces had combed more than 7,600 square miles of the North Atlantic, US Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick said on Tuesday.
A French research ship carrying a deep-sea diving robot submersible was dispatched to the area at the request of the US Navy and was expected to arrive later on Wednesday, France’s Ifremer ocean science research institute said.
US Coast Guard said Canadian Lockheed P-3 Orion aircraft, which have sub-surface surveillance gear to trace submarines, detected the underwater noises in the search area on Tuesday.
Remote undersea equipment was deployed in the area where the sounds were detected and data from the P-3 aircraft was shared the US Navy experts ‘for further analysis which will be considered in future search plans,’ the US Coast Guard wrote in its Twitter statement.
It did not give details about the nature of the sounds, but CNN and Rolling Stone magazine, citing internal US government communications, reported Canadian aircraft detected banging sounds at 30-minute intervals in the area.
