A possible glimmer of hope came overnight however when Canadian aircraft picked up "underwater noises in the search area" U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick said at a news conference on Wednesday.
The search for the missing Titanic submersible continues with just over 12 hours before the crew is expected to run out of oxygen.
A possible glimmer of hope came overnight, however, when Canadian aircraft picked up "underwater noises in the search area," U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick said at a news conference on Wednesday in Boston.
Frederick also said that the Coast Guard has been unable to detect these noises but did note that efforts are now focused on that site and a team of experts is working to determine the source of the noises.
"This is a search-and-rescue mission, 100%," Frederick said. "We have to have hope."
The current search efforts include two remotely-operated vehicles and five "surface assets" said Frederick, with five more slated to join over the next 48 hours.
Atalante, a French ship with a deep-sea diving vessel capable of reaching the ocean floor, is expected to arrive to the site on Wednesday evening after the U.S. Navy contacted officials in France to ask for help on Monday.
French national Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a maritime expert who had made approximately 40 trips to the site where the Titanic lies, is among the five passengers onboard the vessel.
An approaching storm and strong currents are now making search operations more difficult and have doubled the size of the search area in just 24 hours to approximately 10,000-square miles.
In addition to Nargeolet, the other passengers aboard the vessel have been identified as British-born billionaire Hamish Harding; the British-Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-olf son, Suleman; and Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate.
OceanGate is the company that designed the submersible and hosts these expeditions for a price of $250,000 per person.
Inclement weather had delayed the launch of the vessel, according to a tweet shared by Harding on Saturday, but on Sunday morning the five men were bolted into Titan, a 21-foot submersible, to begin their descent.
The Titan began its voyage at approximately 8 a.m. ADT on Sunday, and communication was lost about 100 minutes into the descent, with the vessel approximately halfway on its journey to the ocean floor.
It is now being revealed that on prior trips, guests were made to sign a waiver that spelled out multiple ways in which they could lose their life while riding aboard the Titan.
That waiver also noted that the submersible "has not been approved by any regulatory body."
Rescue efforts continue in the Atlantic Ocean some 900 miles east of Cape Cod.
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