Rescue teams were racing on Wednesday to trace the origin of sounds heard from the depths of the North Atlantic in a search for a tourist submersible with five people on board that vanished on its descent to the century-old wreck of the Titanic.
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The US Coast Guard said remotely operated vehicle (ROV) searches were deployed in the area where Canadian aircraft detected the undersea noises on Tuesday, as the clock ticked in the last 24 hours of the missing craft's presumed air supply.
Video: Unified command set up to coordinate search for missing Titanic tourist sub /Reuters
"Those ROV searches have yielded negative results but continue," the US Coast Guard wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
The 21-foot (6.4-meter) submersible Titan, operated by US-based OceanGate Expeditions, began its descent at 8 a.m. (1200 GMT) on Sunday, according to the US Coast Guard. It lost contact with its parent surface vessel soon after that during what should have been a two-hour dive to the Titanic.
The mini-sub was designed to remain underwater for 96 hours, according to its specifications. That would give its occupants enough air until roughly 1200 GMT on Thursday, if it remained intact. Experts said a range of factors affected that deadline including whether it still had power in the icy depths.
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 (3,810 meters). It is about 900 miles (1,450 km) east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and 400 miles south of St. John's, Newfoundland.
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