AreaRead the video transcript here
It's a race against time. The large-scale search for the mini-submarine Titan in the Atlantic Ocean continues at full speed. According to U.S. media reports, knocking noises were registered on Tuesday. They could give a clue as to where the Titan is. David Pogue knows the missing submarine from the inside. The CBS journalist was already at the wreck of the Titanic with the diving capsule.
David Pogue, Journalist:
"Before we got there, we had never seen the submarine. We didn't know anything about the boat. I didn't know at the time that you could control the thing with an Xbox controller. I didn't know that the ballast is made of used construction pipes. You just arrive and then you see this stuff. And then the mood changes and you get a little worried and ask yourself: Is this really the level we're talking about here?"
The submersible took off on Sunday morning at around 6 a.m. local time from Newfoundland in the direction of the Titanic wreck, which lies at a depth of around 3800 meters on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
The oxygen for the five occupants should last for about four days. On Sunday, contact with the submersible broke off.
David Pogue, Journalist:
"And then you get a tour and Stockton Rush, the designer of the submarine, the general manager, explains to you that all these things, the lights, the handles and the propellers, are off-the-shelf parts - because not only are they cheap, but they're also proven and mass-produced. So the part we're interested in is the pressure vessel. The capsule in which the people are located, and which he designed together with NASA and the University of Washington, and which, he says, is secured as much as possible. His exact words were: Everything else can fail. The lights may go out, the propellers may stop, but you will still be alive."
The passenger compartment is closed from the outside with bolts. From the inside, there is no way to get out without help. This means that even if the submarine is not lying on the seabed, the occupants have to wait until they are found.
Mike Reiss, Former Passenger of the Titan:
"On every trip I've taken, on the four dives I've done with OceanGate, there has always been a problem with communication with the water surface. It is possible that they are just out of reach, that they have returned to the surface and simply no longer have radio contact. But I don't think that's very unlikely. I think that maybe they are stuck at the bottom of the sea. Maybe there was a break and water got in. I'm not very optimistic that they'll return."
Various tools are used in the search for the Titan. For example, the Coast Guard drops special buoys over the ocean. These are equipped with underwater microphones that can detect sound waves underwater. However, it was still unclear on Wednesday morning whether the now registered noises actually came from the missing mini-submarine.