Titanic-tour sub has run out of oxygen supply.
The Titan sub was estimated Tuesday by U.S. Coast Guard officials to have about 40 hours of oxygen left – and that length of time passed as of about 5 a.m. ET Thursday.
An updated prediction by the U.S. Coast Guard Wednesday said the Titan was likely to run out of oxygen at around 7 a.m. ET Thursday.
While the estimates for remaining oxygen were only approximations and could vary by a few hours or so, officials had for days stressed the dire nature of finding the sub soon.
“We have to retain hope as part of what we are doing as a human community to find the explorers and bring them to safety,” Joyce Murray, Canada’s minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, said Wednesday.
Search crews have expanded the surface area in the search and rescue mission to about twice the size of Connecticut and 2.5 miles deep.
Nikolas Xiros, professor of naval architecture and marine engineering at the University of New Orleans, told USA TODAY the vessel has likely lost power and the temperatures at that depth could be barely above freezing.
“If a lack of oxygen doesn’t get them,” Xiros said, “what’s going to get them is going to be hypothermia.”
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