A massive search and rescue operation is under way in the mid Atlantic after a tourist submarine went missing during a dive to Titanic’s wreck on June 18.
According the US Coast Guard, contact with the small sub was lost about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive.
Tour firm OceanGate said all options were being explored to rescue the five people onboard.
Tickets cost $250,000 for an eight-day trip including dives to the wreck at a depth of 12,500ft.
Government agencies, the US and Canadian navies and commercial deep-sea firms are helping the rescue operation, officials said.
Titanic’s wreck lies some 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland, though the rescue mission is being run from Boston, Massachusetts.
The missing craft is believed to be OceanGate’s Titan submersible, a truck-sized sub that holds five people and usually dives with a four-day emergency supply of oxygen.
OceanGate said its “entire focus [was] on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families”.
“We are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to re-establish contact with the submersible,” it added.
The company bills the eight-day trip on its carbon-fibre submersible as a “chance to step outside of everyday life and discover something truly extraordinary”.
According to its website, one expedition is ongoing and two more have been planned for June 2024.
The submersible usually carries a pilot, three paying guests, and what the company calls a “content expert”.
The trip sets sail from St John’s in Newfoundland. Each full dive to the wreck, including the descent and ascent, reportedly takes around eight hours.
The OceanGate website lists three submersibles it owns, and only the Titan is capable of diving deep enough to reach the Titanic wreckage.
The vessel weighs 23,000 lbs and, according to the website, can reach depths of up to 13,100 ft and has 96 hours of life support available for a crew of five.
A vessel called the Polar Prince, which is used to transport submersibles to the wreckage site, was involved in the expedition.
Titanic and Braveheart composer James Horner has died in a plane crash near Santa Barbara aged 61.
James Horner’s death was confirmed by Sylvia Patrycja, who is identified on the composer’s film music page as his assistant.
“We have lost an amazing person with a huge heart and unbelievable talent,” Sylvia Patrycja wrote on Facebook on June 22.
“He died doing what he loved. Thank you for all your support and love and see you down the road.”
James Horner is reported to have been alone aboard a two-seater single-engine plane which crashed about 60 miles north of Santa Barbara on Monday morning.
The two-time Oscar winner worked on three James Cameron films, as well as A Beautiful Mind, Troy and Apollo 13.
James Horner won one Oscar for James Cameron’s Titanic film score and one for its theme song.
His score for Titanic sold a whopping 27 million copies worldwide.
James Horner’s fruitful partnership with James Cameron also netted him Oscar nominations for original score for the blockbusters Aliens (1986) and Avatar (2009). The pair reportedly were also at work on Avatar sequels.
The last letter to be written on Titanic has sold for £119,000 ($200,000) at an auction in the UK.
The letter was written by survivors Esther Hart and her 7-year-old daughter Eva eight hours before the ship hit an iceberg and sank in 1912.
The letter only survived because it was in the pocket of her husband’s coat which he gave her to keep warm.
The letter was written by Titanic survivors Esther Hart and her 7-year-old daughter Eva eight hours before the ship hit an iceberg and sank in 1912
Meant for her mother in Chadwell Heath, east London, the letter went under the hammer at a Wiltshire auctioneers.
Esther Hart wrote that they were enjoying what she called the “wonderful’ journey”.
She said they were likely to arrive in New York early because of the speed the ship was doing.
Her husband Benjamin died along with more than 1,500 people in the disaster.
The letter was auctioned at Henry Aldridge & Son of Devizes on Saturday.
While the hammer price was £101,000, fees and other charges brought the total to £119,000, which the auctioneers said was a new world record for a Titanic letter.
The last letter to be written on the Titanic could fetch $170,000 when it will be auctioned in the UK later.
The letter was written by survivors Esther Hart and her 7-year-old daughter Eva eight hours before the ship hit an iceberg and sank in 1912.
The letter only survived because it was in the pocket of her husband’s coat which he gave her to keep warm.
Meant for her mother in Chadwell Heath, east London, the letter will go under the hammer at a Wiltshire auctioneers.
Esther Hart wrote that they were enjoying what she called the “wonderful’ journey”.
She said they were likely to arrive in New York early because of the speed the ship was doing.
The letter was written by survivors Esther Hart and her 7-year-old daughter Eva eight hours before the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in 1912
Her husband Benjamin died along with more than 1,500 people in the disaster.
The letter will be auctioned at Henry Aldridge & Son of Devizes on Saturday.
Titanic memorabilia continues to be big business. A menu from the day of the disaster was sold for $129,000, while a violin played as the ship sank went for $1.5 million.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said the letter was unique.
“It’s very rare because it’s a letter that’s written on board Titanic, which makes it exceptional,” he said.
“But what rises it to the absolute top of the pile is it’s the only letter known that was written on Sunday 14 April, so the day the ship hit the iceberg.
“So we can say with absolute certainty that about 12 hours after this letter was written the Titanic was at the bottom of the North Atlantic.”
The letter, embossed with the White Star Line flag, is headed “On Board RMS Titanic” and dated “Sunday afternoon”.
In it, Esther Hart describes being sick the day before and unable to eat or drink.
She said she had since recovered and had been to a church service with Eva that morning.
She wrote that Eva had sung “so nicely” to the hymn Oh God Our Help In Ages Past and they were both due to sing in a concert on board “tomorrow night”.
Remarking on the stability of the ship, which was not supposed to roll, Esther Hart wrote: “Anyhow it rolls enough for me.”
She added: “Well, the sailors say we have had a wonderful passage up to now.”
The Titanic sank on the night of Sunday April 14, 1912, on the fifth day of its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic.
After seven years of investigation, auctioneers found out that the violin thought to be the one played by the band leader of the Titanic as it sank is genuine.
Wallace Hartley and his orchestra famously played on as the Titanic sank in 1912 and were among the 1,500 who died.
In 2006, Titanic specialist auction house Henry Aldridge and Son in Wiltshire were approached by the violin’s owner who wanted to sell it.
Experts commissioned by the auction house confirmed it was Wallace Hartley’s.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said they had spent the last seven years gathering the evidence and were confident that “beyond reasonable doubt this was Wallace Hartley’s violin”.
“When we first saw the violin we had to keep a lid on our excitement because it was almost as if it was too good to be true,” Andrew Aldridge said.
“The silver fish plate on the violin along with the other items it was with suggested it was either authentic or an extremely elaborate hoax.
“Everything needed to be researched properly and the correct experts had to be commissioned.”
The tests were carried out by a range of specialists including the UK’s Forensic Science Service which concluded the “corrosion deposits on it were considered compatible with immersion in sea water”.
After seven years of investigation, auctioneers found out that the violin thought to be the one played by the band leader of the Titanic as it sank is genuine
Wallace Hartley’s body was recovered about 10 days after the doomed liner sank but the violin was not listed among the inventory of items found with him.Several newspaper reports from the time said he had been found “fully dressed with his violin strapped to his body”.
There have been various theories about what happened to the instrument which range from it floating away to being stolen by someone involved in handling the bodies of the deceased.
A violin was returned to Wallace Hartley’s fiancée Maria Robinson, in Bridlington in East Yorkshire, and a transcript of a telegram dated 19 July 1912 to Canada’s Provincial of Nova Scotia was found in her diary.
It said: “I would be most grateful if you could convey my heartfelt thanks to all who have made possible the return of my late fiancé’s violin.”
Craig Sopin, 55, who lives in Philadelphia, US, and owns one of the world’s largest collections of Titanic memorabilia, said: “Popular belief is that the violin was lost or ferreted away but sometimes miracles happen and it has here.
“As far as Titanic memorabilia is concerned it is the most important piece that has ever come up and that includes artefacts recovered from the seabed such as the crow’s nest bell.”
The violin, thought to be worth a six-figure sum, is the property of an unidentified individual in Lancashire, UK.
The instrument is due to go on display at the Belfast City Hall in April, but no date has yet been set to auction it.
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