The Titan is carrying Dubai-based billionaire Hamish Harding and Pakistan-born businessman Shahzada Dawood. SUPPLIED

Search teams were still looking for a Titanic expedition submarine on Wednesday (June 21) as the deep-sea vessel was down to its estimated last 24 hours of oxygen supply. The Titan submarine was carrying Dubai-based billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistan-born businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, OceanGate Expeditions CEO and founder Stockton Rush, and renowned French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet. The submarine lost contact with its support vessel an hour and 45 minutes after submerging towards the Titanic wreckage site in the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday. On Wednesday, day three of the search, the US Coast Guard said that search teams have detected underwater sounds while scanning the North Atlantic for the tourist submarine. A Canadian aircraft searching for the missing Titan detected intermittent “banging” noises from the vicinityof the last known location of the divers. Robotic undersea search operations were diverted to the area where the sounds seemed to originate, but there was still no tangible sign of the missing vessel, according to the Coast Guard. Search teams from the US, Canada and France, including aircraft and ships from the US Coast Guard, US Navy and Canadian armed forces, had combed more than 7,600 square miles of the North Atlantic since the search was launched on Sunday. OceanGate Expeditions, the private company that operates the submarine, said in a statement on Monday that it was "mobilising all options" to rescue those on board. The 21ft-long tourist expedition Titan submarine was set for a two-hour dive to the famous shipwreck, with each seat costing $250,000 per person. The submarine was designed to remain underwater for 96 hours, giving its occupants until Thursday morning before air supply would run out. Harding, a British businessman who lives in Dubai, was one of the specialists of the mission to reach the shipwreck at the bottom of the Atlantic. The adventurer holds three Guinness World Records, including diving to the lowest depth of the Mariana Trench in March 2021. Dawood and his son Suleman are prominent figures in Pakistan. Their company invests in agriculture, industries and the health sector. The Dawood family has released a statement saying that multiple government agencies are working on rescue efforts to “bring them back safely”. Just before the deep-sea dive on Sunday, Harding posted on Instagram: “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023. A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.” ICA/Expat Media
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