A former British Navy officer has warned on Wednesday afternoon that banging from inside the Titan submersible which is lost in the North Atlantic Ocean “stretches credibility.”
Rear Admiral Chris Parry said that the underwater noises picked up by military aircraft may have come from Titan’s carbon fibre hull.
Parry said that the underwater noises are sadly a “distraction,” but understands the search and rescue teams will want to keep their “hopes high.”
Speaking to Sky News warned that submersibles like Titan “are essentially kit cars, they’re not normal submarines” and the vessel has “some dodgy technology” onboard.
Parry said, “They’re built in an experimental way, and this particular one is, shall we say, built from components you can get off the internet, from Amazon – they’re very flimsy, very fragile, and you can’t allow a lot to go wrong before you’re in danger.”
The former Naval officer warned that attempting to rescue this vessel will be “very difficult” and he added it’s unlikely Titan will have come to the surface because it “would have been found by now.”
Parry said, “You can’t possibly put another vehicle over the top of it and get people out at that depth – it has to be brought to the surface.”
Speaking of the rescue mission, Parry told the broadcaster on Wednesday afternoon, “People need to be concentrating on where they think that Titan might have gone if she actually got to the bottom.”
He added, “I know the company prides itself on being on the leading edge of innovation, but you have to ask yourself how many of the safety features actually are built in to match that innovation.”
He warned that the situation has now reached “critical point” and that there will be a “real concentration of seabed operations and salvage vessels” in the Titanic shipwreck area.
Two senior US Department of Homeland Security officials told NBC News that the reports of “banging” thought to be heard are “sounds” and “noises.”
Further analysis has also led officials to no longer call it “banging” and believe it is simply the sounds that are made underwater.
The US Coast Guard announced that a Canadian P-3 aircraft had also detected “underwater noises” in the area of the search.
The US agency also said that three vessels had arrived in the area of the Titanic shipwreck the Canadian coast guard vessel John Cabot is conducting sonar searches with the offshore vessel Skandi Vinland and tug ship Atlantic Merlin.
