LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — In a story that’s captured a global audience, time is of the essence.
A submarine carrying tourists went missing on Sunday during a mission to survey the wreckage of the Titanic.
Just as it did in 1912, the Titanic is making headlines everywhere.
“The story of the Titanic is one that's always captivated us all,” said Dr. Andrea Erhardt. “It's such a compelling and interesting story about the destructive force and amazingness of nature, and the fallibility of people.
An associate professor at UK who studies oceanography and paleoceanography, Erhardt is watching and waiting with the rest of the world as rescuers travel 12,000 feet below the ocean’s surface to save the mission gone wrong.
Since the submersible, Titan, went missing on Sunday, crews have searched a surface area twice the size of the state of Connecticut and 2.5 miles deep.According to Erhardt, there’s a reason that experts in her field do their research from the surface, sending robots into the depths of the ocean, instead of humans.
“It is really, really far down there under intense pressure, pitch blackness, and it's very tricky to navigate once you're down there,” explained Erhardt. “It's dark and everything is flat, and it's hard to orient yourself when they're on the bottom, even with all the technology we have.”
According to Erhardt, at 12,000 feet below the surface, the Titan would be found at the depth of two Grand Canyons. If located, rescue efforts won’t stop there.
“The biggest hurdle is to find it, but getting it up there is going to be another challenge. It's really hard to bring something up from that pressure, in that deep, cold, dark environment,” said Erhardt.
With five people aboard and an oxygen supply dwindling by the minute, expected only to last until Thursday afternoon, rescuers from the U.S. Coast Guard to a French exploration robot are pushing the limits.
“It's a race against time to hopefully find it and then bring it up to the surface and hopefully learn some lessons of better design and things we can do to prevent this tragedy in the future,” said Erhardt.
You can follow live updates of the rescue mission on NBC here: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/missing-titanic-submersible-live-updates-rcna90315.
