A Scottish ship has joined the rescue mission for the Titan submersible as time runs out to save the lives of the five people on board.
Aberdeenshire-based Deep Energy and its crew normally work on pipelines in the North Sea to support the oil and gas industry.
But the ship had joined the US Coastguard-led search for Titan, which went missing during an expedition to view the wreck of the Titanic.
Deep Energy has been recruited for the rescue mission due to the extreme depths it is capable of operating in. The vessel is used to support subsea developments in waters of up to 9843ft deep and was specifically designed to operate in the North Sea, as well as the Atlantic basin.
A spokesman for the company in Westhill said: “TechnipFMC’s vessel Deep Energy arrived on location yesterday morning to aid in the underwater search and rescue efforts for OceanGate’s submersible Titan.
"The effort is being led by the United States Coast Guard with support from the Canadian Coast Guard, who will provide further information as it is available."
Deep Energy is described as the "fastest and one of the largest and most capable pipelay vessels ever built" in the industry.
The first photograph from the frantic search emerged on Wednesday and shows Deep Energy en route to the site which is 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts and around 370 miles off Newfoundland, Canada.
The 21ft Titan vessel was taking a group of five people on an eight-hour trip to the bottom of the Atlantic to see the Titanic shipwreck on Sunday morning when it lost contact shortly before two hours into the dive.
Three British passengers are on board, including Pakistani British-based businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Sulaiman Dawood.
British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding is also on the vessel, as is French submersible pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet, and chief executive and founder of OceanGate Expeditions, Stockton Rush.
At least 10,000 square miles have been searched so far, with less than 20 hours of oxygen believed to be left in the Titan submersible.
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