A US Air Force plane has arrived in Jersey to transport vital equipment for the Titanic submarine rescue mission.
The plane, a USAF C17, carried specialised tools provided by Magellan, an underwater research firm based in Guernsey.
The equipment includes a lifting device with a 7,000m synthetic rope and a remote-operated vehicle (ROV) capable of reaching depths of up to 6,000 meters.
The aircraft will fly the gear from Jersey to St John's in Newfoundland, Canada. The equipment was previously held in Jersey due to import issues into the USA.
The search for the missing submersible on an expedition to view the wreckage of the Titanic is nearing the critical 96-hour mark Thursday when breathable air is expected to run out, reaching a vital moment in the intense effort to save the five people aboard.
Aboard the submersible are pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, a British adventurer, two members of a Pakistani business family and a Titanic expert.
The US plane will also transport a workshop for operating the tools, it was reported.
Ten members of Magellan's team will accompany the equipment to the search and rescue site.
Additionally, another C17 is collecting a 10-tonne winch and nine-tonne rope from Scotland to assist in the mission.
Richard Parkinson, CEO of Magellan, expressed his support for the operation and mentioned a personal connection to one of the men on board the sub.
He told ITV: "The US Air Force has provided us with a C17 that we are going to use to send our ROV out to St John's.
"We were approached by OceanGate earlier this week, we offered our full support in their operation to find the missing sub.
"PH [Paul-Henri Nargeolet] has been on board our ships and has worked with our sub, Juliette, which we're going to deploy to St John's shortly."
The Titan was reported overdue Sunday afternoon about 435 miles (700 kilometres) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, as it was on its way to where the iconic ocean liner sank more than a century ago.
OceanGate Expeditions, an undersea exploration company that is leading the trip, has been chronicling the Titanic’s decay and the underwater ecosystem around it via yearly voyages since 2021.
By Thursday morning, hope was running out that anyone on board the vessel would be found alive.
Many obstacles still remain: from pinpointing the vessel’s location, to reaching it with rescue equipment, to bringing it to the surface — assuming it’s still intact. And all that has to happen before the passengers’ oxygen supply runs out.
Captain Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District said authorities were still holding out hope of saving the five passengers onboard.
“This is a search-and-rescue mission, 100%,” he said Wednesday.
The area of the North Atlantic where the Titan vanished Sunday is also prone to fog and stormy conditions, making it an extremely challenging environment to conduct a search-and-rescue mission, said Donald Murphy, an oceanographer who served as chief scientist of the Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol.
