Tourists onboard the missing Titan submarine visiting the wreckage of HMS Titanic will be "conserving oxygen," claims a former diver.
The tourist exhibition which sees those wanting to visit the resting place of the cruise liner sees a submarine dive to depths of up to 13,000 feet below sea level.
However, the Titan submarine lost all contact with its ship on Sunday, sparking a global frenzy and rescue effort to find those onboard.
It's believed that three Brits are among the five passengers trapped on board the OceanGate Expeditions vessel which will reportedly run out of oxygen supplies later today.
Now, a previous explorer has revealed that a damaged antenna could have caused the radio silence from the underwater vessel.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Oisin Fanning, who is friends with Paul-Henry Nargeolet, said he was "hugely experienced" after spending "most of his career with the Navy," adding: "At the end of his career, he was in charge of all submersibles in the French navy and then beyond privately.
"He's hugely experienced, on this sub alone, he's probably had like 40 dives to the Titanic, I know the subs he's been diving there as well, as is fairness is Stockton Rush."
Oisin added: "I would expect them, I'm presuming they got caught something like that, I'm hoping that's the case, the minute that happened, they would have realised their thrusters were too small and not strong enough to pull out, they would be conserving energy, conserving oxygen, that would have been an absolute priority.
"They wouldn't be panicking at all."
Oisin continued: "I do believe that these guys would be hunkering down and conserving their oxygen. They do have chemicals that will suck out the carbon dioxide.
"They even have blankets that when you wrap around you will take the carbon dioxide out of the air, when we did those tests on the sub itself, you could see the oxygen go up and the carbon dioxide go down, you could physically see it."
Reflecting on survival techniques and the rescue mission, Oisin explained: "You do nothing, there's nothing that you can do at that depth.
"If you're caught, there's very little debris around, to be honest, an accident is always possible, something could have fallen across you, I guess, logic would tell you that the antenna is broken – that's why we can't hear anything from them.
"You would just be sitting still, conserving your energy, not wasting oxygen and hoping that one of the ROV's can get down to you quick enough to pull you out of there, pull the sub out, because nobody can exit the sub at those levels."
However, Oisin claims that ahead of the dive, those embarking on the submarine are given extensive safety demonstrations and believes that a person may be tapping to flag their location to rescue workers.
He explained that one year prior to the dive, they were discussing safety via Zoom and there are round the clock demonstrations while on the main ship heading out to the dive site.
