Royal Navy officer to join search for the missing Titan submarine

A Royal Navy submariner has joined the search for the missing Titan sub while the RAF is delivering equipment to aid the operation despite fears the supply of oxygen has already run out on the submersible.

Submariner Lieutenant Commander Richard Kantharia joined the international effort to help find the missing deep-sea vessel as more ships and expertise were scrambled in a last-bid attempt to rescue those on board as their 96-hour oxygen supply dwindled.

A Number 10 spokesman said: "At the request of US Coastguard, the UK has embedded a Royal Navy submariner to assist the search and rescue effort for the missing submarine."

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Lt Cdr Kantharia "has significant knowledge of submarine warfare and dived operations and so he will obviously be bringing that experience to the search and rescue team".

Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard said he was "thrilled and pleased" to have a UK submariner involved in the search operation for the missing Titan submersible.

He told Sky News: "We've been very fortunate to have world-leading experts from several different services contribute to the search."

He added he was "really thrilled and pleased to have a UK submariner on site that is helping us to understand this complex undersea environment in this undersea search".

"I really appreciate the support from UK submarine force," he continued.

Mr Mauger said the "unified command" is made up of the US Coast Guard, US Navy, Canadian Coast Guard, Canadian armed force, private sector and expertise from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The Royal Air Force was on task to assist within 12 hours of receiving a request for help, sending an RAF C-17 Globemaster and A400 Atlas which departed RAF Lossiemouth early on Thursday to help transport equipment and personnel to Canada to aid the operation.

The RAF C-17 will transport the equipment and the A400M will transport specialist loaders and crew, with hopes this would significantly decrease the time it took for specialist equipment to join the rescue mission.

Squadron Leader Simon Philips said: "The RAF is always ready to support civilian authorities in emergency and humanitarian situations.

"We hope that the RAF contribution to the international rescue effort is of assistance."

The Titan is understood to have left its mother ship Polar Prince with five people on board at around 08:00 Eastern Time on Sunday to delve 13,000ft below the surface and visit the wreckage of the Titanic.

However, it lost communication on Sunday while about 435 miles south of St John's, Newfoundland, off the coast of Canada.

OceanGate Expeditions, which operates the submersible tour, estimated the oxygen supply on the 6.7m (22ft)-long vessel, about the size of a van, which has British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding on board, would last the crew of five 96 hours, giving rescuers a deadline of around midday on Thursday.

An international rescue mission is being co-ordinated from Boston, USA, with diving experts from across the world joining the operation, but hopes of saving those on board have faded now that the oxygen levels on the Titan are thought to have run out.

Former Royal Navy submarine captain Ryan Ramsey described the current situation as "bleak", despite the US Coast Guard still treating the hunt for the missing Titan submersible as an "active search and rescue".

He told the PA news agency: "The outlook is bleak, that's the only word for it, as this tragic event unfolds and almost the closing stages of where this changes from rescue to a salvage mission.

"That doesn't mean to say that the current ships and forces deployed won't continue to keep looking.

"They won't stop for many days, I imagine, but the reality is if you base it off oxygen alone, then they're out of oxygen.

"Carbon dioxide is also a critical element to it as well as the cold. It would be a miracle if there were survivors from it."

Capt Ramsey expects the search for the submersible could carry on for weeks.

Lt Cdr Kantharia was on exchange with the US Navy and has been seconded to the search and rescue team.

A British RAF C-17 aircraft will transport "specialist commercial equipment" provided by Channel Islands-based company Magellan, a specialist in deep and ultra-deepwater site investigation, to St John's to assist with the search-and-rescue effort.

Downing Street said Lt Cdr Kantharia would be part of the Titan rescue efforts "as long as is required".

The experienced submariner is understood to have joined the US Coastguard mission on Tuesday evening in the US.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, asked whether the request for UK assistance should have come sooner, said: "We've always said we stand ready to provide any assistance required and that continues to be the case.

"The search-and-rescue efforts continue and we will look to support that in any way we can."

Asked how long Lt Cdr Kantharia would be "embedded" with the rescue efforts, the spokesman replied: "As long as is required."

The No 10 official, asked whether Mr Sunak planned to speak to the families of the British people on board the missing Titanic submersible, said the Prime Minister's "thoughts remain with" them and that the Foreign Office is in "constant contact" with those affected.