U.S. coast guard says OceanGate leading underwater search for missing submersible

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The United States coast guard says search efforts are ramping up Tuesday morning, and expanding under the water as the clock ticks for five people on board a missing submersible.

Searchers scoured the north Atlantic overnight Monday into Tuesday morning, without any definitive answers on the whereabouts of the Titan.

Rear Admiral John Mauger speaking with American media outlets in the morning, said the company behind the Titanic expedition is now leading the search for their own vessel.

"OceanGate Expeditions is actually leading the underwater search area with assets we are bringing into the scene because they know that site better than anybody else in terms of the underwater search," he told MSNBC's Today Show.

Mauger said the U.S. coast guard is working in tandem with the Canadian Joint Rescue Command Centre, along with assets from the American air national guard.

A commercial vessel also joined the search Tuesday morning, as the Bahamian-flagged ship Deep Energy arrived on scene. The pipe-laying ship has deep-water capabilities and figures to play a role in search and rescue efforts.

"It is a marine emergency and we are there at the discretion of the American and Canadian Coast Guard for as long as needed," said a spokesperson from the ship's company, TechnipFMC.

The type of equipment needed to search at the depths required is rare. The Titanic sits more than 3,800 metres beneath the surface of the ocean, where the pressure is immense and light is nonexistent. OceanGate has previously told CBC News there are few manned vessels on the planet that can reach such depths.

They're searching for a small vessel in a wide area. Titan is seven metres long and just under three metres high. Mauger said the search area they've covered by air is about the size of Connecticut.

The submersible was towed out to sea on the weekend, taking crews of five below the surface to view the Titanic. The last communication between the submersible and its mother ship, the Polar Prince, happened about 1½ hours into the dive early Sunday morning. It has not been heard from since.

Colin Taylor knows as well as anyone what the crew might be going through, after going on a Titan expedition with his son last summer.

"I will have nightmares about it, I'm sure," he said from his home in St. John's. "It's not for the faint hearted to begin with, and it's certainly not without risk."

Taylor and his son made a successful trip to the Titanic, but he said it crossed his mind on multiple occasions that things could have gone differently.