Shortly after sunrise on Friday, a hulking icebreaker departed the protected waters of St John’s, Newfoundland, and ventured into the unpredictable vastness of the north Atlantic Ocean. Onboard the ship was an array of scientific monitoring equipment, cameras and a sleek, 22ft-long submersible named Titan.
The passengers onboard the chartered Polar Prince vessel were excited at the prospect of reaching the final resting site of the RMS Titanic, even if it meant cramming themselves inside the hollow body of Titan.
But the small carbon fibre craft disappeared on Sunday, nearly two hours after it dipped below the surface, en route to the remains of the sunken ocean liner. The disappearance has prompted a frantic international search, with Canada and the US marshalling all available resources in a race against time.
The Titanic never reached its destination of New York City. But along the east coast of Canada, the legacy of the doomed ship still looms large more than a century after it sank.
More than 120 victims of the disaster are buried in the Fairview cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia – at the time the city nearest to the sinking with rail and shipping connections. The city’s Museum of the Atlantic showcases artifacts from the ship, including a deck chair, personal effects and wreckage, as well as the white canvas mortuary bags used for the victims.
St John’s, Canada’s easternmost city in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, remains the closest city to the liner’s final resting place and has become the launching site for expeditions traveling to the wreck site, nearly 400 miles (650km) away – and more than 12,000ft (3,800m) below the surface of the ocean.
On Tuesday, the city, known for its brightly coloured “biscuit box” houses, was blanketed in a thick haze of fog and rain as residents made sense of the news.
“To hear that there are people in distress possibly and not knowing where they are and if we’re ever going to find them … it’s heart-wrenching,” said Anne Simmons, operations manager at a local tour company. “The whole world is watching because it’s the Titanic. Everybody knows about it.”
On April 1912, the Titanic received warnings of drifting ice in the area of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Hours later, a remote Marconi wireless station on the south-east tip of the island received the Titanic’s first distress call.
St John’s is also home to Memorial University and the world-class Marine Institute research centre, which recently announced a partnership with OceanGate, the American company behind the missing submersible.
Friday’s mission was the company’s fifth Titanic expedition. Onboard were Hamish Harding, 58, a British explorer and pilot who has previously taken a suborbital spaceflight; British Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48; and Dawood’s son Suleman, 19.
“Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023. A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow,” Harding posted on Instagram on Saturday. “We started steaming from St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, yesterday and are planning to start dive operations around 4am tomorrow morning. Until then we have a lot of preparations and briefings to do.”
Paul Henri Nargeolet, a deep diver, submersible pilot, former French navy commander and a leading authority on the Titanic wreck site, is also believed to have been onboard alongside Stockton Rush, the founder of OceanGate.
On Tuesday, St John’s harbour was blanketed in a thick cover of fog. Out on the ocean, challenging conditions have hampered the search efforts.
“I don’t believe anybody should just be able to build their own submarine and head off into the world without the skills or talents to do so because then you know tragedies like this do happen,” said resident Ashton Quinn. “I feel very bad for the families of the people involved.”
As the search intensifies, there is collective hope the vessel can be located. The province is no stranger to disaster – it took in 75 airplanes when airspace was closed during 9/11, an act of generosity celebrated in the hit Broadway musical Come From Away – nor is it a stranger to loss. Generations of fishers have left the rocky shores of the region, only to be lost at sea.
“I kind of feel for the people’s family and for what they may be going through right now. It’s really really a tough circumstance,” said resident Bruce Keating. “The natural instinct for everybody here … is just to rally around and provide whatever support they can, [knowing] how dangerous the ocean can be.”