Rescuers hear 'banging sounds’ in desperate race to find Titanic sub

BANGING sounds in the ocean today raised hopes that the five Titanic adventurers missing in a submersible deep underwater could yet be saved as the race to find them entered its final hours.

- Martin Bentham

The US coastguard confirmed that “underwater noises” had been heard after media reports said that a Canadian aircraft taking part in the search had heard banging at 30-minute intervals over a period of four hours yesterday.

Further searches in the area, which is understood to be close to the site of the wreck of the Titanic, have so far proved unsuccessful. But a friend of the billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, one of the three Britons on board the submersible along with London businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, said the news offered hope that the adventurers could still be rescued.

“If you’re hearing banging, you know they’re alive,” said Terry Virts, a former US pilot and space shuttle commander, who described Mr Harding as the “quintessential British explorer”.

“The good news is we haven’t got the bad news — we haven’t heard the hull crushing, we haven’t heard an explosion, we haven’t seen debris floating on the surface, so to me it sounds like it’s... just sitting there stuck underneath the Titanic somehow,” he said.