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Water rescue expert theorizes missing Titanic tourist submarine ‘entangled’ on wreckage

A water rescue expert spoke on Fox News about his theory of what may have happened to a missing tourist submarine that was exploring the wreckage of the Titanic.

Lifeguard Systems President Butch Hendrick suspected that a missing tour submersible may have gotten entangled in the wreckage of the Titanic, but said rescue was possible on Monday’s episode of "The Story."

The search continues on Monday evening for a missing five-person submersible used to take tourists to see the underwater wreckage of the Titanic, a ship that sunk off the coast of Canada in the Atlantic in April 1912. OceanGate Expeditions, the company that owns the minivan-sized submersible, confirmed the search for its underwater craft and said its focus was on the people aboard the vessel and their families.

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"It’s going to be in close to the wreckage, being able to stay so people can see as much as they can," Hendrick, who has been developing and performing surface and subsurface water rescues for over 30 years in 15 countries theorized. "The potential of it becoming entangled is a very high concern."

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One scenario he suggested is possible is that "it’s somewhere attached to a fishing net, some debris, it may have gotten caught and it just can’t get out of it by itself."

Hendrick expressed his doubt that a tour vessel of this kind would have voluntarily entered the actual interior of the Titanic without some manner of support, but suggested it may have accidentally found itself jammed inside of Titanic wreckage due to "severe weather" that may have "changed the speed of the currents or the direction of the currents and the unit may have been simply just pushed into a portion of the [Titanic] that it can’t get out of by itself."

This tourist vessel was reportedly designed so that it automatically rises to the surface if it malfunctions and would have a releasable beacon or signal buoy that floats to the surface. Hendrick went on to theorize that the fact vessel has not surfaced leaves one explanation, "That in some place in the environment, it has gotten itself slightly entangled."

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He explained that a submersible moves through the water via multiple propellers, "If any one of the engines, the little propeller units that are on it got caught or sucked something in and got entangled, it’s now trapped. It cannot self release itself.

Hendrick noted that this type of underwater craft has a limited supply of oxygen, presumably leaving a 60-hour window for the people to be rescued, which he believes is possible.

"They have to rescue the entire unit, not taking people out. Most likely they’re going to be coming in with an ROV, a remote vehicle that is unmanned. That vehicle could be then controlled like a Pacman from the surface. It has Cameras of its own that would be able to see where it is, what the problems are and that ROV, that remote vehicle, would have to have cutting tools attached to its manipulative arms. Those units have arms that can articulate and do different projects. If [the tourist submersible] is caught, and it can’t come to the surface as it was designed to in case of an emergency, it needs to be cut free."

The expedition was OceanGate's third annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of the iconic ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew. Since the wreckage's discovery in 1985, it has been slowly succumbing to metal-eating bacteria, and some have predicted the ship could vanish in a matter of decades as holes yawn in the hull and sections disintegrate.

Fox News' Bradford Betz and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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