The race to find the Titanic sub reveals how ill-equipped the US Coast Guard is in dealing with deep-sea disasters, expert says

• An expert said the US Coast Guard is ill-equipped for sub recovery operations.
• Craig Hooper said the agency is reliant on external help for sub search and recovery.

The US Coast Guard is ill-equipped for search-and-rescue missions involving missing submersibles such as the tourist vessel that vanished on a mission to explore the wreck of the Titanic, an expert told Insider.

A huge search-and-rescue operation coordinated by the US Coast Guard is underway to locate the submersible carrying five people that went missing on Sunday around 700 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.

As part of the operation, the Coast Guard is being aided by the US Navy, as well as private firms from France and the UK, which have specialist drones and search equipment capable of operating at the more than 2 mile depth of the Titanic wreck site.

Craig Hooper, a US Navy expert and CEO of the Themistocles Advisory Group, said the emergency highlighted a blindspot in the US Coast Guard's search-and-rescue capabilities.

"The US Coast Guard has little to no organic capability to pursue complex, undersea rescues," Hooper said.

"While the organization is well-prepared to lead and manage even the most sophisticated search-and-rescue operations, for the technical work on site, the Coast Guard would be almost entirely dependent upon specialized technical capabilities to pursue a complex underwater rescue of a crew aboard a distressed submersible or submarine," he said.

The US Coast Guard did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

The emergency has shed light on the risks involved in the exclusive market for deep-sea tourism, Hooper said.

OceanGate, the company that operated the missing submersible and sold tickets to view the Titanic wreck for up to $250,000, is among the firms offering wealthy customers the chance to experience one of the world's most extreme environments.

Companies offer customers the chance to view wrecks and underwater marvels in submersible trips on several sites off the US coast, though none are as extreme as the site of the Titanic wreck which is more than two miles underwater in the perilous North Atlantic.

According to reports, experts had flagged concerns over the safety of the missing submersible that operated in international waters and which was not inspected by regulators for safety.

"Coast Guards have actively worried that adventure tourism has raced ahead of government regulation, and has put little thought into addressing catastrophic accidents in areas where government support is unlikely," Hooper wrote in Forbes recently.

Amid the unprecedented challenges in locating the submersible, which at the time of writing remains missing, the US Coast Guard has drawn criticism from people seeking to aid the search effort.

The Explorer's Club has accused US officials of delaying the transportation of specialist drones from UK firm Magellan to the search site, echoing criticisms made earlier in the week by OceanGate advisor David Concannon.

The BBC reported that Magellan's drones had been dispatched to join the search-and-rescue effort early Thursday.

Hooper said that search-and-rescue operation co-ordinators often had to sift through lots of offers of help, and decide which best suited the demands of the operation given limited resources and a narrow time-frame.

According to reports, a US Navy device capable of deep sea recovery operations was part of the search effort.

He said that Magellan appeared to have lacked the capacity to transport its equipment to the site independently, and the crisis highlighted the need for better co-ordination between the organizations capable of specialized deep sea search and rescue.

"That might go a long way in advancing emergency responses to civilian undersea accidents and help smooth over any hurt feelings going forwards."