Titanic submarine missing: Belfast Titanic Society 'very upset' about plight of Titan passengers and recognise parallels with tragedy of Titanic itself

Five people were on board when contact with the small tourist sub, the Titan, was lost about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive on Sunday.

As the levels of oxygen in the sub are calculated to have run down, hopes of rescuing the passengers have dwindled.

Chairman of the Belfast Titanic Society, Aidan McMichael told the News Letter: "I think everybody is now just very upset because of that human side of the story.

"Everybody waits with hope - it is reminiscent of the Titanic story itself - disaster, followed by hope followed by having those hopes dashed.

"In the original story people were hoping their loved ones would be among the minority who had been rescued - only to have those hopes dashed. That is actually what happened.

"This is similar in that the initial news of the Titanic story was that there had been a wreck and that passengers were being saved, so they had hope

"And in this case it was a story of hope of international rescue - as in the case of the Titanic itself.

"And also now, it looks like our hopes - we think - are going to be dashed too."

The Belfast society has around 200 members.

One of those who was also supposed to descend to the wreck as part of the expedition was Rory Golden, an honorary member of the Belfast Titanic Society.

They have heard that he is safe on the sub's mothership on the ocean surface, the Polar Prince.

"We have a particular link to it all because our honorary member Rory Golden has participated in the expedition this year and we are all aware of that,” Mr McMichael said.

"He has dived on the wreck before so that is the link that we have to the situation.

"Obviously we were just so thankful that he wasn't on this little submersible, but it is a small measure when you realise what the other families must be going through at this time."

Dubliner Rory was the first Irishman to visit the wreck of the Titanic.

"We are very much concerned about the human side of what is happening and aware there is all sorts of speculation about the technical side of it - but that is for those technicians to talk about."

One of the people on the missing sub is the CEO of Oceangate - the company running the expedition - Stockton Rush, an American.

He visited the Belfast Titanic Society in February with Mr Golden, and gave members a presentation about the latest scientific findings of their work.

Members would have been welcome to travel with them to the Titanic, but none took up the offer, not least because tickets were $250,000, Mr McMichael said.

Mr Rushton was "very earnest" about collecting scientific data from the wreck for future generations, he added.