Two hours to prepare the Victor 6000

We heard this afternoon about the arrival of a French underwater Robotically Operated Vehicle (ROV), the Victor 6000.

Its role will be to search for the Titan and to remove any obstacles that are stopping it from floating to the surface.

It will take two hours to prepare the ROV once it arrives and the operation is likely to take several more hours – and time is not on the side of a rescue operation.

But the head of the organisation that operates the Victor 6,000, Jan Opderbecke, of the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea, told BBC News that “where there is still hope, we have to try”.