OceanGate adviser rips US government for ‘holding up’ rescue for missing Titanic sub

An adviser for OceanGate Expeditions blamed government bureaucracy for allegedly slowing down the rescue effort for the missing Titanic tourist submarine — but authorities claimed the company waited eight hours before reporting the disappearance.

Attorney David Concannon, who pulled out of Sunday’s dive at the last minute, told NewsNation that the equipment and crew needed to rescue the five missing passengers cannot be deployed until the Coast Guard authorizes the mission.

“They are mobilized. They’re sitting on the tarmac, ready to go,” Concannon said of the crew who surveyed the Titanic last year. “This equipment has been on the tarmac for hours.

“When I communicate with the US government, I get ‘out of office’ replies, not from everyone, but from key people that have a signoff on this,” he added. “That’s unacceptable. I don’t want to discourage the government officials that are helping because they’re doing their jobs, but we need to do it quicker.”

The US Coast Guard has repeatedly stated that its main focus at the moment is to first locate the submarine before deploying any vessel capable of rescuing those who vanished 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

Officials also told the Daily Mail on Tuesday that it took OceanGate Expeditions nearly eight hours to report its missing five-man tourist submarine after it lost contact with the vessel.

OceanGate Expeditions, a private company that allows tourists to visit the infamous shipwreck for $250,000, submerged at around 8 a.m. Sunday, the Mail reports.

At about 9:45 a.m., the submarine lost contact with its accompanying ship, the Polar Prince, and it wasn’t until 5:40 p.m. that officials received word of the missing Titan sub, Coast Guard sources told the Mail.

OceanGate and the Coast Guard did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for additional information.

News of the delay comes as authorities race against the clock to rescue the five passengers, with OceanGate noting that the submarine has at most 96 hours, or four days, of oxygen installed.

With that time ticking down, Concannon urged officials to speed up the search and have rescue-capable submarines at the location.

“We have people whose lives are at stake. You have to move. We have assets that are ready to go and they’re sitting and waiting,” he said.

Canadian and US officials have launched a full-scale search of the area where the submarine was last located, with planes and ships deployed to look for the vessel.

Rear Adm. John Mauger, who is overseeing the search-and-rescue mission for the missing submarine, told reporters Monday that the Canadian Coast Guard has deployed multiple sonar buoys capable of detecting the submarine even at the bottom of the Atlantic.

Mauger has also acknowledged that it is possible that the Titan might have gotten stuck in the 111-year-old wreckage of the Titanic lying 12,500 feet deep in the ocean.

Experts have cautioned that few craft can reach that depth, and even if they could, it’s unlikely they could attach to the submersible and tow it up to the ocean’s surface.

If the submarine is located at the wreckage site and pulled to safety, it would go down in history as the deepest-ever rescue mission.