A submersible vessel carrying five people to see the Titanic's wreckage in the North Atlantic has gone missing, triggering a multinational search-and-rescue operation, US and Canadian authorities said. The vessel began its descent on Sunday morning and lost contact with the surface less than two hours later, says the US Coast Guard. "At approximately 5.40 PM on Sunday, Coast Guard was notified from the research vessel Polar Prince, that was about 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) east of Cape Cod, over the site of the Titanic, had lost contact with their submersible with five persons on board," Officer Robert Simpson of the US Coast Guard tells AFP. "We have since launched two aircrafts from our air station Elizabeth City, two HC-130 long range search and rescue aircrafts. They’ve been searching over the site to view the surface of the water to see if we can find any sign of the vessel at this point," he adds. SOUNDBITES