Oisin Fanning, who made two deep-sea dives on the Titan last summer, said the passengers’ ability to survive on the missing submersible could depend on staying calm and avoiding panicked breathing that would use up more oxygen.

The submersible was believed to be able to sustain its passengers for 96 hours — four days — when it entered the water on Sunday. More vessels joined the increasingly urgent search on Wednesday in a remote patch of the North Atlantic.

Mr. Fanning said Stockton Rush, the chief executive of OceanGate, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a maritime expert and former commander in the French Navy, would be well aware of ways to conserve oxygen and would be making use of the vessel's blankets and scrubbers, which absorb carbon dioxide from the air.

“A lot depends on the people down there,” said Mr. Fanning. “Are they breathing heavily? I don’t see a lot of panic from the people down there, certainly not those two,” he said, referring to Mr. Rush and Mr. Nargeolet, each of whom took part in dives aboard the Titan with him last summer.

Both men, he said, would know that it would take several days for a rescue vessel to arrive.

Mr. Fanning said he was well aware of the expedition’s risks before his dives, including that the vessel had not undergone independent certification procedures. But the prospect of seeing the wreckage of the Titanic up close was worth it, he said.

“Everybody knew the risks, but of course, everyone is more excited about getting to the Titanic than overly worrying,” said Mr. Fanning, 65, who had grown up hearing stories about the Titanic from his father, who was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the Titanic was built.

Mr. Fanning, the chief executive of San Leon Energy, an oil and gas company, said the experience was thrilling and well worth the $120,000 he paid for the dives, one that toured an area near the wreckage and another that visited the Titanic itself. “You see a lot, a bathtub in one of the rooms, a lamp outside the Sergeant of Arms rooms,” he said.

“It is not comfortable, you’re in a cigar-like tube, and you’re just sitting on the floor,” taking turns looking out of a small porthole, he said.

Mr. Fanning, who lives in London and Dubai, said he was still very hopeful of a successful rescue, but acknowledged the difficulties facing the search operation. Even if the submersible was floating near the surface, semi-submerged, it would be extremely difficult to spot, he said.

Jenny Gross is a general assignment reporter. Before joining The Times, she covered British politics for The Wall Street Journal. @jggross

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