EVERETT, Wash. – The submersible that has gone missing while on a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic is owned and operated by an Everett company.

Entrepreneur Stockton Rush founded Oceangate in 2009.

The company offers deep sea services for research, site surveying, and media and film production in addition to sight-seeing expeditions.

He spoke with KIRO News last year about the expeditions to Titanic that cost $250,000 for a seat.

“Realize there’s really one object in the ocean that everyone on planet Earth knows and that’s Titanic,” said Rush. “And that makes it possible for us to do these very expensive and very complicated missions. There’s just this huge fascination.”

Five people are believed to be aboard the missing vessel, including Rush.

CBS News Correspondent David Pogue was on the expedition last year and says the sub has a good supply of oxygen.

“There are carbon dioxide scrubbers, exactly the same thing you’d have in a spacecraft. Then there are these emergency scrubbers, they look like fly strips, and they hang from the ceiling and convert CO2 to oxygen,” said Pogue. “If those get exhausted, there are actual SCUBA oxygen tanks they can put on. So, overall, that’s 96 hours.”

He says the submersible will sometimes lose contact with the surface ship but regain it before there’s a sense of urgency.

He said the sub had been missing for at least a day when the company contacted the Coast Guard for assistance.