To the latest in the search for that missing submersible on an expedition to the Titanic.
The five people on board are now feared dead after debris was recovered, pointing to a possible implosion.
(Courtesy: NY Times)
(NBC Nightly News)
A grim-faced rear admiral John Mauger of the First Coast Guard District broke the news.
"An ROV, a remote operated vehicle, from the vessel Horizon Arctic, discovered the tail cone of the Titan submersible approximately 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic on the seafloor. The debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber."
"On behalf of the United States Coast Guard and the entire unified command, I offer my deepest condolences to the families," he added.
And with that, any hope for rescuing the five souls on board was crushed.
This included Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions; Pakistani-born businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
(Courtesy: People Magazine)
OceanGate, which operated the vessel, expressed condolences and grief to the victims' families in a statement.
This comes five days after a feverish search for the vessel known as Titan, which set sail on Sunday morning from Canada for the Titanic and was reported missing shortly after.
The search had rescue teams from several countries pitching in with ships and military aircraft to scrutinise thousands of square miles of open seas.
Underwater banging sounds had been heard in the past few days.
Now, officials believe the sounds did not come from the Titan or its passengers.
Mauger insisted, "There doesn’t appear to be any connection between the noises and the location (of the debris) on the seafloor. Again, this was a catastrohpic implosion of the vessel, which would have generated a significant broadband sound down there that the sonar buoys would have picked up."
It is unclear whether the U.S., Canada, France or Britain will investigate and which country will pay for the potential recovery of the victims.
Before the incident, since 2021 at least 46 people had successfully travelled on OceanGate's submersible to the Titanic shipwreck.
But as the probe continues, comes word that experts had written to OceanGate in 2018 about the faulty design of the submersible which wouldn't allow it to dive so deep into the ocean.
Investigators are uncertain if the crushing pressure near the ocean floor led to the implosion.
While misery has set in, one expert who's friends with two of the passengers on board shared what he called the "saving grace."
(David Mearns, speaking to Sky News, June 23rd, 2023)
David Mearns, a rescue expert and friends of British billionaire Hamish Harding and
adventurer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, said in an interview with Britain's Sky News, "It (the implosion) would've been immediate, literally in milliseconds, and the men would have had no idea what was happening. And the only thing is we've gone through these four days of concern and worry and hope and praying that the outcome would be different."
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