On Friday it was announced that the Titanic-bound submersible that went missing on Sunday with five people on board suffered a “catastrophic implosion,” killing everyone on board, US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said Thursday. A remotely operated vehicle found the tail cone of the Titan about 1,600 feet away from the bow of the shipwreck, he said.
Search and rescue crews remotely operating an underwater vehicle had discovered debris near the Titanic earlier Thursday, the day the submersible was expected to run out of oxygen.
The debris was found by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) associated with the Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic that reached the sea floor and began searching for the submersible early Thursday, according to the Coast Guard, which said ROVs will be used in a continued investigation of what happened.
The complex search and rescue mission attracted international attention and involved personnel from the U.S., Canada, France and the United Kingdom. Another ROV, associated with the French vessel L’Atalante, also deployed Thursday, the Coast Guard said. The accelerating search efforts came as an updated prediction by the Coast Guard said the Titan submersible was likely to run out of oxygen roughly around 7 a.m. EDT Thursday. It initially had 96 hours of oxygen for a crew of five. Experts have noted that the estimates are imprecise. In the end, running out of oxygen was not the biggest problem.
Tributes have been pouring in for the five men killed on board the Titan sub in what US officials say was a “catastrophic implosion”.
The victims were Hamish Harding, 58, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman Dawood, 19, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, and Stockton Rush, 61.
- Their families have expressed “profound grief” and paid tribute to their exploration endeavours
- It’s emerged the US Navy originally detected “an acoustic anomaly consistent with an implosion” shortly after the Titan lost contact on Sunday
- A robotic diving vehicle found major fragments of the sub on the seafloor about 1,600ft (480m) from the Titanic shipwreck on Thursday
- James Cameron, director of the 1997 Titanic film who has completed 33 dives to the wreck, said he suspected a disaster after the sub went missing
- Experts have questioned the safety of the Titan submersible and how private sector deep-sea expeditions are regulated. bbc.com
