‘Catastrophic implosion’ killed all 5 passengers on Titan Submersible, US Coast Guard confirms

OceanGate Expeditions, the company that owned and operated the submarine, said in a statement that all five people on the ship, including CEO and pilot Stockton Rush, were “sadly lost.”

This photo combo shows from the left that Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Stockton Rush and Hamish Harding are in grave danger aboard a small submarine that has gone missing in the Atlantic Ocean. The missing submarine Titan imploded near the wreckage of the Titanic, killing all five people on board, the U.S. Coast Guard announced Thursday, June 22, 2023. (AP Photo/File)

A submarine carrying five people to the Titanic imploded near the wreckage site, killing everyone on board, authorities confirmed, bringing a tragic end to a story that sparked an urgent 24-hour search and global vigil for the missing ship. included.

The glimmer of hope that remained in finding the five men alive was wiped out early Thursday, when the submarine’s 96-hour oxygen supply was expected to run out after launching on Sunday and the Coast Guard announced debris had been found at about 1,600 feet (600 feet). 488 meters) of the Titanic in the North Atlantic.

“This was a catastrophic ship implosion,” said Rear Admiral John Mauger of the First Coast Guard District.

After the craft was reported missing, the U.S. Navy went back and analyzed the acoustic data and found an anomaly that was “consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submarine was operating when communications failed,” a spokesman said. senior naval officer. official told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive acoustic detection system.

The Navy passed that information on to the Coast Guard, which continued its search because the Navy did not consider the data to be definitive.

OceanGate statement

OceanGate Expeditions, the company that owned and operated the submarine, said in a statement that all five people on the ship, including CEO and pilot Stockton Rush, were “sadly lost.”

The others on board were two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” OceanGate said in a statement. “We grieve for the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.”

OceanGate has been recording the decay of the Titanic and the underwater ecosystem around it through annual voyages since 2021. The company did not respond to additional questions about the Titan’s voyage this week.

The Coast Guard continues to search for more clues about what happened to the Titan.

While the Navy likely detected the implosion via its acoustic system on Sunday, the underwater noises heard Tuesday and Wednesday — which initially raised hopes of a possible rescue — were likely unrelated to the submarine. The potential Navy designation was not publicly known until Thursday, when The Wall Street Journal first reported on it.

With a search area of thousands of miles — twice the size of Connecticut and in waters four miles deep — rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to the scene of the disappearance all week.

Broadcasters around the world began broadcasting news about the submarine at the critical hour on Thursday. The Saudi satellite channel Al Arabiya showed a clock on the air counting down to their estimate of when the air could possibly run out.

The White House thanked the US Coast Guard, along with Canadian, British and French partners who assisted in the search and rescue efforts.

“Our hearts go out to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives on the Titan. They have been through a harrowing ordeal in recent days, and we keep them in our thoughts and prayers,” it said in a statement.

The Titan launched at 6 a.m. Sunday and was reported overdue about 430 miles south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, that afternoon. By Thursday, when oxygen supplies were expected to run out, there was little hope of finding the crew alive.

Successful OceanGate mission to the Titanic site

At least 46 people successfully traveled on the submarine from OceanGate to the Titanic site in 2021 and 2022, according to letters the company filed with a U.S. district court in Norfolk, Virginia, which oversees cases related to the shipwreck. But questions about the submarine’s safety were raised by former passengers.

One of the company’s early clients compared a dive he made to the site two years ago to a suicide mission.

“Imagine a metal pipe a few meters long with a metal plate as a floor. You can’t stand. You cannot kneel. Everyone is close or on top of each other,” says Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman and adventurer from Germany. “You can’t be claustrophobic.”

During the 2 1/2 hour descent and ascent, the lights were off to save energy, he said, with the only illumination coming from a fluorescent glow stick.

The dive was repeatedly delayed to resolve a problem with the battery and balancing weights. In total, the trip took 10 1/2 hours.

Nicolai Roterman, a deep-sea ecologist and lecturer in marine biology at the University of Portsmouth, England, said the Titan’s disappearance highlights the dangers and unknowns of deep-sea tourism.

“Even the most reliable technology can fail, which is why accidents happen,” Roterman said. “With the growth of deep-sea tourism, we should expect more incidents like this.”