The U.S. Coast Guard has confirmed that “presumed human remains” have been recovered from the wreckage of the Titan submersible, which imploded last week while on a voyage to see the Titanic wreckage.
The remains were found in the debris that was recovered from the ocean floor, about 12,500 feet below the surface. The Coast Guard said that the remains were “carefully recovered within the wreckage at the site of the incident” and that officials were working to “transport the evidence aboard a U.S. Coast Guard cutter to a port in the United States where the MBI will be able to facilitate further analysis and testing.”
Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) Chair Captain Jason Neubauer said that the evidence that was recovered will be useful to investigators as they seek to piece together what happened.
“I am grateful for the coordinated international and interagency support to recover and preserve this vital evidence at extreme offshore distances and depths,” said Neubauer. “The evidence will provide investigators from several international jurisdictions with critical insights into the cause of this tragedy. There is still a substantial amount of work to be done to understand the factors that led to the catastrophic loss of the TITAN and help ensure a similar tragedy does not occur again.”
The Titan submersible was carrying five people when it imploded. All five people were killed. The victims were:
- Stockton Rush, CEO and pilot of OceanGate Expeditions
- Shahzada Dawood, a Pakistani businessman
- Suleman Dawood, Shahzada’s son
- Hamish Harding, a British adventurer
- Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French Titanic expert
The cause of the implosion is still under investigation. The Coast Guard said that it is possible that the implosion was caused by a structural failure, a gas leak, or a combination of factors.
“The U.S. Navy conducted an analysis of acoustic data and detected an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost,” a senior U.S. Navy official told The Wall Street Journal in a statement. “While not definitive, this information was immediately shared with the Incident Commander to assist with the ongoing search and rescue mission.”
The U.S. Coast Guard has just Confirmed that “Presumed Human Remains” have been Discovered inside of the TITAN Submersible Vehicle which was recently Recovered by the Canadian Ship, “AHTS Horizon Arctic” near the Wreck of the Titanic, which the Submersible was attempting to… pic.twitter.com/McvExuW6Wt
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) June 28, 2023
