Titanic sub passengers died instantly in ‘catastrophic implosion’; wreckage from doomed vessel is discovered on ocean floor
The Titan submersible carrying five tourists, including two billionaires, suffered a “catastrophic implosion” on its trip to view the wreckage of the Titanic — killing all passengers instantly, the US Coast Guard announced Thursday.
Debris from the wreckage discovered on the ocean floor Thursday is “consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber,” meaning the sub was crushed under the weight of the sea at some point after it lost contact with its surface vessel on Sunday.
US Coast Guard officials said five major pieces of debris from the OceanGate vessel were found 1,600 feet from the 1912 shipwreck.
It is unknown what could have caused the implosion or when it occurred, as the sub made its journey to the ocean floor 12,500 feet below.
The Coast Guard added that it doesn’t “have an answer for prospects of recovering the bodies,” pointing out that the bottom of the ocean is an incredibly unforgiving environment to both search and recover debris from.
The passengers lost on the vessel were British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Sulaiman.
“We offer our most heartfelt condolences for the loved ones of the crew,” Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick said Thursday.
Reached at his home in Seattle on Thursday, Stockton’s son Richard would only tell The Post, “We don’t wish to speak at this time,” through a doorbell camera.
The US First Coast Guard District confirmed the discovery Thursday afternoon, saying a remotely operated vehicle — an unmanned undersea probe — had discovered debris from the Titan, including its nosecone and the front bell of the vessel’s pressure hull.
“A debris field was discovered within the search area by an ROV near the Titanic,” Rear Adm. John Mauger said, adding a “smaller debris field within the debris field” had been found by Odysseus 6K, an ROV made by Massachusetts-based Pelagic Research Services, which had been launched from the Canadian ship Horizon Arctic.
The Coast Guard also said the debris and information was still being evaluated.
Rescue expert David Mearns, who was in contact with those close to some of the victims, said the group was informed that the debris found was “a landing frame and a rear cover from the submersible.”
“Again, this is a very unconventional submarine. That rear cover is that pointy end of it and the landing frame is this little frame that it seems to sit on … that confirms it’s the submersible,” Mearns, who was friends with Harding and Nargeolet, told Sky News.
Tourist submersible exploring Titanic wreckage disappears in Atlantic Ocean
What we know
A submersible on a pricey tourist expedition to the Titanic shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean has vanished with likely only four days’ worth of oxygen. The US Coast Guard said the small submarine began its journey underwater with five passengers Sunday morning, and the Canadian research vessel that it was working with lost contact with the crew about an hour and 45 minutes into the dive.
It was later found that a top-secret team with the US Navy detected the implosion of the Titan submersible on Sunday, but did not stop search efforts due because the evidence was “not definitive” and a decision was made to “make every effort to save the lives on board.”
Who was on board?
The family of world explorer Hamish Harding confirmed on Facebook that he was among the five traveling in the missing submarine. Harding, a British businessman who previously paid for a space ride aboard the Blue Origin rocket last year, shared a photo of himself on Sunday signing a banner for OceanGate’s latest voyage to the shipwreck.
Also onboard were Pakistani energy and tech mogul Shanzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman, 19; famed French diver and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush.
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What’s next?
“We’re doing everything we can do to locate the submersible and rescue those on board,” Rear Adm. John Mauger told reporters. “In terms of the hours, we understood that was 96 hours of emergency capability from the operator.
Coast Guard officials said they are currently focusing all their efforts on locating the sub first before deploying any vessel capable of reaching as far below as 12,500 feet where the Titanic wreck is located.
Mauger, first district commander and leader of the search-and-rescue mission, said the US was coordinating with Canada on the operation.
The debris recovered from the US Coast Guard’s Titan submersible search site early Thursday included “a landing frame and a rear cover from the submersible.”
After search efforts to recover the stranded passengers proved futile, and bits of debris from the submersible were found, it was decided that the sub imploded, which correlated with an anomaly picked up by the US Navy in the same area.
The Coast Guard later reported that all 5 passengers were confirmed dead, and rescue efforts were halted.
Mearns, whose nickname is the “Shipwreck Hunter,” further said he has been told the submersible’s hull remains missing, but the discovery of those pieces of debris could only have happened if the “submersible had fragmented,” meaning the vessel had imploded.
The ocean-floor discovery of the debris brought to an end the frantic search for the five who were aboard the vessel, which had started on Sunday when it had been reported missing by the crew of the Polar Prince, the ship from which the submersible had been launched.
OceanGate told the Coast Guard the Titan was equipped with only 96 hours of oxygen after it submerged off the coast of Newfoundland earlier that day, starting a race against time to find the vessel and its five inhabitants, who had been sealed into the sub from the outside with 17 bolts.
It had been thought the vessel could be trapped in the wreckage of the Titanic but intact 12,500 feet below the surface of the water, with air running out.
Follow the Post’s coverage on the missing Titanic sub and its crew
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- Inside the missing submarine that explores the Titanic
- OceanGate faced ‘quality and safety’ allegations about its Titanic sub as far back as 2018
- I went on the Titanic submarine — it was a suicide mission
The frantic search saw a coordinated effort from the US and Canadian coast guards, as well as hundreds of vessels dispatched to the region from various nations to help.
One of the major problems with rescue efforts was the depth, as no successful rescue has ever been made deeper than 1,750 feet from the surface before.
Only a handful of craft are able to operate at the depth required. Two ROVs were dispatched to the area of the Titanic wreck, 350 nautical miles from the Canadian island of Newfoundland: the Victor 6000 aboard the ship L’Atalante by French authorities and the Odysseus 6K on the Horizon Arctic.
Less than two hours after the sub reportedly ran out of oxygen, the US Coast Guard announced the Odysseus had reached the ocean floor as the frantic search escalated.
“The Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic has deployed an ROV that has reached the sea floor and began its search for the missing sub,” the agency said. The Coast Guard also said the L’Atalante would soon deploy its ROV.
Upon the discovery that the Titan had imploded, OceanGate paid tribute in a statement: “These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans.
“Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.”
