An underwater robot has found the remains of the missing submarine Titan. This has been confirmed by the US Coast Guard. “On Thursday morning, the stern of the submarine was found first, about half a kilometer from the wreckage of the Titanic,” said John Mauger of the US Coast Guard and head of the search operation. Later, other debris was also found. At that time, the crew members’ families were notified.
OceanGate, the company behind the missing Titan, also confirmed on Thursday evening that the submarine was lost and that the five occupants are no longer alive. The company calls the crew “true explorers with a passion for protecting the ocean.”
According to Mauger, Titan’s visible damage indicates an implosion of the submarine under the high pressure deep in the ocean. It is not yet clear when exactly this implosion took place. Titan lost contact with the mother ship on Sunday as it descended towards the Titanic wreckage. Mauger does not think the implosion has happened in recent days. Even then, rescue services with sound detectors were present that would have observed such a bang. The underwater robots are still present at the disaster site to collect further information.
Stockton Rush, the founder of the OceanGate company that conducted the Titanic expeditions, was one of those on board. Also on board were three British passengers: British-Pakistani business consultant Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman, and British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding. Pilot of the Titan was the Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet, nicknamed Mr. Titanic because he often dived to the passenger ship that sank in 1912.