All five people on board the submersible which went missing on Sunday while on a dive to the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic are believed to have died, authorities have said.
The United States Coast Guard said a debris field found on the sea bed was “consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel”.
OceanGate, the company which operated the craft, said: “We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargeolet have sadly been lost.”
Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard said that during a search operation on Thursday carried out by remote operating vehicles a debris field was found on the ocean floor about 1,600 ft (490m) from the bow of the Titanic.
Asked about the prospect of recovering the bodies of the victims, Admiral Mauger said he did not have an answer.
“This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor, two miles under the surface,” he said.
The search discovered five pieces of debris from the Titan submersible including its nose cone, the front end of the pressure hull and the back end of the pressure hull. Admiral Mauger said the debris was consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.
Authorities said it was too early to indicate when the implosion of the 6.7 metre (22-foot) submersible took place. The submersible lost contact with its chartered mother ship on the surface on Sunday morning when it was more than half way into its dive to the wreck of the Titanic.
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It was believed to have had sufficient oxygen to last for about four days. Over recent days, there had been an international search in the ocean about 600km from the coast of Newfoundland in Canada to try locate the vessel.
Admiral Mauger said the US Coast Guard had deployed sonar buoys in the water over the last 72 hours. “Since they had been in place, they had not detected any catastrophic events,” he said.
He said that there did not appear to be any connection between the banging noises heard by authorities in the ocean in recent days and the location on the sea floor where the debris from the submersible was found on Thursday.
OceanGate said of those who were on board the submersible: “These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans.”
