TRAGIC END
Five crew onboard missing Titanic sub are dead after ‘catastrophic implosion’ – amid fears bodies may never be found
FIVE men on board the missing Titan sub died instantly when the vessel suffered a "catastrophic" implosion.
Operator OceanGate said "true explorers" Stockton Rush, Brit billionaire Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman were "sadly lost".
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The US Coast Guard admitted their bodies may never be recovered as investigators now face the grim task of trying to piece together what happened.
A deep-sea robot sub dropped onto the seabed by Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic found five major pieces of debris of the doomed Titan two miles beneath the surface on Thursday.
They included the sub's landing frame and the tail cone.
Rear Admiral John Mauger, of the US Coast Guard, said the debris was 1,600ft from the bow of the Titanic - and "consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber".
READ MORE ON THE TITAN SEARCH
Asked about recovering the bodies, Mauger said the sea floor was an “incredibly unforgiving, incredibly complex environment".
"We will continue to work and search the area down there but I don’t have an answer for prospects at this time," he added.
He said the implosion would have made a "significant, broadband sound that the sonar buoys would have picked up".
And it would have killed the crew instantly, he added.
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On Thursday, a US defence official revealed the US navy heard "an acoustic anomaly consistent with an implosion" just hours after the sub lost contact on Sunday.
The top secret military system designed to spot enemy submarines reportedly detected the sound of the suspected implosion.
The official said the information was given to the US Coast Guard team - who then apparently used it to narrow the search area.
Sounds of banging detected underwater on Wednesday had raised hopes of a last-gasp miracle - but experts now believe it was just the noises of other ships in the area.
Titanic film director James Cameron, who has completed 33 dives to the wreck, claimed he knew on Monday there had been an implosion - days before the debris was found.
Cameron told he received "confirmation that there was some kind of loud noise consistent with an implosion event" from his colleagues in "the deep submergence community".
He said: "I felt in my bones what had happened.
"For the sub's electronics to fail and its communication system to fail, and its tracking transponder to fail simultaneously - sub's gone."
Three ships involved in the search for Titan at still at the site.
Rescue teams have now turned to the recovery of the Titan wreck - but the water pressure at those depths makes it very challenging.
The pressure where the debris was discovered is around 6,000 PSI - compared to 14.7 at sea level.
Florida-based senior research scientist Steve Somlyody said: "The pressure down there at 4,000m is pretty high. About 5,800 PSI at Titanic depth."
Expert Ofer Ketter said the implosion would have occurred within a millisecond - meaning those on board "never knew it happened".
An expert said just one tiny fault with the Titan sub could have led to the "catastrophic" implosion.
The sub's owner OceanGate confirmed the five crew were dead in a statement on Thursday afternoon.
"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," they said.
"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."
Hamish's devastated family shared a heartbreaking tribute to a "dedicated father" who "lived his life for his family, his business and for the next adventure".
Mr Harding's company Action Aviation said: "Hamish Harding was a loving husband to his wife and a dedicated father to his two sons, whom he loved deeply.
"To his team in Action Aviation, he was a guide, an inspiration, a support, and a living legend.
"He was one of a kind and we adored him."
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The company described him as "passionate explorer" who "lived his life for his family, his business and for the next adventure".
"What he achieved in his lifetime was truly remarkable and if we can take any small consolation from this tragedy, it's that we lost him doing what he loved," they added.
The family of British father and son Mr Dawood and Suleman - from one of Pakistan's richest families - also shared their heartache.
Suleman's aunt revealed the lad was "terrified" about the trip - but did it to please his dad.
They said: "Our beloved sons were aboard OceanGate’s Titan submersible that perished underwater.
"Please continue to keep the separated souls and our family in your prayers during this difficult period of mourning.
"We are truly grateful to all those involved in the rescue operations.
"Their untiring efforts were a source of strength for us during this time."
Richard Garriott, president of adventure group The Explorers Club, said "our hearts are broken" by the loss of the five crew.
"Hamish Harding is a dear friend to me personally and to The Explorers Club," he said.
"He holds several world records and has continued to push dragons off maps both in person and through supporting expeditions and worthy causes.
"Paul-Henri was elected to the Club in 2001 and was one of the foremost experts on submersible expeditions to the Titanic.
"They were both drawn to explore, like so many of us, and did so in the name of meaningful science for the betterment of mankind.
"While we did not know Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman personally, their desire to explore as a family would have led them to our doorstep at some point in their futures, where we would have welcomed them."
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
Foreign secretary James Cleverly paid tribute to the five people who were on board the Titan.
He described it as "tragic news" and said the UK government was closely supporting the families affected.
Carl Hartsville, from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, told reporters the remains of the sub were found in an area where there was "no debris" of the Titanic.
Carl said: "It's consistent with the location of the last communication for an implosion in the water column."
David Mearns - a pal of two of the Titan passengers - believes the debris could hold vital clues about what happened to the sub.
The parts found were the landing frame and a rear cover of the sub.
He told : "A debris field implies a break-up of the submersible.
"That really indicates the worst-case scenario, that is catastrophic failure of the vessel. Generally that's an implosion.
"The only saving grace about that was that it would have been immediate. It would have happened in milliseconds.
"My worst fears as of Monday have now been realised.
"Two friends of mine are gone. And the men would have had no idea what was happening."
The OceanGate sub vanished less than two hours into its descent to the Titanic wreckage on Sunday.
Search crews had been frantically looking for the vessel in the Atlantic after it lost communication on Sunday with just 96 hours of life support.
The sub failed to resurface later that afternoon - with its final "ping" to mothership Polar Prince placing the sub directly above the ruins.
But operators failed to notify the Coast Guard until 12.40pm BST (5.40 ET) - eight hours after contact was lost.
The search involved the world’s most advanced undersea search technology - including Canadian, US and French ships.
And RAF and USAF cargo planes flew a specialist ultra-deep submersible to St John's Canada to aid the rescue effort.
For the sub's electronics to fail and its communication system to fail, and its tracking transponder to fail simultaneously - sub's gone
James Cameron
OceanGate has come under fire after it emerged that crucial safety blunders were made before the dive to the Titanic wreck.
The company was involved in a huge lawsuit over fears about the sub’s safety - and a former passenger revealed the vessel also went missing last year.
Guillermo Söhnlein, a co-founder of OceanGate, has hit back at some of the criticism.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "People keep equating certification with safety and are ignoring the 14 years of development of the Titan sub.
"Any expert who weighs in on this... will also admit that they were not there for the design of the sub, for the engineering of the sub, for the building of the sub and certainly not for the rigorous test programme the sub went through."
He said anyone operating in the deep ocean "knows the risk of operating under such pressure and that at any given moment".
"You run the risk of this kind of implosion," Söhnlein said.
Questions were also raised over why it took so long for the Coast Guard to the alerted to the vessel's disappearance.
Kathleen Cosnett, a cousin of Brit billionaire Harding, slammed OceanGate for taking "too long" to alert authorities.
The 69-year-old told the Telegraph: "It’s very frightening.
"I would have thought three hours would be the bare minimum."
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The US Coast Guard was also criticised for being slow to authorise private groups with state-of-the-art equipment to aid the rescue effort.
It's understood teams applied as early as Monday to help, but were not contacted until Wednesday night, reports the .
Titanic OceanGate Submarine News
Everything you need to know about the missing submarine, which vanished near the Titanic on June 18, 2023.
- What happened to the OceanGate Submarine?
- When did it go missing?
- Who was Hamish Harding?
- How deep is the Titanic in the ocean?
- Do submarines like this disappear often and has this happened before?
- Who was Paul-Henry Nargeolet and what is he known for?
- Who was Shahzada Dawood?
- Who was Shahzada Dawood's son Suleman?
- When did the Titanic sink and have people explored the wreckage before?
- Was the submarine safe to take part in this mission?
- Who was OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush?
- What has been found from the submarine?
- What caused the submarine to implode?
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