Presumed human remains found in Titan-tour Oceangate sub debris

The US Coast Guard has found presumed human remains in the wreckage of the Titan submersible, which imploded on a deep dive to the Titanic.

The Titan, which is believed to have imploded last week about 1,600 feet from the Titanic, tragically claimed the lives of all five crew members on board.

The dramatic footage captures the wreckage of the Titan submersible which has been successfully retrieved from the sea floor has has arrived at St. John’s harbour in Canada. The debris from the sub was unloaded in St. John’s, Canada, on Wednesday. The Coast Guard says the sub’s landing frame and a rear cover were found among the debris.

The Coast Guard has confirmed that presumed human remains were found within the wreckage. United States medical professionals will now conduct a formal analysis.

The Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) will transport the evidence to a US port for further analysis and testing. The agency is in the early stages of an investigation into the causes of the disaster.

MBI chair Capt Jason Neubauer said in a statement that there was “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”.

“I am grateful for the coordinated international and interagency support to recover and preserve this vital evidence at extreme offshore distances and depths,” Capt Neubauer said.

All five people on board the Titan died on June 18 after it imploded about 90 minutes into a dive to view the Titanic shipwreck. The passengers were the head of OceanGate, which organized the dive, 61-year-old Stockton Rush; British explorer Hamish Harding, 58; Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son, Suleman Dawood, 19; and French diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 77.

So far, the Coast Guard says, five major pieces of the sub have been found in a large debris field near the bow of the Titanic. The debris brought ashore on Wednesday appeared to include at least one titanium end cap, the sub’s porthole with its window missing, as well as a titanium ring, landing frame and the end equipment bay.

The recovery mission was led by Canadian ship Horizon Arctic, which carried a remotely operated vehicle operated by Pelagic Research Services. The company said in a statement earlier Wednesday that its team had completed off-shore operations and was returning to base.

Officials were initially sceptical about the prospect of recovering any of the bodies.

“This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the seafloor,” Coast Guard Adm John Mauger said, shortly after the loss of the vessel was confirmed.

Cpt Neubauer said at the time that investigators would take “all precautions” if they discovered human remains and that the probe would likely include a formal hearing with witness testimony.

OceanGate has been criticized for its safety practices, and former employees have raised concerns about the Titan sub, which was not subject to regulation.

In a statement last week, OceanGate said it was “an extremely sad time for our employees who are exhausted and grieving deeply over this loss”.

What happened to the Oceangate Sub

On June 18, 2023, the Titan submersible, operated by OceanGate Expeditions, experienced a catastrophic implosion while diving to the Titanic wreck in the North Atlantic Ocean. All five passengers on board were killed.

The US Coast Guard said that the debris field found at the site of the implosion was consistent with a failure of the submersible’s pressure hull. The cause of the failure is still under investigation, but possible factors include a structural defect, a malfunction of the submersible’s systems, or an external impact.

The five people who were killed in the implosion were:

• Stockton Rush, CEO and pilot of OceanGate Expeditions
• Shahzada Dawood, a Pakistani businessman
• Suleman Dawood, his 19-year-old son
• Hamish Harding, a British adventurer
• Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French Titanic expert

The loss of the Titan submersible was a major setback for OceanGate Expeditions, which had been offering commercial dives to the Titanic wreck since 2021. The company has since closed its operations.

The investigation into the cause of the implosion is ongoing. The US Coast Guard, the National Transportation Safety Board, and the manufacturer of the submersible are all involved in the investigation.