The worries about the people on board the “Titan” come to a sad end. After a feverish search, debris is found near the wreck of the Titanic. There is no more hope for the crew.
After days of feverish searches, the US Coast Guard assumes the death of the five occupants of the submersible that has now been discovered in the Atlantic. The debris found near the “Titanic” wreck belonged to the missing “Titan,” said the head of the US Coast Guard in the Northeast of the United States, John Mauger, yesterday (local time) in Boston. This means there is no longer any chance of survival for the missing. He expressed his condolences to the family.
A remote-controlled underwater vehicle found the submersible’s stern cone on the seabed about 500 meters from the bow of the “Titanic” yesterday morning, the Coast Guard said. A total of five large pieces of debris were discovered. They indicated a collapse of the hyperbaric chamber.
Coast Guard will roll back search
At the time of the implosion, the Coast Guard could not provide any information. Sonar buoys had not noticed a “catastrophic event” in the past 72 hours. “I know there are a lot of questions about this – how, why and exactly when did this happen,” Mauger said. Meanwhile, US media reported that a US Navy acoustic underwater detection system had probably already registered the implosion on Sunday.
The Coast Guard has announced that it is now scaling back its search. “We will begin to withdraw personnel and ships from the scene of the accident over the next 24 hours,” Mauger said. However, operations on the seabed would continue until further notice. At the moment the focus is on documenting the place. The data would be analyzed.
When asked if the bodies of the crew could be found, there was still no answer. The Coast Guard said it was an “incredibly unforgiving environment” around the Titanic wreck.
Who were the inmates?
On board the “Titan” were the Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet (77), the British adventurer Hamish Harding (58), the British-Pakistani management consultant Shahzada Dawood (48) and his 19-year-old son Suleman and the head of the operating company Oceangate, Stockton Rush (61), who steered the boat.
Nargeolet, also known as “Monsieur Titanic”, was considered one of the leading experts on the wreck of the luxury liner. “His second home was the sea, he felt so comfortable there,” his stepson John Paschall told CBS News. “I think it means a lot that he spent his final moments near a place that meant so much to him.”
Harding’s family, who holds multiple Guinness World Records and has traveled to space, said: “What he has achieved in his life has been truly remarkable and if we can take any small consolation from this tragedy it is that we lost him in what he loved.”
Days of anxiety
The submersible has been missing since Sunday morning (local time). The “Titan” was on its way to the wreck of the “Titanic” that sank in 1912 at a depth of around 3800 meters. About an hour and 45 minutes after the start of the dive, contact with the mothership was lost.
In the operational area around 700 kilometers south of the Canadian island of Newfoundland, teams from the USA and Canada, with the help of other countries, had started a large-scale search both on the water surface and in the depths of the ocean. Ships, airplanes, diving robots and other special equipment were used.
In the meantime, underwater noise had fueled hopes that the occupants of the “Titan” would survive. The US Coast Guard has now announced that there was probably no connection between the sounds heard and the location of the debris.
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly expressed his condolences to the families of the victims on behalf of the government. She stands by the affected families, he wrote on Twitter.
The “Titan” operating company Oceangate also condoled the families. The five men on board were “true explorers,” with “a special spirit of adventure and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans.” We mourn and our hearts are with the relatives, it said. It is also an “extremely sad time” for the employees.
$250,000 for a few hours
Oceangate offers wealthy customers an adventurous trip – the cost for the eight-day expedition is 250,000 US dollars (229,000 euros) per person. The dive trip to the “Titanic” itself usually only takes a few hours.
The Titanic sank in April 1912 on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York in the North Atlantic. More than 1,500 of the 2,200 people on board died. The remains of the famous luxury liner, broken into two large pieces, were discovered in 1985.
In the face of reports of poor security for the missing submersible, experts expect consequences. “There will certainly be an investigation after this disaster, and much stricter rules and regulations will be put in place,” David Scott-Beddard, head of Titanic exhibit company White Star Memories, told CNN.