After the rubble was found, the relatives of the “Titan” inmates expressed deep sadness and thanked the rescue workers. According to experts, the passengers didn’t notice anything about the accident.
The death of all five occupants of the submersible “Titan” is considered certain after the discovery of debris near the wreck of the “Titanic”. Two families of the deceased have since spoken out.
“It is with deep sadness that we announce the deaths of Shahzada and Suleman Dawood,” the Pakistan Dawood Foundation said on Friday. “We offer our deepest condolences to the families of the other passengers on the ‘Titan’ submersible,” read the statement, signed by Shahzada’s parents, Hussain and Kulsum Dawood.
The Dawoods also thanked everyone involved in the rescue operations: “Your tireless efforts were a source of strength for us during this time.”
Mourning also in Great Britain
In addition to 48-year-old Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman, the head of the operating company OceanGate Expeditions, Stockton Rush, the French “Titanic” expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet and the British entrepreneur and adventurer Hamish Harding were on board the submersible .
Harding’s family and his company Action Aviation said they joined in their grief with the other families “who also lost loved ones on the ‘Titan’ submersible.” Harding, 58, was a “passionate explorer who lived his life for his family, his company and the next adventure”.
According to the US Coast Guard and the organizers of the expedition, the “Titan” was destroyed in a “catastrophic implosion” during a dive trip to the wreck of the “Titanic”, which sank in 1912 at a depth of around 3800 meters.
After a day-long search and rescue operation with several special ships with sonars and diving robots, the coast guard announced the discovery of a “debris field” on Thursday – almost 500 meters from the bow of the “Titanic”.
The map shows the location of the Titanic wreck.
Dead in “milliseconds”.
According to marine researcher David Mearns, the find of debris indicates that the submarine will break up quickly. The only consolation is that the men’s deaths were “immediate, literally in milliseconds,” Mearns, who was a friend of two of the inmates, told Sky News.
Former naval officer Aileen Marty is also assuming a quick death. In an interview with broadcaster CNN, the professor of disaster medicine said the pressure on the “Titan” was so great in such a case that the human brain could not even grasp the implosion. The occupants of the “Titan” died in a way they didn’t even know they were going to die.
implosion
In an implosion, an object suddenly collapses if the external pressure is greater than the internal pressure. It is in the inverse proportion of forces to an explosion. Even the smallest structural defect can trigger such a catastrophe at great depth.
Who were the inmates?
Shahzada Dawood was from Pakistan but lived in the UK with his wife Christine, son Suleman and daughter Alina. The family is very prominent in their home country: Shahzada’s father Hussain Dawood is one of the richest men in Pakistan and head of the Pakistani conglomerate Engro, which produces fertilizers and chemicals, among other things, but also invests in the energy sector.
Father of two, Hamish Harding made his living selling private jets and made it into the Guinness Book of World Records with three entries. In July 2019, he was part of a team that completed the fastest circumnavigation of the world in an airplane over both poles in 46 hours, 40 minutes and 22 seconds.
In March 2021, he and a researcher dived into the depths of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the Pacific known to date. This mission was the longest and furthest at such a depth. Last year he flew into space as a tourist.
The explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet was also known as “Monsieur Titanic”. The Frenchman was considered one of the leading experts on the wreck of the luxury liner “Titanic”. The 77-year-old was director of underwater research at a company that owns the rights to the wreck of the Titanic. A former commander of the French Navy, he was both a deep diver and minesweeper. After retiring from the Navy, he led the first salvage expedition to the Titanic in 1987.
The fifth missing person was the boss of the operating company Oceangate, Stockton Rush. The 61-year-old steered the submarine. According to OceanGate, the company’s CEO was the youngest pilot in the world when he qualified to captain a DC-8 at the United Airlines Jet Training Institute in 1981 at the age of 19.
US Navy may have registered implosion
The US Navy recorded the suspected mini-submarine implosion on Sunday using underwater noise monitoring equipment, according to a report. The noise was recorded shortly after contact with the Titan was lost, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a US Navy representative who wished to remain anonymous.
The recording was made by a secret acoustic surveillance system designed to detect submarines. The US Navy analyzed acoustic data “and found an anomaly that could be consistent with an implosion or explosion in the zone where the Titan mini-submarine was located when communication was lost,” he said Navy representative to the Wall Street Journal.
The Navy immediately forwarded this information to those responsible for the search and rescue operation, the broadcaster CNN learned. This allowed the search area to be narrowed down.
Search for debris continues
The search for the remaining wreckage will continue on the seabed, but the Coast Guard will also reduce its use, said the head of the US Coast Guard in the Northeast of the United States, John Mauger. “We will begin to withdraw personnel and ships from the scene of the accident over the next 24 hours.”
It is still unclear when the “Titan” imploded – it is still “too early” to say for sure, said Mauger. However, sonar buoys had not registered a “catastrophic event” in the past 72 hours. This could be an indication that the boat could have been destroyed shortly after the loss of contact.
According to the coast guard, the knocking sounds that have been registered several times in the past few days were probably not related to the boat.