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(Trends Wide) — The search for the Titan submarine that captivated the world came to an abrupt and grim end this week after fragments of the vessel were discovered on the ocean floor near the Titanic. The discovery prompted the US Coast Guard to announce that the ship likely imploded, killing all five passengers on board.
But questions remain about what exactly happened to the wrecked ship, whether it is possible to recover the bodies or the submersible, and what consequences the disaster may have for Oceangate, the company that organizes the excursion to see the Titanic off the coast of Canada.
Here’s what you need to know about the next steps for the Titan and the investigation into what happened.
What comes next in the search?
The multinational rescue effort has now turned into a recovery mission, with a remotely operated vehicle scouring the ocean floor for debris from the deadly implosion.
Only one remotely operated vehicle has reached the immense depths where the wreckage of the Titanic and the submarine debris field lie: the Odysseus 6, operated by Pelagic Research Services. The Odysseus 6 discovered remains of the Titan submersible about 1,500 feet from the Titanic wreck on Thursday, according to the US Coast Guard.
The wreckage was consistent with the disastrous loss of the 20-foot-long vessel’s pressure chamber, the Coast Guard said. The loss would have resulted in an almost instantaneous internal collapse of the vessel, which was under immense pressure in the deep ocean.
The remote-controlled vehicle found a total of “five different major pieces of debris” from the Titan, according to Paul Hankins, director of ocean salvage and engineering operations for the US Navy. Officials located the nose cone of the submersible and one end of its pressure hulls in a large debris field. The other end of the pressurized hull was found in a second, smaller debris field. Officials are working to map the debris field.
“What they would do now is go back to that site and, like cookie crumbs, try to find a trail of where it would lead,” said Tom Maddox, executive director of Underwater Forensic Investigators, who was on a Titanic expedition in 2005.
He added that the debris could still be “slightly buoyant” and could be carried further by ocean currents. “So the big project right now is going to be trying to collect those parts,” he said. “They will mark them, indicate where they were, and map out where those parts were found.”
Odysseus 6 began a second mission to the site on Friday, according to Pelagic Research Services. A company spokesperson told Trends Wide that the vehicle will continue to search for debris and map debris sites. The wreckage of the submarine is likely too heavy for Pelagic’s ROV to lift on its own, so any recovery mission will be conducted in conjunction with Deep Energy, another company helping with the mission, which will use rigged cabling. to extract any part of the destroyed boat.
The search-and-rescue boat crews that gathered in the Atlantic are beginning to dissipate. The Navy is removing a deep-sea salvage system that arrived in St. John on Wednesday, a defense official told Trends Wide on Friday. And the Polar Prince, Titan’s support ship, left the area of the Titanic wreckage on Friday.
Can the bodies of the passengers be recovered?
Five passengers were aboard the Titan when it imploded: the Pakistani businessman and his son, Shahzada and Suleman Dawood; British businessman Hamish Harding; the French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet; and Stockton Rush, the vessel’s pilot and CEO of the vessel’s operator, OceanGate Expeditions.
All five are presumed dead after the “catastrophic implosion” of the submersible, according to the US Coast Guard. But it is not clear if any remains will be recovered.
On Friday, Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger said, “I don’t have an answer for the outlook at this time” when asked about wreckage recovery. He noted the “incredibly unforgiving environment” in the deep ocean near the Titanic wreck and the intense pressure so far below.
A medical expert said the implosion would likely leave no recoverable remains.
“There would be practically nothing,” Aileen Marty, a disaster medicine expert at Florida International University, told Trends Wide’s Anderson Cooper. “It’s highly unlikely that they’ll find any human tissue there.”
Tributes to the five victims came after the Coast Guard announced they were presumed dead. The five shared “a distinct spirit of adventure,” OceanGate said in a statement.
When did the Titan implode?
It is not clear when or where exactly the submersible imploded. Mauger said Thursday it will take time to establish a specific timeline of events in the “incredibly complex” disaster.
The expedition left Newfoundland, Canada, on June 16 on the Polar Prince, Titan’s support ship. The ship took the participants to the site of the Titanic wreck, some 560 km off the coast of Newfoundland. On Sunday June 18, the five passengers began their descent towards the Titanic in the submersible, launched from the support ship, which remained on the surface.
They began the dive around 9 a.m. and were expected to resurface at 6:10 p.m., according to Miawpukek Maritime Horizon Services, co-owner of the Polar Prince. But the group last communicated with the surface at 11:47 a.m. Authorities were notified at 6:35 p.m. and rescue operations began, according to Maritime Horizon.
The Navy detected a sound that was “consistent” with an implosion on Sunday, but determined it was “not definitive.” Authorities searched for the submersible in the hope that the vessel was still intact and its occupants alive.
This Tuesday, the authorities detected “knocking noises” underwater, raising hopes that the submersible, which was equipped with 96 hours of oxygen, could still be intact and its passengers alive.
But on Thursday afternoon, authorities determined the submarine had imploded and said there did not appear to be a connection between the noises and the debris.
Who will investigate the incident?
Authorities in the United States and Canada announced investigations into the incident.
The US Coast Guard and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada announced Friday the launch of investigations, though it is unclear whether the agencies are conducting separate examinations or working together for one.
“The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is launching an investigation into the fatal incident involving the Canadian-flagged vessel Polar Prince and the privately operated submersible Titan,” the agency announced in a statement.
The agency is traveling with a team to St. John’s and Labrador to conduct the investigation.
The US Coast Guard would also be investigating the incident, according to a Twitter post from the National Transportation Safety Board.
A Coast Guard official said Thursday that authorities are discussing how an investigation would proceed since the implosion took place in international waters. Experts have suggested that any probe would consider the design of the submersible, the materials used to build it, and the role of Rush and OceanGate in the deadly disaster.
What’s next for OceanGate?
The disaster has put OceanGate, the Titan’s operator, under scrutiny. The company, which has sold its Titanic voyages for $250,000 per passenger, is no stranger to criticism. In recent years, at least two OceanGate employees have raised concerns about the submersible’s carbon-fiber hull. One employee, OceanGate’s former director of marine operations David Lochridge, claimed in a court filing that he was wrongfully fired in 2018 for raising concerns about Titan safety and testing. The case was settled out of court.
And William Kohnen, chairman of the Society for Marine Technology’s manned underwater vehicle committee, told Trends Wide on Friday that he had raised his own concerns with CEO Rush, saying the vessel’s unique carbon-fiber hull warranted a ” extra special attention. He said a community of submersible experts had sent Rush a letter suggesting he might be moving too fast and ignoring safety regulations.
It is not clear if OceanGate will continue its operations after the disaster. In a statement about the deaths, the company said: “This is an extremely sad time for our dedicated employees who are exhausted and deeply grieved by this loss.”
OceanGate has faced a series of mechanical problems and adverse weather conditions that have forced voyages to be canceled or delayed in recent years, according to court records.
In a 2019 blog post, the company defended its choice not to have its vessel “classified” or certified by any safety organization. The blog said that most shipping operations “require chartered vessels to be ‘classified’ by an independent group such as the US Bureau of Shipping (ABS), DNV/GL, Lloyd’s Register, or one of many others.”
But the Titan isn’t rated by any independent group, according to the blog post, in part because ranking innovative designs often requires a multi-year approval process, which interferes with rapid innovation. Furthermore, “classification is not sufficient to ensure safety” on its own, the company’s blog post said.
In addition, the vessel operated in international waters, allowing it to circumvent national regulations.
Rush, the company’s founder and chief executive officer and one of the passengers who died in the implosion, previously made comments about breaking the rules in pursuit of innovation.
“At some point, security is pure waste,” Rush told journalist David Pogue in an interview last year. “I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed. Don’t get in your car. Do not do anything”.
Trends Wide’s Jessie Yeung, Celina Tebor and Paul P. Murphy contributed to this report.
