The Titanic-bound submersible that went missing on Sunday imploded near the wreckage of the famed ocean liner, killing all five people on board, according to the U.S. Coast Guard and the company leading the expedition.
Experts had called a vessel implosion the worst possible outcome since the Titan went missing Sunday while descending to the Titanic wreck in the North Atlantic.
OceanGate Expeditions, the company that operated the Titanic-bound submersible that went missing on Sunday, said in a statement Thursday that it believed all five passengers aboard the vessel "have sadly been lost."
"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," the company wrote in a statement. "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," the statement continues. "We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew."
OceanGate did not provide details when the company announced the “loss of life” in a statement or how officials knew the crew members perished. The passengers' families were notified
The news came just hours after the U.S. Coast Guard said that it found a "debris field" near the Titanic site, a grim development as the critical 96-hour mark passed when breathable air could have run out.
The Coast Guard later said at a press briefing on Thursday that the debris indicated a "catastrophic loss" of the vessel's pressure chamber.
"This morning, an ROV [remotely operated vehicle] from the vessel Horizon Arctic discovered the tailbone of the Titan submersible approximately 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic on the sea floor," said First Coast Guard District commander Rear Adm. John Mauger, adding that what they found was "consistent with catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber."
Officials said that several major pieces of debris were discovered, including the vessel's nose cone. Mauger also said the debris discovered was "consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel."
Mauger emphasized patience as officials try to piece together what happened.
"I know there’s a lot of questions about how, why, when this happened," he said, adding: "That’s going to be ... the focus of future review. Right now, we’re focused on documenting the scene."
OceanGate has been chronicling the Titanic’s decay and the underwater ecosystem around it via yearly voyages since 2021.
The Titan was estimated to have about a four-day supply of breathable air when it launched Sunday morning in the North Atlantic — but experts have emphasized that was an imprecise approximation to begin with and could be extended if passengers have taken measures to conserve breathable air. And it’s not known if they survived since the sub’s disappearance.
Rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to the site of the disappearance. On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard said an undersea robot sent by a Canadian ship had reached the sea floor, while a French research institute said a deep-diving robot with cameras, lights and arms also joined the operation.
Authorities were hoping underwater sounds might help narrow their search, whose coverage area has been expanded to thousands of miles — twice the size of Connecticut and in waters 2 1/2 miles deep. Coast Guard officials said underwater noises were detected in the search area Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Titan was reported overdue Sunday afternoon about 435 miles south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, as it was on its way to where the iconic ocean liner sank more than a century ago. OceanGate Expeditions, which is leading the trip, has been chronicling the Titanic’s decay and the underwater ecosystem around it via yearly voyages since 2021.
By Thursday morning, hope was running out that anyone on board the vessel would be found alive.
Dr. Rob Larter, a marine geophysicist with the British Antarctic Survey, emphasized the difficulty of finding something the size of the submersible, which is about 22 feet long and 9 feet high.
“You’re talking about totally dark environments," in which an object several dozen feet away can be missed, he said. "It’s just a needle in a haystack situation unless you’ve got a pretty precise location.”
Newly uncovered allegations suggest there had been significant warnings made about vessel safety during the submersible’s development.
At least 46 people successfully traveled on OceanGate’s submersible to the Titanic wreck site in 2021 and 2022, according to letters the company filed with a U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, that oversees matters involving the Titanic shipwreck.
One of the company’s first customers characterized a dive he made to the site two years ago as a “kamikaze operation.”
“Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other,” said Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman and adventurer from Germany. “You can’t be claustrophobic.”
During the 2 1/2-hour descent and ascent, the lights were turned off to conserve energy, he said, with the only illumination coming from a fluorescent glow stick.
The dive was repeatedly delayed to fix a problem with the battery and the balancing weights. In total, the voyage took 10 1/2 hours.
The submersible had seven backup systems to return to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that drop off and an inflatable balloon.
Nick Rotker, who leads underwater research for the nonprofit research and development company MITRE, said the difficulty in searching for the Titan has underscored the U.S.'s need for more underwater robots and remotely operated underwater vehicles.
“The issue is, we don’t have a lot of capability or systems that can go to the depth this vessel was going to,” Rotker said.