The Titan had been missing since it lost contact with its surface support ship on Sunday morning about an hour, 45 minutes into what should have been a two-hour dive to the world's most famous shipwreck.
deep-sea submersible carrying five people on a voyage to the century-old wreck of the Titanic was found in pieces from a "catastrophic implosion" that killed everyone aboard, the US Coast Guard said on Thursday, ending a multinational five-day search for the vessel.
A robotic diving vehicle deployed from a Canadian ship discovered a debris field from the submersible Titan on Thursday morning on the seabed some 488 meters from the bow of the Titanic, 4 km beneath the surface, in a remote corner of the North Atlantic, US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger told reporters.
The Titan, operated by the US-based company OceanGate Expeditions, had been missing since it lost contact with its surface support ship on Sunday morning about an hour, 45 minutes into what should have been a two-hour dive to the world's most famous shipwreck.
Five major fragments of the 6.7-meter Titan were located in the debris field left from its disintegration, including the vessel's tail cone and two sections of the pressure hull, Coast Guard officials said. No mention was made of whether human remains were sighted.
"The debris field here is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vehicle," Mauger said.
Even before the Coast Guard's press conference, OceanGate issued a statement saying there were no survivors among the five men aboard the Titan, including the company's founder and chief executive officer, Stockton Rush, who was piloting the Titan.
The four others were British billionaire and explorer Hamish Harding, 58; Pakistani-born businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son, Suleman, both British citizens; and French oceanographer and renowned Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, who had visited the wreck dozens of times.
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