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All 5 on submersible are believed dead after ‘catastrophic implosion’

Above: A photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard shows Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina crewmembers aboard an HC-130 Hercules airplane aid in the search for the 21-foot submersible, Titan, approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Mass., on Wednesday. Left: An HC-130 Hercules airplane flies over the French research vessel, L’Atalante, approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Mass., Wednesday. (U.S. COAST GUARD)
Above: A photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard shows Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina crewmembers aboard an HC-130 Hercules airplane aid in the search for the 21-foot submersible, Titan, approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Mass., on Wednesday. Left: An HC-130 Hercules airplane flies over the French research vessel, L’Atalante, approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Mass., Wednesday. (U.S. COAST GUARD)
By Jenna Russell New York Times

A vast multinational search for five people who had descended to view the wreckage of the sunken RMS Titanic ended Thursday after pieces of the privately owned submersible vessel that had carried them were found on the ocean floor, evidence of a “catastrophic implosion” with no survivors, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The dramatic search effort, in a remote area of the North Atlantic 900 miles off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, had mesmerized people worldwide for days after the 22-foot watercraft, called Titan, lost contact with its parent ship less than two hours into its voyage Sunday. The grim discovery, by a remotely operated vehicle scouring the sea bottom, also trained attention on high-risk, high-cost adventure tourism, raising questions about the safety protocols followed by companies that run such expeditions.

“Our thoughts are with the families and making sure they have an understanding, as best as we can provide, of what happened,” Rear Adm. John Mauger, commander of the First Coast Guard District, said at a news conference in Boston.

Stockton Rush, 61, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, the company that owned Titan, was piloting the submersible and among those presumed dead. Others on board were Hamish Harding, 58, a British explorer; Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, a French maritime expert who had made more than 35 dives to the Titanic; Shahzada Dawood, 48, a British businessman; and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood, a university student.

The quest for the missing vessel was seen at the start as a race against time, as rescuers who hoped the Titan might still be intact hurried to reach the area where it had descended before its supply of oxygen ran out. Hopes surged overnight on Wednesday, when banging noises were detected underwater by maritime surveillance planes.

But on Thursday afternoon, four days after the vessel went missing, those hopes were extinguished by evidence discovered more than 2 miles beneath the ocean surface: the tail cone of the Titan adrift on the sea floor, one-third of a mile from the bow of the Titanic, along with the two broken ends of its pressure hull. The debris, Mauger said, was “consistent with the catastrophic loss of its pressure chamber.”

Asked about the prospect of recovering the bodies of the victims, Mauger said he did not have an answer. “This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor,” he said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.