Human remains and debris from the tourist submarine that was heading towards the wreckage of the Titanic were discovered in the North Atlantic waters on Wednesday, June 28.
This comes more than a week after the search for the submarine with five passengers was launched.
During a news conference on Thursday, the US Coast Guard confirmed that all five passengers on board were dead. A remotely operated vehicle discovered the tail cone and additional wreckage of the missing submersible approximately 1,600 feet away from the front of the Titanic. The Titanic lies at a depth of around 13,000 feet in the North Atlantic Ocean.
“The debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger, the First Coast Guard District commander, told reporters.
"United States medical professionals will conduct a formal analysis of presumed human remains that have been carefully recovered."US Coast Guard during a press conference
The tourist submarine, which was named 'The Titan', operated by OceanGate Expeditions, lost contact with its home ship on June 18 off Newfoundland, Canada.
The passengers presumably died instantly when the submarine imploded under the crushing pressure of the North Atlantic at a depth of more than two miles.
Among those on board were British explorer Hamish Harding, French submarine expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani-British tycoon Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, and Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate Expeditions.
The US Coast Guard also said that the recovered debris will be taken aboard a US Coast Guard cutter to a US port for further analysis.
The US Coast Guard has launched its highest level of probe, called a Marine Board of Investigation, into this tragic incident.
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