OceanGate, the
diving company responsible for the Titanic tour trip, says all passengers
aboard Titan, the submersible, are dead.
The company made the announcement in a statement on Thursday
evening after debris
believed to be from Titan was
found near the Titanic by rescue teams.
Also, John Mauger, a US coast guard, said the submersible
with five passengers suffered a “catastrophic implosion” killing everyone on
board.
On Sunday morning, Titan began a two-hour descent to see the wreckage of the Titanic at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean, nearly 13,000 feet below land, southeast of Newfoundland, Canada.
The eight-day journey conducted by OceanGate Expeditions is
priced at $250,000 per person.
About an hour and 45 minutes into its descent, Titan lost
contact with the Polar Prince, the mothership.
Search efforts began immediately and hours later, a Canadian
P-3 aircraft detected underwater noises in the search area but efforts to trace
the source were unsuccessful.
Three vessels, including one that has technology that can
detect and map out objects on the seafloor, had earlier arrived to join the
search for the missing submersible.
The US Coast Guard (USCG) had said the oxygen supply was
expected to run out by 1 pm UK time earlier today.
The estimate was based on the number of hours of oxygen the
craft had for the five people on board and the time it submerged (1 pm UK time
on Sunday).
However, experts said the projected supply of breathable air
had chances of an extension if the passengers had taken measures to conserve
oxygen.
As search efforts intensified, the USCG said rescue vessels
found on the sea floor “consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure
chamber” from the Titan.
The tail cone of the submersible was found on the sea floor
about 1,600 feet away from the bow of the Titanic and other debris nearby, John
Mauger, the First Coast Guard District commander, added.
The crew pod was not found.
ALL PASSENGERS FEARED DEAD
Confirming fears in a statement, OceanGate said it believes
the passengers of the Titanic-bound submersible 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 statement reads.
“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. We grieve the
loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.”
The company described the loss as a very sad time for the
entire explorer community and asked that the privacy of the affected families
“be respected during this most painful time”.
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