Titan’s pilot, crew perish in ‘catastrophic’ implosion near Titanic wreckage

The missing submersible that was the focus of an intense international search effort in the North Atlantic imploded near the Titanic, taking the lives of the five men aboard, the U.S. Coast Guard said Thursday.

U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said the Titan’s tail cone was discovered on the sea floor just 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, indicating a grim outcome. Officials said during a news conference that families of the crew had been notified.

“The debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber,” the admiral told reporters.

Lost in the Titan’s implosion were British explorer Hamish Harding, Titanic researcher Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman. Also killed was OceanGate Expeditions founder Stockton Rush, who runs the excursion company that launched the vessel Sunday morning to visit the famous shipwreck.

“I offer my deepest condolences to the families,” Adm. Mauger said. “I can only imagine what this has been like for them, and I hope that this discovery provides some solace during this difficult time.”

Paul Hankins, the U.S. Navy’s director of salvage operations, said the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) from the Canadian ship Horizon Arctic found the Titan’s nose cone Thursday morning.

The ROV then found the large debris field and the front-end bell of the Titan’s pressure hull, indicating that the vessel imploded under extreme deep-sea pressure.

“This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor, and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” Adm. Mauger said. “We’ll continue to work and search the area down there, but I don’t have an answer for prospects at this time.”

The admiral clarified to the media that the search teams’ sonar buoys would have detected the implosion if it happened during the rescue effort, and it was in no way related to banging noises that authorities heard overnight Wednesday.

OceanGate released a statement shortly before the Coast Guard press conference saying all five men aboard “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 statement said.

The Titan’s discovery brought a tragic end to a massive search operation that spanned multiple days and covered an area of the North Atlantic twice the size of Connecticut.

OceanGate first notified authorities about the missing vessel Sunday evening when the Titan didn’t return as scheduled. The company told officials that the team on the surface lost contact with the vessel less than two hours after it began its descent toward the Titanic.

The U.S. Coast Guard, the Canadian Coast Guard and the Canadian Armed Forces spearheaded the search effort but didn’t have the equipment on hand to make the 2.5-mile trip to the ocean floor and look for signs of the missing Titan.

The search accelerated when Canadian and French ships carrying high-tech ROVs arrived Thursday morning, allowing officials to scour the ocean floor for clues. That was when the Titan’s debris field was discovered.

“We are grateful for the rapid mobilization of experts on the undersea search and rescue, and we thank all of the agencies and personnel for their role in the response,” Adm. Mauger said. “We’re also incredibly grateful for the full spectrum of international assistance that’s been provided.”

Concerns about the 21-foot Titan’s construction resurfaced as the search effort gained international attention.

CBS News reporter David Pogue, who reported about the vessel last year, said parts of the Titan appeared to be improvised. A video game controller was used to operate the machine.

Mr. Rush, the OceanGate founder who died aboard the vessel, revealed in past statements that he believed safety regulations could stifle innovation. He said he didn’t hire people with extensive submarine experience because most were “50-year-old White guys” who weren’t as “inspirational” to the next generation of oceanic explorers.

A former employee was involved in a legal battle with OceanGate for writing a 2018 report that said Titan needed more safety testing because passengers could be in danger in the ocean’s “extreme depths.”

OceanGate delayed planned excursions to the Titanic in 2018, 2019 and 2020 because the hull integrity failed testing. The company successfully hosted tours to the Titanic in 2021 and 2022 for prices up to $250,000.

Nicolai Roterman, a deep-sea ecologist and lecturer in marine biology at the University of Portsmouth, England, told The Associated Press that the disappearance of the Titan highlights the dangers and unknowns of deep-sea tourism.

“Even the most reliable technology can fail, and therefore accidents will happen. With the growth in deep-sea tourism, we must expect more incidents like this.”