All five passengers—British-born billionaire Hamish Harding; the British-Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-olf son, Suleman; French maritime expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet; and Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate —are presumed dead.
Titan, the submersible that set off for the Titanic wreckage on Sunday morning, suffered a "catastrophic implosion," the U.S. Coast Guard said at a news conference on Thursday.
The Coast Guard said that the tail cone of the vessel had been discovered just 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic on the ocean floor.
The five passengers aboard the Titan —British-born billionaire Hamish Harding; the British-Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-olf son, Suleman; French maritime expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet; and Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate —are presumed dead.
“On behalf of the United States Coast Guard and the entire unified command, I offer my deepest condolences to the families,” Rear Admiral John Mauger said on Thursday.
The Coast Guard suggested that recovering the bodies would be an incredibly difficult, if not impossible, endeavor.
"This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor," Mauger said.
The series of events that led to the implosion would not be known for some time, authorities said.
“I know there’s a lot of questions about how, why, when this happened,” Mauger said. “That’s going to be, I’m sure, the focus of future review. Right now, we’re focused on documenting the scene.”
Inclement weather had delayed the launch of the vessel, according to a tweet shared by Harding on Saturday, but on Sunday morning the five men were bolted into Titan, a 21-foot submersible, to begin their descent.
The Titan began its voyage at approximately 8 a.m. ADT on Sunday, and communication was lost about 100 minutes into the descent, with the vessel estimated to be approximately halfway on its journey to the ocean floor.
Rescue operations began on Monday but it was not until Thursday morning that a remotely-operated asset capable of reaching the depth of the wreckage site arrive on the scene.
The device, which the U.S. Navy requested from France, discovered the tail cone within just a few hours.
