Titan sub wreckage recovered from Atlantic Ocean by Coast Guard
Oct 11, 2023, 11:38 AM | Updated: 12:05 pm
The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) has recovered the rest of the debris from the OceanGate Expeditions submersible “Titan,” which imploded on a dive into the Atlantic Ocean to see the wreckage of the Titanic June 18.
All five people aboard the vessel were killed.
More on the Titan submersible: Recovering Titan with the Odysseus underwater robot was complex, dangerous, emotional
OceanGate was based in Everett, but it has ceased operations since the tragic incident. The trip was led by pilot and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush and the four passengers were veteran Titanic diver and expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British aerospace executive Hamish Harding, Pakistani business executive Shahzana Dawood and Dawood’s son, Suleman.
A statement from the Coast Guard said the remaining debris and additional evidence, including presumed human remains, were collected and sent back to the U.S.
Debris from the Titan was located about 12,500 feet underwater and roughly 1,600 feet from the Titanic on the ocean floor, the Coast Guard said.
The USCG Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) is examining the remains in hopes of understanding exactly what went wrong aboard the submersible.
“I am grateful for the coordinated international and interagency support to recover and preserve this vital evidence at extreme offshore distances and depths,” MBI Chair Captain Jason Neubauer said in a statement about the initial recovery efforts. “The evidence will provide investigators from several international jurisdictions with critical insights into the cause of this tragedy. There is still a substantial amount of work to be done to understand the factors that led to the catastrophic loss of the Titan and help ensure a similar tragedy does not occur again.”
