Titan OceanGate/ Twitter
According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the search for the missing Titanic bound ship, best known as the Titan submersible, has ended, with five crew members, presumed to have run out of breathing air by 7:08 a.m. on June 22, killed in the process.
The Titan was reported missing some 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, on Father’s Day morning.
OceanGate Expeditions, which has been leading yearly excursions to document the Titanic’s degradation and the underwater ecology around it since 2021, reported to officials on Monday, Juneteeth, that the submersible had a 96-hour supply of “emergency” oxygen, according to Guillermo Söhnlein, OceanGate’s co-founder.
According to a Coast Guard officer, the Titan’s oxygen reserve ran out Thursday (June 22) morning.
Five persons on board – British businessman Hamish Harding, Titanic specialist Paul-Henry Nargeolet, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, and two members of a Pakistani business family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman – died in a “catastrophic implosion,” according to Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger.
A remotely controlled vehicle discovered the tail cone and other wreckage from the lost submersible approximately 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, which is around 13,000 feet deep in the North Atlantic Ocean.
“This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” said Mauger, the First Coast Guard District commander, NBC reported.
Despite taking place almost a century after the Titanic’s catastrophic sinking, which claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people, the current trip to the debris illustrates the ship’s lasting attraction.
Blue Origin’s space flights and guided Mount Everest excursions are part of a growing trend in adventure tourism.
Despite its weight of 23,000 pounds, OceanGate’s safety record has been questioned by personnel and industry authorities due to the vessel’s usage of low-tech components such as a video game controller and an experimental carbon fiber and titanium composite.