June 23, 2023 - Missing Titanic sub crew killed after ‘catastrophic implosion’ | CNN (2024)

The US Coast Guard will lead the investigation into the Titan submersible incident, the National Transportation Safety Boardtweeted Friday evening.

CNNreportedearlier Friday that the Transportation Safety Board of Canada is launching an investigation into the implosion of the Titan.

CNN has reached out to that agency to see how and if they will be working with officials in the United States on this investigation.

Sean and Jay Bloom appear on CNN on Friday, June 23.

A father and son gave up their seats on the Titan submersible just weeks before the fatal implosion after they had safety concerns about the craft.

Jay Bloom and his son Sean said they were both worried about the submersible and its ability to travel deep into the ocean ahead of the planned voyage. Their seats ultimately went to the father and son who were onboard when the vessel imploded, Shahzada and Suleman Dawood.

Sean said he told his father he didn’t think the vessel would successfully make it that deep into the ocean.

Jay shared a text message exchange between him and Rush — the CEO of the vessel’s operator, OceanGate Expeditions — where Rush offered the spots on the vessel for the May expedition.

Rush then flew out to Las Vegas in March to try and get Jay to buy the tickets. Jay noted that Rush flew in on a two-seater experimental plane he built.

Both Jay and Sean said Rush brushed off questions and concerns they had with the submersible.

The father and son duo said they will not try to do something like this experience ever again after they watched the news.

“All I could see when I saw that father and son was myself and my son.That could’ve been us,” Jay said.

The Navy system that picked up a sound resembling an implosion on Sunday is part of an array of underwater listening devices that the US has had in place for decades. Primarily designed to track the movement of enemy submarines, the system has also helped in the searches and investigative efforts of incidents at sea, some very similar to the implosion suffered by the Titan submersible.

Initially called the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) when it was first created in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the array of sensors detects different sounds and acoustic signatures, which can travel great distances underwater. The system was renamed the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS) when the Navy added mobile and deployable sensors to its collection capabilities.

Because sound travels so well underwater, the sensors can be used to triangulate the position of an enemy submarine or an underwater noise picked up by the array.

Though the system itself is not classified, according to a Navy official, its operation and collection capabilities are secret.

In 1968, the Navy used the system to pinpoint the location of a missing Soviet submarine, K-129, in the North Pacific. The US noticed increased Soviet naval activity and concluded they may be searching for a submarine. In reviewing the data collected by the system, the US picked up on the acoustic signature of an implosion and were able to pinpoint the location of the noise, far away from the Soviet search efforts.

In the mid-1970s, the US would attempt to raise the ballistic missile submarine from the ocean floor using a cover story that involved eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes and a project to harvest minerals off the sea floor.

The mission was partially successful, and it began with the detection of the implosion by the same type of array that picked up on the implosion of the Titan submersible.

The listening array also helped in the search for two missing US nuclear submarines in the 1960s, the USS Thresher and USS Scorpion.

The Navy is removing a deep ocean salvage system from St. John’s, Newfoundland, according to a defense official familiar with the matter. The move comes as fewer ships and assets are needed in the ongoing efforts around the Titan submersible search.

The removal of the system means the Navy will no longer have vessels or equipment as part of the recovery effort, the official said, though Navy personnel are still assisting. The Navy sent subject matter experts in conjunction with the salvage system.

The Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System (FADOSS) was brought into the search effort to assist with the recovery or salvage of the vessel once it was located. The system arrived in St. John’s Wednesday, but it remained there as other vessels with remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) closed in on the search site and ultimately found the debris of the missing submersible.

Because of the smaller size of the debris from the submersible, it’s possible an ROV could recover pieces of the vessel if needed for further evaluation, the official said. The FADOSS system is designed to lift far larger and heavier objects out of the water.

The salvage system is capable of lifting up to 60,000 pounds off the bottom of the ocean floor to a depth of 20,000 feet. It is primarily used to recover aircraft from the ocean or other heavy objects. It was most recently used last summer to pull an F/A-18 fighter jet from the Mediterranean Sea, according to the Navy.

A company that certifies marine vessels says it “declined a request” from OceanGate Expeditions to certify Titan, the submersible that imploded near the site of the Titanic wreckage, killing all five people on board.

The interaction came months after OceanGate had defended a decision not to certify Titan in a blog post.

Lloyd’s Register, a marine certification company, did not say why it declined to work with OceanGate on what is typically a lengthy, expensive process to certify a vessel.

The two companies came together in 2019 for Titan’s first depth dive. At the time, OceanGate put out apress releasesaying the dive “was validated by a representative from Lloyd’s Register.” While it invoked the name of the certification agency, OceanGate did not say the submersible had been certified, just that the dive itself had been verified.

OceanGate was touting having taken Titan to a depth of 3,760 meters (about 12,300 feet) near the Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, according to the release. Titan, it said, wasthe only vehicle that could both hold five people and dive to that depth.

In a statement to CNN, Lloyd’s Registerdid notdisputeany of the details of the divebut saidthat that initial meeting did not lead to an agreement to go into the certification process.

In 2018, industry expertsurgedOceanGate to certify Titan to ensure its safety, saying failure to do so could be catastrophic.Will Kohnen, who wrote a letter and spoke with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush about his concerns, told CNN, “There are 10 submarines in the world that can go 12,000 feet and deeper. All of them are certified except the OceanGate submersible.”

The2019dive came two months after OceanGate put up ablog postdefending its decision not to certify Titan, arguing it could take years, stifle innovation and “by itself, classing is not sufficient to ensure safety.” The timing shows that the company may have still been considering certification even after defending its decision not to certify.

CNN has reached out to OceanGate for comment.

A trailer and other equipment are seen at OceanGate's headquarters in Everett, Washington, on June 22.

A CNN review of OceanGate’s marketing material, public statements made by CEO Stockton Rush and court records show that even as the company touted a commitment to safety measures, it rejected industry standards that would have imposed greater scrutiny on its operations and vessels.

The company also boasted of collaborations with reputable institutions that have since denied partnering with OceanGate on the submersible in question.

Some industry experts said OceanGate’s operations were known to be risky.

OceanGate declined to comment on its safety record.

To the public, OceanGate’s marketing sought to appeal to potential customers’ sense of adventure while also assuring them the adventure was safe. They featured scientists or explorers praising the company’s innovations. One flashy promotional video, published last year, opens with a voiceover boasting an unforgettable — but safe — voyage: “OceanGate Expeditions offers you the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be a specially trained crew member safely diving to the Titanic wreckage site.”

That video also features explorer Paul Henri-Nargeolet, who was among those who died this week, praising the design of the doomed vessel.

“The sub, for me, it’s very well done because it’s simple,” Nargeolet said. “Usually they have a lot of equipment and a lot of switches, and on this one you don’t have because you work with a screen and a keyboard and it’s very easy to do that.”

That simplicity was highlighted late last year when Rush invited CBS News reporterDavid Pogueon a voyage, in which Rush admitted that he bought parts for his craft off-the-shelf at stores such as Camping World.

In online videos, Rush explained the Titan’s unconventional design, which he said included carbon fiber to increase the vessel’s buoyancy. It “hasn’t been used in a crewed submersible ever before,” he said in a video last year.

The Titan also included an “unparalleled safety feature” that monitored the integrity of the vessel’s hull during each dive, according to OceanGate’s website. A 2021press releasehighlighted its “multiple, redundant safety systems.”

But in a separate interview with Pogue, Stockton seemeddismissive of safety.

Read more here.

Paul-Henri Nargeolet stands at a Titanic exhibition in Paris in May 2013.

The operator of France’s oceanographic fleet honored Paul-Henri Nargeolet, one of five passengers killed in the catastrophic submersible implosion, commending him as an accomplished leader and Titanic expert.

Nargeolet spent 10 years at Genavir, carrying out deep-sea sub explorations. After joining in 1986, he carried out his first dive of the Titanic wreck one year later, according to the statement.

Over the course of his time there, Nargeolet completed 39 dives on board the Nautilesubmersible, 20 of which were on the Titanic, according to the statement.

Nargeolet left the operator in 1996 to “dedicate himself entirely to the exploration of the Titanic and the recuperation of hundreds of thousands of objects,” carrying out two further dives in 1996 and 1998, according to the statement.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is launching an investigation into the implosion of the Titan submersible, the agency announced Friday.

The agency is sending a team to St. John’s in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador to conduct the investigation.

About the implosion: Five people on board the Titanic-bound vessel were killed when it suffered a“catastrophic implosion.”

An underwater implosion refers to the sudden inward collapse of the vessel, which would have been under immense pressure at the depths it was diving toward.

It’s unclear where or how deep the Titan was when the implosion occurred, but the Titanic wreck sits nearly 13,000 feet (or almost 4,000 meters) below sea level. The submersible was about 1 hour and 45 minutes into the roughly two-hour descent when it lost contact.

Pelagic's remotely operated vehicle Odysseus 6 is lifted out of the ocean after searching for debris from the Titan submersible on June 22.

A spokesperson for Pelagic Research Services told CNN that a newmission to the submersibledebris site near the wreckage of the Titanic is underway.

The spokesperson, Jeff Mahoney, said that this mission of theOdysseus 6remotely operated vehicleisto continue searching and mapping out the debris sites.

The ROV’s mission began late Friday morning and will take about an hour to get down to the location of the debris field.

This is the second mission of the Odysseus 6 ROV, the first having discovered the debris field that contained remnants of the Titansubmersible.

Any attempts to recover anything from the debris field will be a larger operation, Mahoney said, because the Titan sub debris will likely be too heavy for Pelagic’s ROV to lift by itself.Mahoney said any recovery mission will be made in tandem with Deep Energy, another company assisting with the mission, which will use rigged cabling to pull up any debris.

Mahoney said they expect to be on site conducting ROV missions for another week.

Flowers for the crew of the Titan are seen at the port of St John's in Newfoundland, Canada, on Friday.

What was supposed to be a 10-hour journey to the Titanic shipwreck ended in tragedy, with all five passengers on the missing submersible killed in a catastrophic implosion. Their deaths were confirmed Thursday, concluding a week-long search for survivors that was closely watched around the world.

An underwater implosion refers to the sudden inward collapse of the vessel, which would have been under immense pressure at the depths it was diving toward.

It’s unclear where or how deep the Titan was when the implosion occurred, but the Titanic wreck sits nearly 13,000 feet (or almost 4,000 meters) below sea level. The submersible was about 1 hour and 45 minutes into the roughly two-hour descent when it lost contact.

At the depth the Titanic rests, there is around 5,600 pounds per square inch of pressure – several hundred times the pressure we experience on the surface, according to Rick Murcar, the international training director at the National Association of Cave Diving.

A catastrophic implosion is “incredibly quick,” taking place within just a fraction of a millisecond, said Aileen Maria Marty, a former Naval officer and professor at Florida International University.

Experts say it is unlikely any bodies will be recovered.

An undated photo of the OceanGate Titan submersible.

The design of the Titan submersible “demanded special extra attention,” according to William Kohnen, chair of the Marine Technology Society’s manned underwater vehicles committee, adding that he had conversations with the late OceanGate CEO to express his concerns about the company’s approach to submersibles.

Kohnen, who is also president of the Hydrospace Group, said he made requests to OceanGate to make its website more transparent to spell out that the Titan design was “experimental” and “not certified.” They ultimately changed it, he said.

Speaking to Anderson Cooper on “CNN This Morning,” Kohnen said the carbon fiber hull “demanded special extra attention just because that had never been done before.” It meant an “additional effort and probably quite a bit of extra testing to get passed through that certification process,” he said.

The small community of submersible experts had numerous conversations with the late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, Kohnen said, and they issued a letter essentially saying, “you are going really, really fast over here and you’re ignoring some of the knowledge base that we have for these things.”

Kohnen said Rush’s response amounted to “the existing regulations are stifling innovation and it’s too slow, and we have a better method.”

He called for full disclosure in the industry. “Just tell the public this is not certified, this is experimental, and then it leaves some of the decisions to people to make,” he added.

CNN’s Nic Anderson contributed to this post.

Dr. Michael Guillen, a scientist, journalist and author who was the first TV correspondent to report from the Titanic, said he thinks ocean tourism needs to be paused following the deaths of the five people aboard the Titan submersible.

Guillen survived a close call in 2000, when he says the submersible he was in got caught in an underwater current, causing a collision with the propeller of the Titanic wreck.

He said there are two main reasons for taking a pause, based on his experience.

“Second of all, what I took awayfrom my trip down there was thatthis isn’t just a shipwreck.I went down there thinking I’mjust going to report on a shipwreck, but what hit me — especiallyin that moment of prayer, and itcame home to me — that people losttheir lives.Men, women and children.More than 1,000 of them.This is their final restingplace. This is sacred ground,” he said.

“I think weshould pause, figure out whathappened so we can fix it in thefuture, but also think of thedanger and think of thesacredness of this site.It’s not a joyride.It’s not a Disneylanddestination,” he added.

The Titan submersible that went missing Sunday during a trip to view the wreckage of the Titanic suffered a “catastrophic implosion” and killed five people on board, officials said Thursday.

The submersible had originally embarked on a journey into the depths of the sea off Canada’s coast.

Titan’s ultimate destination wasthe Titanic’s wreckage, whichsits at the bottom of the ocean nearly 13,000 feet below the surface southeast of Newfoundland.

As authorities now seek to better understand what went wrong with the sub, they’re dealing with an “incredibly complex operating environment on the sea floor, over two miles beneath the surface,” aUS Coast Guard official saidThursday.

Here’s a look at a map of the area:

Paul-Henri Nargeolet poses next to a miniature version of the Titanic in Paris in 2013.

Explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who was aboard the Titanic-bound submarine that imploded, will be remembered for his passion for his family and underwater exploration, his stepson John Paschall told CNN.

Paschall said Nargeolet was “someone that you instantly connected with and loved, and shared so many great stories with,” and his fascination with the underwater expedition of the Titanic intrigued him to share the stories of the past with people.

Paschall said Nargeolet was a “big loveable guy who [was] a prankster, but he cared so much about his family and everything he did in life.”

Paschall said he was fortunate to have Nargeolet as a stepfather and even celebrated special moments together: Nargeolet and his mother, who died of cancer, once drove 16 hours overnight from Chicago to New York to watch him graduate.

He last saw Nargeolet in May and planned to meet with his stepfather in early July to connect. He said he didn’t think twice when Nargeolet set out on one of many expeditions, where he would later lose his life.

The search for more debris from the Titan submersible continues Friday as officials try to piece together a timeline of the vessel’s final moments.

On Thursday, authorities said the five passengers on the sub that was diving 13,000 feet to view the wreckage of the Titanic on the ocean floor died ina “catastrophic implosion,” bookending an extraordinary five-day international search operation.

Here’s what we know:

The Polar Prince, a vessel used to transport the Titan submersible to the site of the Titanic wreckage, is departing the area today.

It will return to St. John’s, Canada, either late Friday or early Saturday morning, a source with Horizon Maritime, the company that owns the ship, told CNN.

Marine traffic-tracking sites show a line of several other ships also headed back to St. John’s this morning.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks at a conference in London on June 21.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s thoughts are “very much” with the loved ones ofthose that perished on theTitan submersible, his spokesperson said Friday, according to the UK Press Association.

UK Foreign Secretary JamesCleverlyon Thursdayexpressed his condolences and said the UK government is closely supporting the families of the British citizens who died on board the Titan submersible.

Three British citizens were onboard: Hamish Harding,Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman.

OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein cautioned rushing to judgment without the data following the catastrophic loss of the submersible.

Sohnlein left the company in 2013 and was not involved with the voyage or the development of the Titan submersible. He still maintains minority ownership of OceanGate.

He added, “safety was the number one priority” for himself and CEO Stockton Rush who perished along with four others on board.

“He was a very strong risk manager, and I believe that he believed that every innovation that he created — whether technologically or within the dive operations — was to both expand the capability of humanity exploring the oceans while also improving the safety of those doing it,” he said.

Paul-Henri Nargeolet, director of a deep ocean research project dedicated to the Titanic, poses inside the new exhibition dedicated to the sunken ship, at 'Paris Expo', on May 31, 2013, in Paris, France.

A friend of Paul Henri Nargeolet, who was aboard the Titan submersible that imploded over the weekend, described the explorer as an “incredibly talented iconic legendary – the greatest deep diver that the world has ever known.”

Speaking to Anderson Cooper on CNN This Morning on Friday, Alfred Hagen recalled a previous trip on which he descended with Nargeolet in the Titan sub to the Titanic wreckage.

When descending, Hagen said the vessel is essentially in a “free fall” and when it reached the bottom, crewmembers had to “find the Titanic,” the bow and stern of which he describes are a “considerable distance apart.”

It was a “world of perpetual midnight, and then suddenly if you’re lucky you see the ship appear out of the darkness,” he added.

“I don’t regret going, I do regret that I won’t be able to go again with PH.”

When they reached the bottom, he said, “PH would take over flying.”

“As far as the safety concerns, of course you were concerned, we all understood the risk we were taking.”

“There was a moment when the current kind of pushed us in closer than we intended and we got stuck and PH was able to maneuver us out and of course at that moment the thought flashes through your mind of – if we don’t get loose this could be it, but I was – that’s a risk that you accept,” Hagen said.

“And I’m tired of people coming in now toinsult the high achievers and disparage wealthy people that want to break trail for the rest of humanity.

“These are risk takers, risk takers have always driven humanity forward and taking risk is what distinguishes us as men, and it’s the divine spark.”

As for Nargeolet, Hagen fondly recalled him being “equally at ease on the deck of a ship in a hurricane or sitting conversing in a Parisian café.”

Hagen said the loss of his friend had “broken myheart that a man of his dynamism will no longer shine his light in this world.”

Authorities have said the Titanic-touring submersible that went missing on Sunday suffered a “catastrophic implosion,” killing all five people on board while descending to explore the wreckage of the famous ship.

That submersible, known as “Titan,” began the two and a half hour trip early Sunday andlost contact with its mother ship, the Polar Prince, an hour and 45 minutes into the journey.

The tail cone and other debris from the missing submersible were found by a remotely operated vehicle about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, which rests about 13,000 feet deep in the North Atlantic Ocean, the US Coast Guard announced on Thursday.

The submersible’soperator, OceanGate Expeditions, issued a statement Thursday grieving the five men on board, including OceanGate CEO and founderStockton Rush, British businessmanHamish Harding, French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood.

The Titan was roughly the size of a minivan with only enough room for five adults. On a typical voyagethousands of feet towards the bottom of the North Atlantic ocean, life inside a submersible can go from hot to cold.

Unlike a submarine, a submersible has limited power reserves and needs a support ship on the surface to launch and recover it. Titan typically spent about 10 to 11 hours during each trip to the Titanic wreck, while submarines can stay underwater for months.

Read the full story:

US Rear Adm. John Mauger,the First Coast Guard District commander, speaks at a press conference at the US Coast Guard Base Bostonin Boston, Massachusetts, on June 22.

Investigators are continuing to scour the ocean floor for any insight into how a “catastrophic implosion”killed all five passengersof a Titanic-bound submersible that suddenly lost communication with its mother ship over the weekend, officials said.

A dayslong international search effort concluded Thursday after debris from the submersible – known as the Titan – was found about 1,600 feet from the historic wreckage of the Titanic. Military experts found the debris was consistent with the disastrous loss of the vessel’s pressure chamber, US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger announced.

Thepassengers killedwere a Pakistan-born British businessman and his son, Shahzada and Suleman Dawood; British businessman Hamish Harding; French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet; and Stockton Rush, the CEO of the vessel’s operator, OceanGate Expeditions.

As officials work to determine the timeline and circ*mstances of the accident, remotely operated vehicles will be used to map out the vessel’s debris field, which is more than 2 miles deep in the North Atlantic Ocean, Mauger said.

Officials have yet to conclusively determine whether the devastating implosion occurred at the moment when the submersible stopped communicating about 1 hour and 45 minutes into its dive, Mauger said.

A senior Navy official, however, told CNN that a Navy review of acoustics data detected an “anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion” on Sunday in the general area where the Titan was diving when it went silent.

Read the full story:

The University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, Scotland, said it is “profoundly saddened” by the death of 19-year-old student Suleman Dawood, who was one of five passengers killed in the implosion of the Titanic submersible over the weekend.

Suleman was a Strathclyde Business School student and had just completed his first year. His father, British billionaire Shahzada Dawood, was also on board.

“The staff and students of Strathclyde have been shocked and profoundly saddened by the death of Suleman Dawood and his father in this tragic incident,” a spokesperson for the University of Strathclyde said Friday.

“The entire University community offers our deepest condolences to the Dawood family and all of those affected by this terrible accident.”

Shahzada Dawood, right, is seen with his son Suleman Dawood, in an undated photo.

The British Asian Trust said Friday it is “deeply saddened” by the death of Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, who were on board a Titanic-bound submersible that imploded over the weekend.

The Pakistan-born British businessman and his son were two of five passengers killed in the disastrous implosion. The submersible’s loss of communication with its mother ship triggered an international search effort that concluded Thursday after debris from the vessel was found in the North Atlantic Ocean.

“The British Asian Trust is deeply saddened by the tragic news that our supporter Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman have passed away. They were on board the missing submarine that set off to see the wreck of the Titanic,” the trust tweeted on Friday.

“Shahzada was a wonderful and generous man who supported our work in South Asia for many years, while his son was just emerging into adulthood with a promising future ahead.

“Our hearts and prayers are with family and friends at this unimaginable time of grief and loss. Our deepest condolences to them and everyone else who lost loved ones in this terrible incident.”

The Dawood Foundation posted a photo ofShahzada and Suleman on Friday with the statement: “With heavy hearts and great sadness, we grieve the loss of our Trustee, Shahzada Dawood, and his beloved son Suleman Dawood.Our thoughts and prayers are with the Dawood family at this tragic time.”

The search for more debris from the Titan submersible continues into Friday as officials try to piece together a timeline of the vessel’s final moments.

On Thursday, authorities said the five passengers on the sub that was diving 13,000 feet to view the wreckage of the Titanic on the ocean floor died ina “catastrophic implosion,” bookending an extraordinary five-day international search operation.

Here’s what we know:

The RMS Titanic leaves Belfast in April of 1912.

After RMS Titanic sank on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic in 1912, governments on both sides of the ocean took a hard look at whether more could have been done to protect the some 2,200 people aboard, including the more than 1,500 who died.

The result was the Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). Passed in 1914, its framework stands to this day, with many of its rules directly evolving from the Titanic tragedy.

With the implosion of the submersible Titan as it dived down to the wreck of the Titanic this week, killing all five people aboard, experts say there may be a new push for rules governing new high end, big dollar tourism of the kind being practiced by OceanGate Expeditions, the company that ran the Titan.

The unsinkable ship: When the Titanic set sail from Southampton, it was the world’s largest ocean liner, built with state-of-the-art maritime technology that many thought made it unsinkable.

Such was the belief in the Titanic that safety regulations of the day were not updated to keep pace with the technology.

Lessons from Titan: Maritime experts and historians have noted the Titan submersible operated outside of the regulations prompted by the Titanic disaster, and did not need to conform to safety regulations, since it operated in international waters.

While innovators and explorers may push the limits — or even break the rules — for scientific advancement, experts say there should be a higher safety threshold for paying passengers, like three of the dead aboard Titan, and that a rethink of the international rules governing such expeditions may be in order, just as they were re-examined after the Titanic sank.

Read more here.

Many questions remain as authorities continue searching for debris from the Titan submersible, including when the implosion happened and what exactly went wrong with the sub.

So far, search teams have located the Titan’s nose cone and one end of its pressure hulls in a large debris field, and the other end of the pressure hull in a second, smaller debris field.

Bobby Chacon, retired FBI special agent and former leader of the FBI dive team, told CNN that a debris field like the one search teams discovered could have been created by an almost simultaneous implosion and explosion of the submersible.

Chacon added that it won’t be possible to know what happened to the submersible “unless you recover the majority of the vessel.”

Chacon said the best scenario would be to use remotely operated vehicles, which have baskets and arms that can lift the debris.

“The good thing is it sounds like there is no other Titanic debris in that section. Everything they come across thereshould be collected, put into baskets and brought back to the surface for analysis,” he said.

Experts say it is unlikely any bodies will be recovered but the US Coast Guard said it will continue the search in an effort to recover what it can.

Besides searching for the passengers, authorities will also continue to search the sea floor in hopes of discovering more information about what led to the implosion.

It will take time to put together a specific timeline of events, the US Coast Guard said Thursday, calling the underwater environment “incredibly complex.”

So far, they have located the Titan’s nose cone and one end of its pressure hulls in a large debris field, and the other end of the pressure hull in a second, smaller debris field.

He added that the debris pieces could still be “slightly buoyant” and be carried further away by ocean currents. “So the big project right now is going to be trying to collect those parts,” he said. “They’ll mark them, they’ll indicate where they were, and they’ll lay out a map of where those parts were found.”

Read more here.

Debris from the missing Titan submersible was found near the wreckage of the Titanic Thursday, five days after a massive search operation was launched when the vessel lost contact with its mother ship.

US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said the vessel suffered a “catastrophic implosion,” killing all five people on board.

Here’s a timeline of events:

The Titan submersible bound for the Titanic that went missing on Sunday with five people on board suffered a“catastrophic implosion,”US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said Thursday.

The tail cone and other debris from the missing submersible were found by a remotely operated vehicle about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, which rests about 13,000 feet deep in the North Atlantic Ocean.

The Coast Guard said the debris found on the sea floor was “consistent withthe catastrophic loss of thepressure chamber.”

The five passengers on the Titan submersible that was diving 13,000 feet to view the Titanic on the ocean floor died ina “catastrophic implosion,”authorities said Thursday, bookending an extraordinary five-day international search operation near the site of the world’s most famous shipwreck.

The tail cone and other debris were found by a remotely operated vehicle about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, deep in the North Atlantic and about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

“This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger, the First Coast Guard District commander, told reporters.

Here’s what we know:

James Cameron speaks to CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday.

James Cameron, who directed the hit 1997 film “Titanic” and has himself made 33 dives to the wreckage, offered his thoughts Thursday after it was announced that a missing Titanic-bound submersible suffered a “catastrophic implosion,” killing all five people on board.

Cameron added he thinks “we’re also seeing a parallel here with unheeded warnings about a sub that was not certified.”

Cameron is an experienced deep sea explorer who in 2012 dove to the Mariana Trench, considered one of the deepest spots in the Earth’s oceans at almost 7 miles below the surface, in a 24-foot submersible vehicle he designed called the Deepsea Challenger.

Speaking of his deep-sea dives to the site of the Titanic, Cameron told Cooper: “You feel the presence of the tragedy and I think that’s the lure. I think that’s why people want to go and experience it for themselves. To feel, to remember history.”

He added that while he thinks it’s important to remember that history, “here’s a case starkly, today, where the collective, we didn’t remember the lesson of Titanic — these guys at OceanGate didn’t.”

From left, Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood, Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Stockton Rush.

The Titan submersible bound for the Titanic that went missing on Sunday with five people on board suffered a“catastrophic implosion,”US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said Thursday.

Now those who knew the passengers are grappling with their tragic loss and some have sent messages of condolences as their legacies are remembered.

The US Navy detected an acoustic signature consistent with an implosion on Sunday in the general area where theTitanic-bound submersible was divingwhen it lost communication with its mother ship, a senior Navy official told CNN Thursday.

The Navy then immediately relayed that information to the on-scene commanders leading the search effort, and it was used to narrow down the area of the search, the official said.

But the sound of the implosion was determined to be “not definitive,” the official said, and the multinational efforts to find the submersible continued as a search and rescue effort.

The Wall Street Journalwas first to report about the acoustic signature picked up by the Navy.

That insight comes the same day the US Coast Guard announced thesubmersible suffered a “catastrophic implosion,” killing all five people on board.

The tail cone and other debris from the missing submersible were found by a remotely operated vehicle about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, which rests about 13,000 feet deep in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Five different major pieces of debris from the submersible, known as the “Titan,” were found in the area, and each end of the pressure hull was found in a different place, according to Paul Hankins, US Navy Director of Salvage Operations and Ocean Engineering.

The families were immediately notified, Mauger said.

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Wendy Rush, the wife of the pilot killed in aTitanic-bound submersiblethat coast guard officials say suffered catastrophic implosion, is the descendant of a couple who perished on the ship in 1912.

Rush is the great-great granddaughter of retailing magnate Isidor Straus and his wife, Ida, who were part of the group of more than 1,500 people who died during the Titanic’s maiden voyage, according toNew York Timesarchiverecords.

The couple were fictionalized by Lew Palter as Isidor and Elsa Raven as Ida in the Oscar-winning 1997 film “Titanic,” directed byJames Cameron.

While several of the scenes focusing on them in the movie were cut, a scene featuring the characters clutching each other on a bed as the ship went down became notably memorable.

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