The Titan operator announced on Thursday that it had no hope of finding alive the five passengers who had been missing in the North Atlantic since Sunday.
All five Titan passengers are most likely deceased.
According to the US Coast Guard, the debris found near the wreck of the Titanic on Thursday came from the submersible searched for since Sunday. According to investigators, however, it is still too early to know exactly when the catastrophic implosion occurred.
The Titan had been missing since Sunday, eight hours after losing contact with its surface ship.
Hopes dwindled by the hour, especially since the submarine only had 96 hours of oxygen, which was supposed to be exhausted by Thursday afternoon.
At this point in time, no one knows whether the probable submersible implosion took place on Sunday or in the days that followed.
Only with certainty was the debris field of the “Titan” about 488 meters away from the Titanic.
A few hours after the company OceanGate announced the discovery of a _”_debris field” near the wreck of the Titanic by a robot involved in international search operations, it published this press release:
“We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargeolet have sadly passed away.”
This Thursday is the French oceanographic ship Atalante had arrived in the area to support deep-sea research with his Victor 6000 underwater robot, which can dive to depths of 6000 meters.
The question now is whether debris from the sub can be brought to the surface along with the bodies of the victims.
Past travelers testify
At least 46 people have already successfully traveled aboard the OceanGate submersible to the Titanic wreck site in 2021 and 2022.
Arthur Loibl, A retired German businessman and adventurer was one of the company’s first clients two years ago.
He recounts his adventure aboard the Titan: “Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet metal bottom. You cannot stand up or kneel. Everyone sits side by side or on top of each other.” . You can’t be claustrophobic (…) During the two and a half hours of descent and ascent, the light was switched off to save energy, the only illumination came from a “fluorescent stick”.
security warnings
Details have emerged since Sunday and the investigation began, implicating OceanGate as the company has been accused of possible negligence in the safety of its underwater tourism device.
The usage ofa simple video game controller as a rudder to steer the Titan raises particular questions.
But the company has provided guarantees of reliability and safety, and invoked several rescue systems for returning to the surface, including sandbags, falling lead pipes and an inflatable ball.
Over and beyond, a complaint A 2018 study consulted by AFP reveals that a former company executive, David Lochridge, was fired after he expressed serious doubts about the safety of the submersible.
According to this former director of naval operations, a porthole at the front of the device was designed to withstand the pressure at 4,000 feet (1,300 m) rather than 13,000 feet (4,000 m) where the wreck of the Titanic is located.
In a 2018 trial, David Lochridge said Titan’s testing and certification was inadequate and “would expose passengers in an experimental submersible to extreme potential dangers.”
Five passengers on board
On Sunday, an American, a Frenchman, a Briton and two British Pakistanis plunged into the abyss on board the five-person Titan, which is about 6.5 meters long.
Contact with the vehicle was lost less than two hours after departure.
On board the head of OceanGate, the American Stockton RushHe popped up alongside a wealthy British businessman, Hamish Harding (58), from the French Titanic specialists Paul Henri Nargeolet (77) and Pakistani tycoon Shahzada Dawood (48 years old) and his son Suleiman (19), both of whom are also British nationals.
For $250,000they set out to explore the remains of one of the greatest maritime disasters of the 20th century.
the titanic was wrecked on her maiden voyage in 1912 after colliding with an iceberg, killing nearly 1,500 passengers and crew.
Since the discovery of the wreck in 1985, Scientists, treasure hunters and tourists visit it, thus preserving the myth.