Titan submersible: ‘Presumed human remains’ discovered in wreckage

A view of the Horizon Arctic ship, as salvaged pieces of the Titan submersible from OceanGate Expeditions are returned, in St. John’s harbour, Newfoundland, Canada June 28, 2023. REUTERS/David Hiscock NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

WASHINGTON, United States—Experts have recovered “presumed human remains” from the shattered Titan submersible that imploded during a dive to the Titanic wreck, the US Coast Guard said Wednesday, June 28, 2023.

“United States medical professionals will conduct a formal analysis of presumed human remains that have been carefully recovered,” the agency said in a statement after parts of the wreckage were unloaded in eastern Canada.

The Titan submersible carrying five people to the Titanic imploded near the site of the shipwreck and killed everyone on board, authorities said on Thursday, June 22.

READ: The Titan submersible imploded, killing all 5 on board, US Coast Guard says

In the submersible were OceanGate Expeditions CEO and pilot Stockton Rush; prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

The Titan launched at 6 a.m. Sunday, June 18, and was reported overdue Sunday afternoon about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, as it was on its way to where the Titanic sank more than a century ago.

By Thursday, when the oxygen supply was expected to run out, there was little hope of finding the crew alive.

On Thursday morning, a robotic vehicle discovered the tail cone of the Titan on the ocean floor, followed by the front and back ends of the Titan’s hull.

“The debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber,” said Rear Adm. John Mauger of the First Coast Guard District.

The U.S. Coast Guard said Sunday, June 25, it was leading an investigation into the loss of the Titan submersible  to determine what caused it to implode.

READ MORE: Titan submersible’s timeline:  From departure to tragic discovery

Mangled debris recovered from the small submersible was offloaded earlier in the day in eastern Canada, bringing to an end a difficult search-and-recovery operation.

That debris will now be taken aboard a US Coast Guard cutter to a US port for further analysis, the organization said.

“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,” said the leader of the US probe into the tragedy, Captain Jason Neubauer.

Television images showed what appeared to be the Titan sub’s nose cone and a side panel with electronics and wires hanging out being hoisted from a ship onto a flatbed truck at a Canadian Coast Guard terminal in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Pelagic Research, the New York company that owns the Odysseus remote-operated vehicle used in the search for the ill-fated submersible, said its offshore search-and-recovery operation has wrapped up.