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All five men on board a missing submersible are dead after the vessel imploded, authorities said on Thursday, following the discovery of debris at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean near the shipwreck of the Titanic.
The announcement brings to an end a frantic, four-day international search and rescue mission for the Titan submersible that disappeared on Sunday as it descended to view the Titanic.
The US Coast Guard said Titan probably suffered a “catastrophic implosion” in the North Atlantic waters and there were no survivors.
Those who perished were Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman; Hamish Harding, a British billionaire who lived in Dubai; French navy pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet; and the boss of tour company OceanGate, Stockton Rush.
“The debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber,” Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard said at a news conference.
In a statement, US-based OceanGate, which owned the sub, said the men have “sadly been lost”.
Admiral Mauger said it was not certain when Titan imploded, but sonobuoys listening for undersea sounds heard nothing consistent with an implosion since they were put in place after Titan went missing. That would suggest the sub failed early on.
However, The Wall Street Journal and AP later reported that the US Navy heard an “anomaly” on Sunday within hours of Titan's disappearance. The Journal said the implosion was detected via a top secret acoustic system designed to spot enemy submarines.
“While not definitive, this information was immediately shared with the Incident Commander to assist with the ongoing search and rescue mission,” a senior US Navy official told the newspaper.
The revelation will probably raise questions as to why so many resources were expended on a search mission when, in all likelihood, Titan was already destroyed.
The vast operation that saw international air and sea teams scour an area larger than the US state of Connecticut would have come at an “astronomical” cost, said Andrew Norris, a retired Coast Guard captain.
What happens next will probably be up to the families of those on board and OceanGate.
“There is a coastguard policy that says that missions shall not normally be performed for the purpose of salvage or recovery of property when these activities are not essential to the saving of life,” Mr Norris told The National.
Debris field
Earlier on Thursday, a robotic deep-sea vessel spotted debris a few hundred metres from the Titanic, which lies on the ocean floor about 3,800 meters below the surface. It sank in 1912.
Undersea expert Paul Hankin told the news conference that five major pieces of the submersible had been found, including the vessel's nose cone and the front end bell of the pressure hull.
“That was the first indication that there was a catastrophic event,” Mr Hankin said.
“Shortly thereafter, we found a second smaller debris field. Within that debris field, we found the other end of the pressure hull.”
David Mearns, a friend of two of the men on the submersible, told Sky News that the debris also included “a landing frame and a rear cover from the submersible”.
The water pressure at the depths Titan was plumbing is about 400 times that of the surface, so even a tiny leak could have instantaneously led to a failure of the vessel.
Confirmation of the discovery came as the desperate search for the Titan reached a critical stage, with the small vessel's air supply forecast to have fully or nearly run out by Thursday morning.
The van-sized submersible began what was to be a two-hour descent at 8am on Sunday but lost contact with its support ship.
The tourists on board had each paid $250,000 for the ride down to the world's most famous shipwreck.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, authorities said “banging” sounds had been detected in the search area, giving loved ones hope that perhaps Titan was intact.
But further analysis found there “doesn’t appear to be any connection between the noises” and Titan, Admiral Mauger said.
“This was a catastrophic implosion of the vessel which would have generated a significant broadband sound down there that the sonar buoys would have picked up,” he said.
Titanic tourist submersible goes missing – in pictures
