The reasons why the Titan submarine imploded, according to the US Coast Guard

The remains of the titanic which sank on its maiden voyage in 1912, nearly 600 km from the mainland to the southeast coast of Newfoundland, in Canada, and at a depth of about 3,800 meters, have since their discovery in 1985 become a dream place for adventurers and the wealthy intrepid tourists.

Perhaps fascinated by that same spell, The five passengers took the tourist trip aboard the submarine that was lost on Sunday to the wreck of the Titanic – in the North Atlantic – they died as a result of the ship’s “catastrophic implosion”the U.S. Coast Guard and expedition organizers announced Thursday.

“A field of debris” found by search robots near the wreck of the mythical ocean liner, nearly 4,000 meters deep, “corresponds to an implosion” of the submarine Titan, US Coast Guard Admiral John Mauger announced.

“We estimate that our chief Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargeolet are sadly dead,” the OceanGate Expeditions company said in a statement, after four days of searching that the United States and the United States effort. to the world.

Causes of the implosion

Mauger also mentioned one “catastrophic loss of pressure” in the ship as the cause of the accidentat a press conference in Boston.

Once the outcome of this tragedy was known, the The Wall Street Journal revealed that the US Navy had detected a signal indicating the submarine’s probable implosion. on Sunday, shortly after her disappearance.

While the causes of the implosion are being investigated at a depth of 3,800 meters, all of the Titan’s communications systems are so far known to have stopped working at the same time on Sunday; just under two hours after the ship Polar Prince dropped the Titan off at sea.

After the large multi-national operation to find the submarine and when hope was running out due to the oxygen supply, the US Coast Guard, based in Boston, announced that a robot had found debris about 500 meters from the Titanic.

“Following this determination, we immediately notified the families on behalf of the United States Coast Guard and the entire Unified Command. I extend my deepest condolences to the families,” Mauger said.

Remains of the Titan

According to underwater expert Paul Hanken, they found “five chapters” that they recognized as “remains of the Titan”. The first thing found was “the nose cone, which was outside the pressure chamber”.

“We found the bubble at the front of the pressure chamber and this was the first indication that a catastrophic event occurred shortly after,” he said.

The remains of the device were found by a remote-controlled vehicle (ROV) piloted by the Canadian ship Horizon Arctic and later experts determined that “they are consistent with a catastrophic implosion”, i.e. a rupture and collapse caused by the larger pressure from abroad.

Work to recover the remains of the device will continue. The bodies of the five people have not been found, Mauger confirmed.

Fascinated by the Titanic

There are several companies that organize multi-day tours to see the remains of the Titanic, which sank at a depth of 3,800 meters and about 640 kilometers from the Canadian island of Newfoundland. Among these companies is OceanGate Expeditions, which confirmed in a statement on Thursday that their submarine was missing.

Some tourists have come to pay several tens of thousands of euros to descend to the ocean liner in mini submarines and have left their own mark by depositing plaques and flowers to commemorate their brief stay on the wreck.

The remains of the Titanic, described in its day as unsinkable and sunk in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage after colliding with an iceberg on April 14, 1912, they remained hidden at the bottom of the ocean for 73 years, until 1985 it was found where they rested.

family mourning

The families of the five passengers of the submarine that imploded on the bottom of the Atlantic near the remains of the “Titanic” mourned Friday as criticism of possible safety negligence mounted.

Relatives of two of the victims, businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, 19, a dual British-Pakistani national, expressed their “deep sorrow”. Both were part of the family that founded one of Pakistan’s most successful industrial empires.

For its part, the family of businessman and aviation magnate Hamish Harding, 58, another deceased, paid tribute to a “passionate explorer” as well as a “husband who loves his wife and father who is devoted to his two children”.

In addition to Shahzada Dawood and her son, Hamish Harding and American Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, expert French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, nicknamed “Mr. Titanic”, also died.

The surface search area covered more than 20,000 km2.

The 6.5-meter “Titan” submarine submerged on Sunday but lost communication less than two hours after the tourist dive began. It had a theoretical autonomy of 96 hours on oxygen.

During the searches throughout the week, information jeopardizing Oceangate emerged about possible technical negligence on the part of the submarine.

OceanGate, which built and operated the submarine, charging $250,000 per seat, took tourists to the wreckage of the “Titanic,” the sinking of which killed nearly 1,500 people in one of history’s greatest maritime catastrophes .

After the tragedy, the organization Titanic International, which ensures that the history of the mythical ocean liner is preserved, called for a halt to tourist expeditions.

“It’s time to seriously consider whether human travel to the ‘Titanic’ wreck should end in the name of safety,” he said in a Facebook post, calling for “autonomous underwater vehicles.”