The company that owns the submarine that imploded with five people on board near the wreck of the Titanic has suspended all its activities, the newspaper reported Thursday. Company website.

This is reported by OceanGate, based in the United States “suspended its exploration and commercial activities.”

The “Titan”, a small submarine about 6.5 meters long, submerged on June 18 to view the wreck and was to surface seven hours later but when less than two hours had passed, contact with the ship was lost.

A rescue operation was then launched to search for the passengers.

The teams found that the ship had imploded shortly after sinking, killing all five on board instantly.including the head of OceanGate, Stockton Rush.

The remains, found on the seabed nearly 4,000 meters deep, will be analyzed.

They traveled in the submarine millionaire Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood with her son Suleman, a 19-year-old student; British explorer Hamish Harding; the French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet and the CEO of the OceanGate firm, Stockton Rush.

Criticism of the ship

As soon as it was known that contact with the submarine had been broken, criticism erupted OceanGate, suspected of negligence.

In 2018 court documents, a former company executive, David Lochridge, claims he was fired because he questioned the submarine’s safety.

According to Lochridge, the ship’s porthole was not designed to withstand the pressure at a depth of 4,000 meters, putting passengers at risk.

In addition to the missing Titan, which could dive to a depth of 4,000 meters, the company owns the Cyclops 1 submarine, which can carry up to five people to a depth of 500 meters.

The passengers had paid $250,000 each to explore the wreck of the Titanic, one of the greatest maritime disasters of the 20th century.