
Presumed Human remains, and debris from the tourist submersible crushed to pieces in an undersea implosion that killed all five people aboard were recovered from the ocean bottom and brought ashore to Canada on Wednesday. The 22-foot Titan lost contact with its surface vessel on June 18, and its wreckage was found one hour later. All passengers and crew members are presumed dead, the U.S. Coast Guard said. A Coast Guard statement said medical professionals would formally analyze the presumed remains.
Earlier Wednesday, photos showed what appeared to be the nose cone and other shattered bits of the Titan being hauled off a ship at a Canadian port city. The video showed a white panel-like piece taller than the two men guiding it into port and cords and wires draped with a white tarp being lifted onto a recovery ship, the Horizon Arctic, at a Coast Guard pier in St. John’s, Newfoundland, about 400 miles (650km) north of the accident site in the North Atlantic.
The wreckage, tangled with wires and other machinery, includes what appears to be the landing skids the Titan used for touching down on the seabed. It also has twisted wires and a broken hull piece destroyed in the implosion. Officials say that piece could provide clues about the cause of the crash.
Other wreckage from the Titan was retrieved from the deep sea with a remote-operated vehicle, or ROV brought to the accident site by the Horizon Arctic. The company that owns the ROV, Pelagic Research Services, declined to comment on the investigation.
Investigators have been mapping out the Titan’s wreckage field and searching an area more than twice the size of Connecticut in waters nearly three miles (5km) deep. They hope that sounds detected Tuesday and Wednesday will help them narrow their search.
But the conditions in which the Titan went down are “extremely hostile” — with crushing pressure, total darkness, and frigid temperatures. And even if the crew of five remained alive on that harrowing ocean floor, they would likely have run out of oxygen after four days, according to experts who spoke Monday about the Titan disaster.
Experts have warned that finding any of the Titan’s passengers will be a challenge, but they’re not giving up hope. The Coast Guard said it would work with other agencies to “examine the evidence available to determine what occurred.” The Titan was carrying a British world explorer and four tourists from a New York-based company that sells tickets for people to view the century-old wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic.