TITAN TRAGEDY
‘Presumed human remains’ found close to recovered Titan wreckage
The US Coast Guard has said that remains, presumed to be human, have been found close to the Titan submersible which imploded on a trip to the Titanic.
US Coast Guard officials says that presumed human remains have been found within the wreckage of the Titan submersible, which suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ as it made a trip to the Titanic.
The statement, released on 28 June, says that it has likely recovered human remains which will now be brought back to the US for analysis by medical professionals; the investigation is still in the early stage.
After an extensive search that lasted for days, debris from the submersible was finally located 3,810 meters underwater and roughly 488 meters from the Titanic on the ocean floor, where it was then sent to the port of St. John’s, Newfoundland. The landing frame and a rear cover were found and have since become the most telling pieces of evidence yet as to exactly what happened on the vehicle that killed all five passengers on board as it descended into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
Titan tragedy:
What did the US Coast Guard say about the human remains?
U.S. Coast Guard Chief Captain Jason Neubauer said in a statement: “I am grateful for the coordinated international and interagency support to recover and preserve this vital evidence at extreme offshore distances and depths. The evidence will provide investigators from several international jurisdictions with critical insights into the cause of this tragedy. 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.”
What do we know about the human remains?
The 6.7 metre-long submersible was launched on June 18 and lost contact with the surface under two hours later; it was revealed on 22 June that all of the passengers were presumed dead due to the fate of the craft. Not much is known at this stage regarding the exact details of the human remains other than they have been located, but the investigation, as said, is still at a very early stage.
Pelagic Research Services, the company that led the recovery mission, said that staff have been “working around the clock now for 10 days, through the physical and mental challenges of this operation, and are anxious to finish the mission and return to their loved ones.”