All five aboard the missing submersible are believed to be lost amid a search for the vessel, OceanGate said.
“We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost,” OceanGate said in a statement.
“A debris field was discovered within the search area by an ROV near the Titanic. Experts within the unified command are evaluating the information,” said the US Coast Guard, in a statement.
Coast Guard officials said a remote-operated vehicle found the tail cone of the Titan submersible about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic Thursday morning.
Additional debris found was “consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber,” Rear Adm. John Mauger, the First Coast Guard District commander, said during a press briefing.
The passengers’ families were immediately notified.
Titan’s landing frame and a rear cover’ among the debris: Report
According to dive expert David Mearns, a friend of those on board the missing Titan submarine, “a landing frame and a rear cover from the submersible” are among the debris. He made this statement to the BBC. This comes after the US Coast Guard said that “an ROV near the Titanic discovered a debris field within the search area.”