On Thursday, the Coast Guard announced that debris believed to be the OceanGate submersible was found about 1,600 feet from the Titanic, the Associated Press reported.
According to the Coast Guard, the submarine which was carrying five people to the infamous shipwreck imploded near the site, killing everyone aboard.
On Sunday morning, the submersible vessel Titan launched out of Newfoundland aboard the support ship the Polar Prince and began its 2-hour descent to the Titanic. About one and three-quarter hours into the descent, the Polar Prince lost contact with the Titan, according to CNN.
Coast Guard vessels raced against time to find the sub and rescue those aboard before its 96-hour supply of oxygen ran out. But as it turns out, the five men aboard the Titan were already dead.
According to a senior Navy official, as the search commenced, the Navy went back to review and analyze acoustic data from the Titanic site. The data revealed an anomaly “consistent with an implosion or explosion” in the area where the Titan was operating at the time the Polar Prince lost contact with the vessel.
The official told the Associated Press that the information was passed on to the Coast Guard. However, the Coast Guard chose to continue the search since the Navy did not believe the data was definitive.
Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger told reporters on Thursday that it was “a catastrophic implosion of the vessel.”
In a statement on Thursday, OceanGate Expeditions, the company that owns and operates the submarine, said that the five people aboard the vessel, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, were lost.
Also aboard the vessel were prominent Pakistani Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman, Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and British explorer Hamish Hardin.
The Coast Guard will continue searching the site to determine what happened to the Titan.
