All five members of the missing Titan submarine are believed to be dead, the company OceanGate said in a statement Thursday.
“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. “These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans. Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.”
The vessel, known as the Titan, was created by OceanGate Inc. to transport five people 4,000 meters deep to the site of the Titanic wreck. The submersible went missing on Sunday off the coast of St. John’s, Newfoundland, after its communication systems began failing an hour and 30 minutes after its descent.
At a press conference Thursday afternoon, a Coast Guard spokesperson confirmed that debris discovered near the Titanic wreckage was from the Titan.
“The debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber. Upon this determination, we immediately notified the family,” the spokesperson said. “On behalf of the United States Coast Guard, I offer my deepest condolences to the families.”
The members of the submarine included OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush; British businessman Hamish Harding; British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman; and former French Navy diver Paul-Henry Nargeole. They all embarked on the Sunday voyage aboard the submersible.
The U.S. Coast Guard led a 10,000-square-mile search to identify the submersible but were met with no findings. Search teams scoured the surface of the ocean and the seabed in hopes of finding the vessel. An underwater search was led by a remote-operated vehicle. Its mother vessel, the Polar Prince tugboat, was also utilized throughout search and rescue efforts.
At a cost of $250,000 per ticket, OceanGate debuted the Titan in 2019. Per the company’s website, its lucrative Titanic Expedition aims to “conduct scientific and technological survey of the wreck.”
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