Likely Human Remains Found on Titan Sub Debris

NORTH ATLANTIC — The United States Coast Guard says that presumed Human remains have been found within the wreckage of the Titan submersible. Pieces of the sub that imploded have been recovered and unloaded in St. John’s, Canada, on Wednesday. In a statement by the US Coast Guard, they said that US medical professionals will conduct a thorough analysis of the presumed human remains.

The Titan Submersible was 90 minutes into its descent into the depths to see the wreckage of the Titanic (12,000 feet) when the sub suffered from a critical failure and imploded, killing all five people on board.  The passengers were the head of OceanGate, which organized the dive, 61-year-old Stockton Rush; British explorer Hamish Harding, 58; Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son, Suleman Dawood, 19; and French diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 77.

The US Coast Guard says it's still in the early stages of the investigation to see what went wrong on the submersible. The Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation, or MBI, will transport the wreckage and any other evidence to a United States port for further investigation and analysis.

"I am grateful for the coordinated international and interagency support to recover and preserve this vital evidence at extreme offshore distances and depths," Captain Jason Neubauer, the MBI Chair, said in a statement.

Captain Neubauer also said that there was "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.”

Officials charged with recovering the submersible initially were skeptical about recovering any remains of the passengers. "This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the seafloor," Coast Guard Admiral John Mauger said.

So far, five major pieces of the sub were located near the bow of the sunken Titanic in a debris field. According to the BBC’s science correspondent Jonathan Amos, the debris brought ashore on Wednesday included a titanium end cap, the sub’s porthole missing its window, the landing frame, the end equipment bay, and a titanium ring. The equipment was recovered by a remotely operated submersible operated by Pelagic Research Services.