The U.S. Coast Guard announced Wednesday that “presumed human remains” have been recovered from the Titan wreckage.
The evidence will be sent to a port in the U.S. where the Marine Board of Investigation will conduct further analysis and testing, the statement said.
“I am grateful for the coordinated international and interagency support to recover and preserve this vital evidence at extreme offshore distances and depths,” said MBI Chair Captain Jason Neubauer. “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.”
The announcement comes about a week after an international search-and-rescue effort ended, which deep-sea explorer and director James Cameron described as a “nightmarish charade” given he knew the vessel imploded when he heard it lost communication and navigation less than two hours after beginning its descent. Turns out, the U.S. Navy's top secret acoustic detection system also picked up what it suspected was the submersible's implosion hours after the trip began.
Some analysts said, due to the pressure and heat involved in the catastrophic implosion, if there were any human remains left, they would be a “gel-like substance.”
Five people died in the Titan's implosion: OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood, British billionaire Hamish Harding, and French deep-sea explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
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