All five men on board the missing Titan submersible were declared dead after it was found that the craft imploded near the site of the ship...
All five men on board the missing Titan submersible were declared dead after it was found that the craft imploded near the site of the shipwreck, authorities announced Thursday. Hollywood filmmaker James Cameron revealed that he received the information within 24 hours after the disappearance of the submersible that it had imploded when it lost communication with its mothership. An international search effort on Thursday morning located debris near to the site of the Titanic on the ocean floor. Authorities later confirmed the debris contained the remains of the submersible, known as Titan. “This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard said at a press briefing. The discovery of the remains of Titan puts an end to a frantic four-day search to locate the craft after it lost contact with its surface vessel, the Polar Prince, on Sunday morning. The Five Lives Lost in the Titanic Submersible On board the submersible were the founder of the company that operates the vessel; a British businessman and explorer; a British father and teenage son from a prominent Pakistani family; and a French maritime expert. Stockton Rush was the founder and chief executive of OceanGate Expeditions, the company that operated the submersible. He was piloting the vessel. He founded OceanGate, a private company that is based in Everett, Wash., near Seattle, in 2009. Hamish Harding, a British businessman and explorer, holds several Guinness World Records, including one for the longest time spent traversing the deepest part of the ocean on a single dive. He wrote on his Facebook page on Saturday that he was proud to announce that he had joined OceanGate’s mission “on the sub going down to the Titanic.” Mr. Harding, 58, was the chairman of Action Aviation, a sales and air operations company based in Dubai. He had previously flown to space on a mission by Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket company. Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French maritime expert, had been on more than 35 dives to the Titanic wreck site. Mr. Nargeolet was the director of underwater research for RMS Titanic, Inc., an American company that owns the salvage rights to the famous wreck and displays many of the artifacts in Titanic exhibitions. The company conducted eight research and recovery expeditions between 1987 and 2010, according to its website. The British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son, Suleman, 19, were members of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest families. Mr. Dawood had a background in textiles and fertilizer manufacturing. His son was a business student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, a spokesman for the school confirmed on Thursday. Mr. Dawood and his son had “embarked on a journey to visit the remnants of the Titanic” when contact with the vessel was lost, the statement said, asking for privacy for the family. By Wanjiru Mbaru The post FIVE MEN ABOARD THE TITAN SUBMERSIBLE DEAD appeared first on BNN.
