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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
World
Abigail Nicholson

Titanic submarine seen for first time as imploded wreck brought ashore

US Coastguard have brought pieces of debris from the Titanic tourist submarine ashore after the "catastrophic" implosion that destroyed it.

The Titan submersible went missing earlier this month, prompting a major search before debris from the vessel was eventually recovered. Pictures showed the pieces being unloaded from the US Coast Guard ship Sycamore and Horizon Arctic at the Canadian Coast Guard pier in St John's, Newfoundland.

A debris field was found by the Coast Guard last week around 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic. All five people onboard the submersible were killed after it suddenly lost contact with its surface ship, MirrorOnline reports.

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One of the five killed was Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate, the company that owned the vessel. The four other victims consisted of three British citizens including billionaire Hamish Harding. Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood were also onboard along with French national and renowned diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

In the wake of the horror incident, US maritime officials said they will issue a report aimed at improving the safety of submersibles worldwide.

Investigators from the US, Canada, France and the United Kingdom are working closely together on the probe of the June 18 accident, which happened in an “unforgiving and difficult-to-access region" of the North Atlantic, said US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger, of the Coast Guard First District.

Debris from the Titan submersible (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP)

The big clues for investigators are five "major pieces" of debris.

Undersea expert Paul Hankin said: “We found five different major pieces of debris that told us that it was the remains of the Titan. The initial thing we found was the nose cone, which was outside of the pressure hull.

"We then found a large debris field, within that debris field we found the front-end bell of the pressure hull. Shortly thereafter we found a second smaller debris field.

"Within that debris field we found the other end of the pressure hull. We continue to map out the debris field, and as the admiral said, we will do the best we can to fully map out what’s down there.”

Debris from the Titan submersible, recovered from the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP)

The USCG previously confirmed that debris found at the wreck of the Titan showed signs that a devastating loss of pressure occurred in the submersible.

In a press conference after the debris field was found, Rear Admiral John Mauger, of the First Coast Guard District, did not confirm when the vehicle became irreparably damaged but said the sonar buoys deployed by teams would have picked up an implosion.

He added: "The debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber."

Carl Hartsville of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said the location wreckage was found was "consistent with the last location of communication for an implosion in the water column."

Hartsville, continued: "The size of the debris field is consistent with that implosion in the after column." He added the area was a place where "there is not any debris of Titanic."

The debris was located by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) named 'Odysseus' on Thursday last week.

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