Constellation Marine Services director Captain John Noble said that the men who were on board the missing Titan submersible are “in a resting place along with hundreds of Titanic passengers”, after US authorities confirmed all five have died.
US authorities announced on Thursday that the vessel had suffered a “catastrophic implosion”.
The 22-foot (6.7-meter) Titan‘s tail cone and two pieces of its pressure hull were among the significant pieces discovered 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, which rests about 13,000 feet deep in the North Atlantic Ocean.
“The debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger, the First Coast Guard District commander, told reporters.
Those on board the vessel were British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman; French Navy veteran Paul-Henri Nargeolet; chief executive of OceanGate Expeditions Stockton Rush; and British billionaire and pilot Hamish Harding.
The Titan submersible disappeared on Sunday morning about one hour and 45 minutes into its expedition, around 370 miles from the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
Here is the difference between the easily confused definitions of a submarine and a submersible.
What’s a submarine?
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website explains the difference between the two.
The administration says a submarine “has enough power to leave port and come back to port under its own power.”
This means that a submarine can drive independently to the bottom of the ocean and come back.
What’s a submersible?
The administration says: “A submersible has very limited power reserves so it needs a mother ship that can launch it and recover it.”
This means it does not, unlike a submarine, have the power to drive down to the bottom of the ocean and come back under its own steam.
The larger ship, Polar Prince, escorted Titan to Newfoundland, which is the nearest point to the Titanic. The mothership lost contact after two hours.
