It was due to be a once-in-a-lifetime trip, travelling to the ocean floor and the chance to view what few people have ever done – the 111-year-old wreck of the Titanic.
A British billionaire explorer, a Pakistani-British father and son, a French diver and the chief executive of the submersible tourist company boarded the OceanGate Expedition’s submersible, the Titan, full of a spirit of adventure and excitement.
But, in a chilling echo of the fate of the doomed 1912 vessel, soon after setting out, the expedition took a dramatic turn.
Follow the latest updates on the Titanic submersible here
Just one hour and 45 minutes into the journey, the submersible lost contact with the surface ship, around 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
For four days, a frantic search-and-rescue mission was carried out, although no one knew whether the Titan had suffered some sort of disaster and, if so, whether the five on board had survived it.
The oxygen supplies were expected to run out at 8am ET (1pm GMT) on Thursday – effectively creating a deadline for lives to be saved.
In a dramatic turn, a Canadian aircraft searching for the missing sub detected intermittent banging noises from the vicinity where the divers were last located. The crew heard banging sounds every 30 minutes on Tuesday and again four hours later, after additional sonar devices were deployed.
The five crew members died in a “catastrophic implosion”, the US Coast Guard said on Thursday.
Officials say they will continue to investigate the site of the field of debris discovered, although the bodies of the five may never be found. Here’s what is known about the tragedy:
What happened?
On Sunday morning at 9am Atlantic Daytime Time, the Titan, a submersible owned by OceanGate Expeditions, set off on its excursion to the Titanic’s underwater grave with research vessel the Polar Prince.
The expedition began with a 400-nautical-mile journey out into the Atlantic Ocean, about 900 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Titan prepares to launch from its submersive platform on a test run— (OceanGate/YouTube)
The submersible was then released from its surface ship and began its descent 13,000 feet below the water’s surface to the wreckage.
The vessel was supposed to transmit a signal back to the Polar Prince every 15 minutes but it lost contact around 11.47am ADT, one hour and 45 minutes into the submerge.
Exactly what happened to the sub remains a mystery, but the US Coast Guard said on Thursday that debris “consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber” had been found.
Rear Admiral John Mauger said there did not appear to be any connection between the underwater noises detected during the search and rescue mission and the location of the debris on the seafloor.
The bodies of the five passengers may never be recovered from the Atlantic, the US Coast Guard said.
The OceanGate Expeditions submersible vessel named Titan— (PA Media)
“This was a catastrophic implosion of the vessel, which would have generated a significant broadband sound down there that the sonar buoys would have picked up.”
OceanGate Expeditions alerted the US Coast Guard around 6.40pm ADT after the missing sub after failed to surface.
Immediately, a search effort began for the overdue submersible.
Where did it go missing?
It is unclear where exactly the sub went missing but the US Coast Guard said it was searching 900 miles east of Cape Cod, where the famed Titanic shipwreck lies beneath the surface.
The Titanic shipwreck sits approximately 12,500 feet at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, about 380 nautical miles south of Newfoundland, Canada and 1,240 nautical miles east of New York City.
The shipwreck’s coordinates are 41º43’32”N, 49º56’49”W.
Rescue teams from several countries had spent days searching thousands of square miles of open seas with planes and ships for any sign of the 22-foot (6.7-meter) Titan. The US Coast Guard said it was searching in water depth of “roughly 13,000 feet”.
Rear Admiral Mauger said the area the submersible went missing was remote, which made the search challenging.
He said it was too early to tell when the vessel’s failure occurred. The search operation had sonar buoys in the water for more than three days and had not detected any sort of loud explosive noise during the period, he said.
The buoys had picked up some sounds on Tuesday and Wednesday that temporarily offered hope the people on the Titan were alive and banging on the hull.
But officials said analysis of the sound was inconclusive and that the noises might not have emanated from the Titan at all.
The world’s deepest under sea search-and-rescue mission
Various agencies and countries, and both private and public organisations desperately worked together to try to find and rescue the five people on board the Titan submersible.
The search was unlike anything ever executed before, making it the deepest underwater search-and-rescue mission in the world.
Efforts were led by the US Coast Guard in Boston but the Canadian Coast Guard, Canadian Armed Forces, US Navy and others were also involved. The UK sent RAF planes.
The US Coast Guard deployed two C-130 aircrafts, the New York Air National Guard deployed another C-130, the Canadian Coast Guard deployed one C-130 and one P-8 aircraft.
A US Navy Curv-21, an unmanned submersible vessel that can reach a depth of 20,000 feet, is being used in the search for the missing Titanic wreck vessel— (US Navy)
In addition, several Canadian Coast Guard ships, a French research vessel L’Atalante and commercial vessels were used in the search.
The Royal Canadian Navy also deployed HMCS Glace Bay, which carried a medical team specialising in dive medicine. On board was a six-person mobile hyperbaric recompression chamber that can be used to treat or prevent decompression sickness.
The Deep Energy rescue ship carried two remote-operated vehicles (ROVs) capable of operating to a depth of 3,000m. The John Cabot, which has “side-scanning sonar capabilities”, the Skandi Vinland and the Atlantic Merlin also joined the search on Wednesday, the US Coast Guard said in a Twitter post.
3 A handout photo made released by the US Coast Guard showing the Bahamanian research vessel ‘Deep Energy’— (US Coast Guard/EPA)
But, despite the multi-agency mission, David Concannon, an attorney and explorer who pulled out of the Titanic expedition at the last minute, claimed that the rescue efforts were hampered by red tape, bureaucracy and a lack of urgency by the US government.
British company Magellan Limited had a deep-sea submersible craft “ready to support” the mission, with the ability to reach depths of 6,000 metres and experience of visiting the Titanic wreckage. But the US First Coast Guard District told The Independent it had not requested assistance from the firm as the vessel was too far away.
Banging noises overheard
A Canadian P-8 aircraft reportedly detected intermittent banging noises from the area the divers disappeared on Tuesday and again on Wednesday.
On Twitter, the US Coast Guard said it detected underwater noises in the search area. As a result, ROV operations were relocated in an attempt to explore the origin of the noises.
Internal email updates sent to Department of Homeland Security leadership read: “The P-8 deployed sonobuoys, which reported a contact in a position close to the distress position. The P8 heard banging sounds in the area every 30 minutes. Four hours later additional sonar was deployed and banging was still heard.”
But on Thursday evening, Rear Admiral John Mauger said there did not appear to be any connection between the underwater noises and the location of the debris on the seafloor.
He said: “So throughout the search efforts, we reacted to the information that we had available to us and while we continue to send it off for deeper analysis, again really complex operating environment for us to work in, let me check with the experts, but there doesn’t appear to be any connection between the noises and the location on the seafloor.”
Asked about the timing of the implosion, and whether it happened right at the moment the vessel lost contact, Rear Admiral Mauger said it was “too early to tell”, but added that the sonar buoys had not picked up any catastrophic events during the last 72 hours they had been in the water.
Who are the five who died?
Record-holding British explorer and billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, had travelled on the Challenger Deep to the bottom of the ocean and on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin into space. He wrote on Facebook on Saturday: “I am proud to finally announce that I joined OceanGate Expeditions for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic.
“Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023.”
Hamish Harding— (Jannicke Mikkelsen via REUTERS)
The father-of-two was a seasoned explorer and held three Guinness World Records, including the longest duration at full ocean depth by a crewed vessel when in March 2021, he and ocean explorer Victor Vescovo dived to the lowest depth of the Mariana Trench. In June 2022, he went into space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.
Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, led the first recovery expedition to the Titanic in 1987 and several more, becoming a leading authority on the wreck site.
Mr Nargeolet, described by OceanGate as the “Titanic’s greatest explorer”, had done 35 dives in the submersible.
Paul Henri Nargeolet, director of underwater research at Premier Exhibitions, Inc— (Getty)
Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman Dawood, 19, were UK citizens, believed to have lived in a Surrey mansion with Mr Dawood’s wife Christine and daughter Alina.
Shahzada Dawood was vice-chairman of one of Pakistan’s largest conglomerates, Engro Corporation, and Suleman studied at the University of Strathclyde.
Shahzada Dawood is confirmed missing on the submarine— (WEF)
OceanGate Expeditions chief executive Stockton Rush, 61, began his career as a pilot, becoming the youngest jet transport-rated pilot in the world at the age of 19.
He served on the Museum of Flight’s Board of Trustees, the board of enterprise software company Entomo and as chairman of Remote Control Technology and founded OceanGate in 2009.
OceanGate chief Stockton Rush— (OceanGate)
OceanGate offers excursions to shipwrecks and other deep-sea voyages for paying customers. In recent years, trips to view the Titanic shipwreck have become increasingly popular.
