The Titanic Submarine that went missing on Sunday with five people on board suffered a “catastrophic implosion,” killing everyone on board, US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said Thursday.
A remotely operated vehicle found the tail cone of the Titan about 1,600 feet away from the bow of the shipwreck, Mauger said.
Tour company OceanGate Expeditions said the five passengers on board were Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Paul-Henri Nargeolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.
The Titan began its descent Sunday to explore the wreckage of the Titanic, located about 13,000 feet below sea level in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Meanwhile, James Cameron, who directed the hit 1997 film “Titanic” and has made 33 dives to the wreckage, said he saw some similarities between the Titan tragedy and the sinking of the famous ship it was bound for.
“I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship and yet steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night and many people died as a result,” Cameron told ABC News Thursday.
He added, “And with a very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded to take place at the same exact site with all the diving that’s going on all around the world I think it’s just astonishing. It’s really quite surreal.”
OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Söhnlein responded to the news of the loss of the Titan crew, including CEO Stockton Rush calling it tragic, during an interview Thursday with CNN.
“It’s a tragic loss for the families and for the ocean exploration community in general. All five crew members were passionate explorers. And they died doing what they believed in,” Söhnlein told CNN.
“Those of us in the community that work at that depth, know that that’s always a risk. There’s pressure down so intense that if there is a failure, it is an instant, catastrophic failure. And we all know that it’s a risk.”
CNN has previously reported that two former employees, who were not engineers, raised safety concerns about the thickness of the Titan’s hull years ago when it was built.
Söhnlein defended Rush’s approach to designing and deploying Titan and said he was not a “risk taker,” he was a “risk manager.” Sohnlein said he had “complete faith” in Rush and would have gone on the Titanic expedition had he had the chance.
“We won’t know anything until the investigation is complete and all the data is collected, so I’ll reserve judgment on that,” Söhnlein said. “But I’ve known him for 15 years and none of this would change my mind.”
Söhnlein said he hasn’t had an operational role in the company for the last decade, but does have a minority ownership stake and has remained in touch with Rush.
