Rescuers searching for the Titan submersible that imploded on an expedition to the Titanic wreckage say they knew everyone onboard the vessel was dead the moment they found debris.
A desparate search was launched after the vessel, which was owned an operated by OceanGate Expeditions, lost contact to its mothership as it ventured 12,500ft underwater. Pelagic Research Servces was then tasked with finding the submersible before those onboard ran out of oxygen.
Pelagic has a fleet of specialist remote-operated vehicles that are capable of travelling thousands of metres below the surface, reports the Daily Mail. CEO Ed Cassano told Sky News: “Upon coming into the debris field there was a pause.
“Everyone’s a professional, but you can’t help but be impacted… it took us a moment to really understand and think about what it meant.”
Titan launched at around 4am on June 18. It lost communication around one hour and 45 minutes later, prompted Pelagic to deploy its Odysseus 6K submersible.
The remote vessel reached the seaflor after days of searching, locating debris from Titan around 1,600ft from the bow of Titanic. The implossion killed every on Titan as a result of enormous water pressure.
Tourists Hamish Harding, 58, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Sulaiman Dawood, 19, French Navy pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush all died on the submersible.
When Pelagic become involved in the search, it was thought Titan had enough oxygen onboard to survive for four days. It was initially hoped the Odysseus would be able to hook on to Titan and bring it up to 3,000 metres, where it would be joined by another remote-operated vehicle (ROV) to bring the sub to the surface.
But the team fell silent when they first discovered debris. Deep sea expert Jesse Doren told Sky: “We’d spent four or five days… expecting to go down there and perform a miracle.
“Obviously, our sense of disappointment is miniscule compared to the people who are close to the families of those who were lost.”
The families of those onboard were then updated and a salvage mission began. Cassano updated the media on what had happened a few days later.
The team flew from New York to Newfoundland in Canada on June 19, originally hoping to launch the ROV in eight hours – compared to the usual 12. They managed to do it in six hours.
Cassano explained: “We were always thinking about the crew of the Titan. We were always thinking about the families.
“We were thinking about what was the best way for us to execute a rescue, knowing that we were limited in time, knowing that the submarine was a large object to recover.”
Doren added: “We still had to do things safely because it’s a lot of people at risk, a lot of equipment at risk, and you want to do it right. We knew we had one shot at this.”
The Canada Transportation Safety Board is now investigating the circumstances around Titan’s implosion. It has already conducted a number of pre-liminary interviews.
It is not looking to attribute blame. Rather officials want to ensure a similar tragedy is avoided in the future.
