Boston : Five men including a teenager are declared dead after the 22-foot submersible, to see Titanic wreckage in Atlantic Ocean, blew up from what is believed to have been implosion in the pressure chamber.
The vessel, operated by U.S company OceanGate, lost contact with its surface support ship on Sunday morning, around 45 minutes into what was slated to be a two-hour-dive to the world’s most famous shipwreck.
A robotic diving vehicle deployed by a Canadian ship spotted the debris on seafloor 1,600 feet from bow of Titanic.
People on board included OceanGate founder and CEO, Stockton Rush, who was pilot of the mission, British-Pakistani businessman Shahazada Dawood,(48), his son Suleman,(19) and British businessman Hamish Harding(58). The fifth man on board, Paul Henry Nargeolet(77), was a French navy diver and renowned explorer. A ride for each passenger on Titanic submersible costs $2,50,000 and the entire crew were well known for their devotion to extreme exploration, desire to collect artifacts from Titanic or their exorbitant wealth.
Five major fragments of the giant submersible were located in the debris from site of its disintegration, including the vessel’s tail cone and two sections of the pressure hull. “The debris field here is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vehicle,” said, Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard, adding that he did not know if the bodies could be recovered.
