Human remains believed to be found in shattered Titan sub wreckage in Canada

OTTAWA - Debris and presumed human remains were recovered from within the shattered hulk of

the Titan submersible that imploded

while on a voyage to the wreck of the Titanic last week, the US Coast Guard said on Wednesday night.

The shattered remnants of the Titan, destroyed while diving to the century-old wreck of the Titanic, and what were believed to be human remains were carried to the port in St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, more than 600km north of the accident site, by the Canadian-flagged vessel Horizon Arctic, according to the Coast Guard.

The evidence will be transported by a Coast Guard cutter to a US port for analysis and testing by a marine board of investigation convened this week to conduct a formal inquiry into the loss of the Titan, the agency said.

Medical professionals in the United States “will conduct a formal analysis of presumed human remains that have been carefully recovered within the wreckage at the site of the incident”, its statement added.

The nature and scope of the remains were not specified.

Video footage from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp showed what appeared to be the nose of the submersible and other shattered fragments wrapped in white tarp being pulled up by a crane from the deck of the Horizon Arctic on Wednesday morning.

Footage also showed a shattered piece of the Titan’s hull and machinery with dangling wires being taken off the ship at St John’s, where the expedition to the Titanic had begun.

The debris is expected to shed more light on the cause of the catastrophic implosion that killed all five people on board – OceanGate Expeditions chief executive Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani-born businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son Suleman, and French oceanographer Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

The deep-sea submersible operated by OceanGate was discovered in pieces on the seabed some 488m from the bow of the Titanic by a robotic diving vehicle last week, ending a multinational five-day search for survivors.

“Our team has successfully completed offshore operations but is still on mission and will be in the process of demobilisation from the Horizon Arctic this morning,” Pelagic Research Services, which operates the robotic vehicle, said in a statement.

It declined to comment further, citing confidentiality reasons.

Canada’s Transportation Safety Board, conducting its own inquiry, said its investigators had completed preliminary interviews with the crew of Titan’s Canadian-flagged surface support vessel, Polar Prince, and seized that ship’s voyage data recorder. 

The board also said it had “inspected, documented and catalogued” all the materials recovered from the accident site before they were turned over to the US authorities.

The accident has raised questions about the unregulated nature of such expeditions and the decision by OceanGate to forego third-party industry review and certification of Titan’s novel design. REUTERS