Five passengers were aboard the submersible Titan when it imploded: the Pakistani businessman and his son, Shahzada and Suleman Dawood; British businessman Hamish Harding; French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet; and Stockton Rush, the vessel’s pilot and CEO of the vessel’s operator, OceanGate Expeditions.
All five are presumed dead after the submersible’s “catastrophic implosion,” according to the US Coast Guard. But it’s not clear if any remains can be recovered.
On Friday, Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger said, “I don’t have an answer for the outlook at this point” when asked about recovering human remains. He noted the “incredibly unforgiving environment” in the ocean depths near the Titanic wreck and the intense pressure down there.
A medical expert said the implosion was unlikely to leave any salvageable remnants.
“There would be virtually nothing,” Aileen Marty, a disaster medicine specialist at Florida International University, told CNN. “It’s very unlikely that they would find anything human tissue there.”
Tributes for the five crew arrived after the Coast Guard announced they were presumed dead. All five shared “a distinct spirit of adventure,” OceanGate said in a statement.
implosion
An underwater implosion refers to the sudden internal collapse of the vessel, which would be under immense pressure at the depths to which it was plunging.
It’s not clear where or how deep the Titan was when the implosion occurred, but the Titanic wreckage is almost 4,000 meters below sea level. The submersible was at about 1 hour and 45 minutes into the approximately two hour descent when she lost contact.
At the depth where the Titanic rests, there’s about several hundred times the pressure we experience at the surface, according to Rick Murcar, director of international training for the National Cave Diving Association.
A catastrophic implosion is “incredibly fast,” occurring in just a fraction of a millisecond, said Aileen Maria Marty, a former Navy officer and professor at Florida International University.
“The whole thing would have fallen apart before the people inside realized there was a problem,” she told CNN. “Ultimately, among the many ways we can go through, this is painless.”
Experts say the bodies are unlikely to be recovered.
Source: CNN Brasil
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