EXPERTS have recovered “presumed human remains” from the remains of the Titan sub that imploded during a dive to the Titanic wreck, the US Coast Guard said yesterday.

“United States medical professionals will conduct a formal analysis of presumed human remains that have been carefully recovered,” the agency said in a statement after parts of the wreckage were unloaded in eastern Canada.

On board were British explorer Hamish Harding, French submarine expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani-British tycoon Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, and Stockton Rush, CEO of the sub’s operator OceanGate Expeditions.

They presumably died instantly when the Titan sub, about the size of a sports utility vehicle, imploded under the crushing pressure of the North Atlantic at a depth of more than 3km.

Mangled debris recovered from the small submersible was offloaded earlier in the day in eastern Canada, bringing to an end a difficult search and recovery.

That debris will now be taken aboard a US Coast Guard cutter to a US port for further analysis, the organisation said.

“There is still a substantial amount of work to be done to understand the factors that led to the catastrophic loss of the Titan and help ensure a similar tragedy does not occur again,” said the leader of the US probe into the tragedy, Captain Jason Neubauer.

Television images showed what appeared to be the Titan sub’s nose cone and a side panel with electronics and wires hanging out being hoisted from a ship onto a flatbed truck at a Canadian Coast Guard terminal in St John’s, Newfoundland. 

Pelagic Research, the New York company that owns the Odysseus remote-operated vehicle used in the search for the ill-fated submersible, said its offshore operation has wrapped up.

Canadian officials declined to comment on the recovery of the sub debris.

Titan was reported missing on June 18 and the US Coast Guard said last Thursday that all five people aboard the submersible had died after the vessel suffered a catastrophic implosion.

A debris field was found on the seafloor, 500m from the bow of the Titanic, which sits nearly 4km below the ocean’s surface and 643.74km off the coast of Newfoundland.

The announcement of the implosion ended a multinational search and rescue that captured the world’s attention since the tourist craft went missing.

The Coast Guard has launched its highest level of probe, called a Marine Board of Investigation, into this accident. – AFP, June 29, 2023.