Debris from Titan submersible returned to land; investigation still underway

Debris from the lost submersible Titan that went on a deep-sea expedition to witness the wreckage of the Titanic has been returned in St John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Last week, the US Coast Guard announced that the Titan submersible had suffered an implosion and all the five passengers on board died as a result of it.

Twisted chunks of the 22-foot submersible came ashore at a Canadian Coast Guard pier on Wednesday.

Horizon Arctic, a Canadian ship, carried a remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, to search the ocean floor near the Titanic wreck for pieces of the submersible. Pelagic Research Services, a company with offices in Massachusetts and New York that owns the ROV, said in a statement on Wednesday that it has completed offshore operations.

The research company said that its team is “still on a mission.” It, however, declined to comment any further on the ongoing Titan investigation, which involves several government agencies in the US and Canada.

“They have been working around the clock now for ten days, through the physical and mental challenges of this operation, and are anxious to finish the mission and return to their loved ones,” the company’s statement said.

Titan’s debris was located 12,500 feet (3,810 meters) underwater and roughly 1,600 feet (488 meters) from the Titanic on the ocean floor, the Coast Guard said last week. Currently, it is investigating what caused the implosion during its descent on June 18.

One of the experts the Coast Guard consulted with during the search said analyzing the physical material of recovered debris could reveal important clues about what happened to the Titan. And there could be electronic data, said Carl Hartsfield of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

“Certainly all the instruments on any deep sea vehicle, they record data. They pass up data. So the question is, is there any data available? And I really don’t know the answer to that question,” he said Monday.

The National Transportation Safety Board has said the Coast Guard has declared the loss of the Titan submersible to be a “major marine casualty” and the Coast Guard will lead the investigation.

With inputs from The Associated Press

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