“Probable human remains” have been found among the wreckage of a missing tourist submarine with five people on board in the North Atlantic, near the sunken Titanic, the US Coast Guard said in a statement on Wednesday, AFP and Agerpres reported.

Those remains, “carefully collected from the wreckage at the crash site,” as well as the wreckage of the submersible, will be analyzed, which should provide “crucial elements to understand the cause of this tragedy,” said Capt. Jason Neubauer. , who is conducting a Coast Guard investigation into the tragedy.

The Titan, a small submersible about 6.5 meters long and operated by a private company, went down on June 18 to survey the wreckage of the Titanic and was due to surface seven hours later, but communication was lost less than two hours after departure.

A massive rescue operation was subsequently launched to try and save the occupants of the mini-sub, which was believed to have about four days of air reserves, only to eventually discover that the sub, shortly after sinking, had been hit by a “catastrophic explosion”, killing it instantly five men on board.

Remains of the underwater vehicle, pulled from the bottom of the ocean

The remains of the underwater vehicle, discovered on the ocean floor 488 meters from the wreckage of the Titanic, at a depth of about 4 kilometers below the water level, were brought ashore on Wednesday, on St. John’s, which is in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

They will be taken by a US Coast Guard ship to a US port where investigators can analyze them.

Canadian media showed what appeared to be the bow of the submersible, as well as other fragments.

The head of Pelagic Research Services, which deployed a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) to scan the Atlantic floor, has confirmed it has stopped working.

The mission at sea is accomplished

“We have completed our offshore portion,” company spokesman Jeff Mahoney told AFP.

“This was an extremely risky operation for both the ROV and the team, who worked around the clock with virtually no sleep throughout the operation,” he continued, confirming that all teams are now returning to the United States.

Capt. Jason Neubauer applauded the international and interagency efforts to “recover and preserve this important evidence far from shore and at great depth,” according to a statement from the US Coast Guard.

Surveys in the USA and Canada

Several investigations have been launched in Canada and the United States to determine the cause of the submarine explosion.

After the disappearance of the minisubmarine, criticism related to the possible negligence of the company Oceangate Expeditions in its design became more frequent. A former company official expressed serious doubts about the safety of the device, whose single porthole was not designed to withstand such a depth.

“Much work remains to understand the factors that led to the catastrophic loss of the Titan and to ensure that such a tragedy does not happen again,” Capt. Neubauer concluded Wednesday.

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