OceanGate Expeditions has confirmed that all five passengers on board the Titan have died.
“We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost,” a spokesperson told the BBC.
“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans.
“Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time.”
The US Coast Guard's Press Briefing
"On behalf of the US Coast Guard and the entire unified command, I offer my deepest condolences to the families," Rear Admiral John Mauger says.
"I can only imagine what this has been like for them," he adds.
The officials said five major pieces were detected amid the debris around the Titanic site.
Among them, a nose cone, outside the pressure hull, and a larger debris field.
Whether the US Coast Guard will be able to recover the bodies of the five passengers on board, the Titan sub is still not confirmed yet.
"This is an incredibly unforgiving environment," says Admiral Mauger.
Rescue efforts for locating a Titanic tourist submarine carrying five passengers to the Titanic wreckage site are expanding "exponentially" as underwater noises were detected, the First Coast Guard District response coordinator Capt. Jamie Frederick said in a news conference on Wednesday.
Fredrick confirmed that more ships and underwater vessels were deployed for the search, and an expert submariner from the British Royal Navy along with a team of French specialists on remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).
When Did The Incident Happen?
A Titanic-bound tourist submarine had disappeared in the North Atlantic on Sunday morning, 18 June. Initially, it was reported that it may have as little as only 40 hours of life support left.
The submarine exploring the shipwreck had five people on board, which included one pilot and four “mission specialists." British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding and renowned French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet are feared to be on board the missing Titanic tourist submarine, as reported by the Independent.
The leader of search and rescue efforts told The Times that the submarine, which is a 21-foot vessel, has four days of emergency capability.
American and Canadian crews and coast guards continued scouring the ocean's surface around 900 miles east of Cape Cod. They used sonar to pick up sounds far below the water, up to 13,000 feet deep in that area.
OceanGate Expeditions, a private company that provides tours for the Titanic wreckage site, confirmed that their submarine with crew members aboard about 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland had gone missing.
In its statement, the company assured that "all options" are being explored to bring the crew to safety.
Tim Maltin, an author, historian and TV presenter said the tourists were in a tough situation.
Mr Maltin said on BBC Breakfast: “If it’s near the Titanic it would be easier to find, but the problem is of course you can’t do a ship-to-ship transfer even, the pressure is absolutely intense.
“It’s nearly two miles miles down, it’s pitch black.
“So I also am very, very worried about the souls who are on board.”
The infamous sinking of the Titanic into the Atlantic occurred in 1912 during its maiden voyage after hitting an iceberg. It is reported that around 1,500 died during the wreckage, which was discovered in 1985.
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