The company OceanGate, which owns the Titan submarine, announced on Thursday that it believes that all five passengers of the submarine heading for the Titanic were “unfortunately lost”.

The wreckage was located at 3:55 pm (Greece time) on the bottom of the Atlantic, about 500 meters away from the bow of the Titanic wreck.

The company’s announcement in detail

“We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dagud and his son Suleman Dagud, Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Narzolet, are sadly missing.

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 go out to these five souls and each member of their families at this tragic time. We are sorry for the loss of life and the joy they brought to all who knew them.

This is an extremely sad time for our dedicated employees who are exhausted and deeply grieve this loss. The entire OceanGate family is deeply grateful for the countless men and women from many organizations in the international community who have stepped up a wide range of resources and worked so hard on this mission.

We appreciate their commitment to finding these five explorers and their days and nights of tireless work in support of our crew and their families.

This is a very sad time for the entire explorer community and for each of the family members of those lost at sea.

We respectfully ask that the privacy of these families be respected during this most painful time.”

Titan’s critical parts found are the landing gear, the rear cover of the submarine and the porthole.

Photo of parts believed to have been found:

“Internal Collapse of the Submarine”

On his part, Guillermo Schohnlein, the man who co-founded OceanGate with Stockton Rush, who was aboard the Titan sub, told BBC News that there may have been an “instantaneous internal collapse” of the vessel.

“What I know is regardless of the submarine, when you operate at depth the pressure is so great in any submarine, which if damaged would be an instantaneous internal collapse. If that happened, it would have happened four days ago,” he explained.

Sochlein, who left OceanGate 10 years ago, made it clear that he would not have acted differently under the circumstances.

“Tragic Loss”

The company Pelagic Research Services confirmed that the wreckage announced earlier by the US Coast Guard was spotted by its own underwater robotic vessel. In a statement on Twitter, the company says: “PRS would like to express our utmost gratitude for the incredible, coordinated rescue response of everyone involved in this search and rescue mission. Our focus right now is on the families of those on Titan and their tragic loss.”

The chronicle of the tragic accident

The 6.7m Titan, owned by the US-based company OceanGate Expeditions, began its dive towards the Titanic wreck at 08:00 on Sunday morning (local time, 15:00 Greek time). He lost contact with the support ship after about an hour and 45 minutes, shortly before reaching the famous wreck in a remote area of ​​the North Atlantic.

The five aboard the deep vessel were: 61-year-old American founder of OceanGate Stockton Rush, 77-year-old French oceanographer Paul-Henri Narzolet, 59-year-old British billionaire Hamish Harding, 48-year-old Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman.