Missing Titanic submersible
Mangled debris recovered from the small submersible that was destroyed when it imploded during a recent dive to the Titanic wreck was offloaded Wednesday in eastern Canada, bringing to an end a difficult search-and-recovery operation.
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.
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 search-and-recovery operation has wrapped up.
"We've finished our offshore (actions) and are basically demobilizing now and getting the team back to their loved ones and we're going to get our assets back to our operations base in New York," company spokesman Jeff Mahoney told AFP.
He said the search and recovery had been "an extremely risky operation." — AFP
Canadian authorities on Saturday began a probe into the implosion of the Titan submersible, whose disappearance near the wreckage of the Titanic with five men aboard had set off a multinational search-and-rescue operation.
"Our mandate is to find out what happened and why and to find out what needs to change to reduce the chance or the risk of such occurrences in the future," said Transportation Safety Board (TSB) chair Kathy Fox.
"We know everybody wants answers, particularly the families and the public," she told reporters in St. John's, Newfoundland.
Th full probe could take between 18 months to two years. — AFP
The family of British businessman Hamish Harding, one of five passengers who died on board a submersible visiting the wreck of the Titanic, has paid tribute on Thursday to a "passionate explorer".
All five people on the vessel died after it suffered what the US Coast Guard said was a "catastrophic implosion" in the ocean depths, ending a multinational search-and-rescue operation that began when the tiny craft went missing in the North Atlantic four days ago.
Passenger Harding, 58, was a British aviation tycoon with three Guinness World Records.
A statement from his family and his company Action Aviation said they were "united in grief with the other families who have also lost their loved ones on the Titan submersible".
"He was one of a kind and we adored him," the statement said. — AFP
The US Coast Guard confirmed early Wednesday that rescue teams looking for the missing Titanic submersible detected "underwater noises" in the search area where the craft went missing two days earlier.
"Canadian P-3 aircraft detected underwater noises in the search area. As a result, ROV (remotely operated vehicle) operations were relocated in an attempt to explore the origin of the noises," the US Coast Guard's First District said on its official Twitter page.
The ROV searches "have yielded negative results but continue," the maritime military branch added.
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