Experts say it is unlikely any bodies will be recovered but the US Coast Guard said it will continue the search in an effort to recover what it can.
Besides searching for the passengers, authorities will also continue to search the sea floor in hopes of discovering more information about what led to the implosion.
It will take time to put together a specific timeline of events, the US Coast Guard said Thursday, calling the underwater environment “incredibly complex.”
So far, they have located the Titan’s nose cone and one end of its pressure hulls in a large debris field, and the other end of the pressure hull in a second, smaller debris field.
“What they would do now is go back to that site and, like cookie crumbs, try to find a trail as to where that would lead,” said Tom Maddox, CEO of Underwater Forensic Investigators, who took part in a Titanic expedition in 2005.
He added that the debris pieces could still be “slightly buoyant” and be carried further away by ocean currents. “So the big project right now is going to be trying to collect those parts,” he said. “They’ll mark them, they’ll indicate where they were, and they’ll lay out a map of where those parts were found.”
- Catastrophic implosion: The Titanic-bound submersible that went missing Sunday suffered a «catastrophic implosion,» killing all five people on board, US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said Thursday. A remotely operated vehicle found the tail cone of the Titan about 1,600 feet from the bow of the shipwreck, he said.
- Who was on board: Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, and Stockton Rush, the CEO of the tour organizer, OceanGate Expeditions, died in the craft.
