The U.S. Coast Guard said Sunday it is leading an investigation into the crash of the Titanic submersible carrying five people on board the Titanic to determine what caused it to explode.
Lead investigator Capt. Jason Neubauer said the salvage operation was ongoing and they had mapped the accident scene. He did not give a timetable for the investigation. Neubauer said the convening of the Maritime Board of Inquiry is the highest-level investigation the U.S. Coast Guard has ever conducted.
Neubauer added that investigators are working closely with other national and international investigative agencies, including the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, Canada’s Transport Safety Board, France’s Maritime Casualties Investigation Committee and the U.K.’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch. Evidence is being gathered in Port St. Johns, Newfoundland, in coordination with Canadian authorities.
The Coast Guard Board may make necessary recommendations to prosecutors seeking civil or criminal sanctions.
The U.S. Navy said Sunday it would not use the large salvage equipment deployed to salvage the Titan submersible.
The Flyaway deep sea salvage system has the capability to bring an intact Titan back to the surface. The U.S. Coast Guard announced on Thursday that it had found the wreckage of the submersible about 1,600 feet (488 meters) from the Titanic in North Atlantic waters.
The Titanic submersible imploded while visiting the wreck of the Titanic, killing all five people on board. The debris lies about 12,500 feet (3,810 meters) underwater.
The Navy uses ocean salvage systems only if the debris is large enough to require the use of specialized equipment.
“Efforts to mobilize equipment such as the Flyaway deep sea salvage system have been halted,” a Navy official told The Associated Press.
The U.S. Navy describes the Flyaway deep sea salvage system as a “portable ship lift system designed to provide up to 60,000 lbs of reliable deep sea lift capacity for salvaging large, bulky and heavy sunken objects such as aircraft or small vessels.”
Titan weighed 20,000 pounds (9,071 kilograms).
The Navy will continue to support the U.S. Coast Guard as the operation continues.
On Saturday, Canada’s Transportation Safety Board said it had opened an investigation into the submersible’s disappearance and had been speaking to passengers aboard the Titanic mothership Polar Prince.
Authorities in the United States and Canada have begun investigating the cause of the underwater implosion and are grappling with who is responsible for determining how the tragedy occurred.
“We are conducting a safety investigation in Canada because this was a Canadian-flagged vessel that sailed from a Canadian port and was involved in this incident, albeit in international waters,” said Transportation Board Chair Kathy Fox. “Other agencies. An investigation may be chosen.”
On June 16, the Polar Prince towed the ill-fated Titan out of Newfoundland. There were 41 people on board, including 17 crew members and 24 others, including Titan’s team of five.
Fox said the TSB will share the information it collects with other agencies, including the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the U.S. Coast Guard, within the limits of Canadian law. She said the recordings and witness statements are protected under Canadian law.
“We don’t want to duplicate work. We want to collaborate,” she said.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police also announced Saturday that they are studying the circumstances leading up to Titan’s death to determine whether a full investigation is warranted. Officials said a full investigation would only be conducted if there was a potential violation of criminal, federal or provincial law.
The Coast Guard led the initial search and rescue mission, a massive international effort that could cost millions of dollars.
OceanGate Expeditions, the company that owns and operates the Titan, is based in the United States, but the submersible is registered in the Bahamas. OceanGate was based in Everett, Washington, but shut down after the Titan was discovered.Meanwhile, the Titan’s mother ship, the Polar Prince, was from Canada, with victims from Britain, Pakistan, France and the United States
The deep sea survey is expected to be long and arduous. How the overall investigation will be conducted is complicated by poor regulation in the deep sea exploration sector.
A key part of any investigation could be the Titans themselves. The Titan is not registered as a U.S. vessel, nor is it registered with a safety-regulating international body. Nor is it classified by the maritime industry organization that sets standards for things like hull construction.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who was piloting the Titan when it exploded, complained that regulations could stifle progress.
One issue that appears to be at least partially resolved is when implosion might occur. After the Titan was reported missing, the Navy returned and analyzed its acoustic data and found an “anomaly” on Sunday that was related to an implosion near where the ship was operating when communications were lost, a senior U.S. official said Or explode in unison. naval officer.
The Navy passed the information on to the Coast Guard, which continued the search because the data was not considered conclusive, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Launched at 8 a.m. that day, Titan was reportedly overdue that afternoon, about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. Johns, Newfoundland. Rescuers rushed boats, planes and other equipment to the area.
Any hope of finding the crew alive was dashed early Thursday when the Coast Guard announced that it had found wreckage near the Titanic.
Rush was killed in the implosion. Two members of a prominent Pakistani family: Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and the Titanic Expert Paul-Henri Nargoulet.
A former company employee and former passenger have both raised questions about the submersible’s safety.