DNA tests being carried out on human remains recovered from wreck of Titan submersible
26 July 2023, 10:15 | Updated: 26 July 2023, 13:48
Investigators are carrying out DNA tests on human remains found among the wreckage of the Titan submersible.
Searchers in the North Atlantic Ocean were able to recover large pieces of OceanGate's submersible, which imploded during a dive to the Titanic on June 18.
In a statement US coastguard said: "United States medical professionals are conducting a formal DNA analysis of presumed human remains that have been carefully recovered from within the wreckage at the site of the incident."
Read More: OceanGate's Stockton Rush said 'obscenely safe' sub design never evolved due to regulation
Read More: Stockton Rush's OceanGate company behind doomed Titanic descent scrubs itself from the Internet
The remains could belong to one or more of five people — OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British explorer Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman and philanthropist Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son Suleman Dawood, and French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
All five would have been killed instantly when the submersible succumbed to the massive pressure of the ocean at such great depths.
Following the incident, it emerged that safety concerns were raised multiple times before, with several people including Ross Kemp and YouTuber Mr Beast having dropped out of doing similar trips.
As the Titanic wreckage is in international waters and the OceanGate expeditions were not operating out of a port, the trips were not subject to safety regulations.
Social media accounts and website for OceanGate has now disappeared, and the company has instead simply left a holding statement saying it has suspended its operations.
The website now says: "OceanGate has suspended all exploration and commercial operations" in white font on a black background.
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram pages for the company have all either been deleted or set to private.
