Titanic tourist sub was not found intact after 55 hours
Titanic tourist sub was not found intact after 55 hours
(Reuters) - The Titan submersible was destroyed in a “catastrophic implosion” and all five people aboard the vessel have been confirmed dead, contrary to online claims and images suggesting that the sub was found in one piece with the crew still alive.
Two photographs circulating with the claims predate the sub’s disappearance.
The sub, belonging to the private company OceanGate Expeditions, was considered missing after it lost contact with its surface support ship while on a planned two-hour dive to the Titanic’s shipwreck on June 18.
Fragments of the deep-water vehicle were found scattered on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean on June 22, which the US Coast Guard said was evidence of a “catastrophic implosion” of the vessel’s pressure chamber.
While search and rescue efforts were still ongoing, social media users shared old images of the sub alongside false claims that it had been found 55 hours after it went missing and that all passengers were alive and in need of medical attention.
The photos offered as evidence, however, were online before the sub disappeared.
The first photo appears in a June 18 Instagram post by Action Aviation, an organization chaired by Hamish Harding, a British billionaire who was among those on the vessel.
The second photo was shared on the same day in a Facebook post by Harding himself, while announcing his involvement in the expedition as a “mission specialist”.
The debris field with pieces of wreckage corresponding to the missing sub was found more than 100 hours after the vessel first stopped communicating.
Ahead of the Coast Guard's confirmation, OceanGate Expeditions issued a statement saying that the crew on board the Titan had “sadly been lost”.
VERDICT
False. The Titan submersible was not found intact after it went missing on June 18. The vessel is believed to have imploded and there were no survivors.
