Titanic sub crew’s final moments revealed as OceanGate promo video emerges

Edward Cassano, Pelagic Research Services CEO, held back tears as he described the moment the Titan submersible search and rescue turned “into a recovery.”

Just hours after arriving, Pelagic Research Services found debris from the imploded sub and relayed the information to the victim’s families.

Mr Cassano was speaking to press at the conclusion of the search, when he said: “We have to apologise – there are a lot of emotions, and people are tired.”

It comes after the US Coast Guard said “presumed human remains” have been discovered within the wreckage of the Titan submersible

Stockton Rush, 61, chief executive of OceanGate Expeditions, told Sky News earlier this year the Titanic was “an amazingly beautiful wreck”.

His company, which provides crewed submersible services for researchers and explorers to travel deep into the ocean, operated the doomed Titan submersible.

Mr Rush began his career as a pilot at 19 after qualifying from the United Airlines Jet Training Institute. He was the youngest jet transport-rated pilot in the world.

According to Mr Rush’s biography on his company’s website, he graduated from Princeton University with a BSE in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical engineering in 1984.

He then joined the McDonnell Douglas Corporation as a flight test engineer, and spent two years at Edwards Air Force Base.

He served on the Museum of Flight’s Board of Trustees, the board of enterprise software company Entomo and as chairman of Remote Control Technology.

In 2012, Mr Rush also founded the non-profit OceanGate Foundation while sitting on the board of BlueView Technologies, a manufacturer of high-frequency sonar systems.

OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush dismissed concerns about a “really loud bang” during a previous dive on the doomed Titan submersible.

The Independent’s Bevan Hurley reports:

Edward Cassano, the CEO of Pelagic Research Services, asked people to “Recognise the seriousness of the event and respect the death” of the victims of the Titan submersible incident and their families.

Mr Cassano swallowed back tears while giving a press conference on Friday regarding the recovery of the imploded submersible.

“Recognise the seriousness of the event and respect the death and range of emotions, certainly most important the friends and family of the Titan, and all of those in the response,” Mr Cassano said.

The teenager who died on the Titan submersible took a Rubik’s cube with him because he wanted to break a world record, his mother has said.

Christine Dawood told the BBC her son Suleman, 19, was “so excited” to try and solve the puzzle 3,700 metres below the ocean surface.

Meanwhile, his father Shahzada, a businessman, was “so excited he was like a child” at the prospect of seeing the Titanic wreckage.

He had applied to Guinness World Records and his father, who also died, had brought a camera with him to capture the moment.

Ms Dawood said her son loved the famous square puzzle so much that he carried it with him everywhere and dazzled onlookers by solving it in 12 just seconds.

Voice recordings and other data will be reviewed as part of a US Coast Guard-appointed expert board’s probe into the catastrophic implosion of the Titan submersible last week.

US Coast Guard Captain Jason Neubauer, who is chairing the investigation, said during a press conference on Sunday that he has summoned a Marine Board of Investigation, the highest level of investigation conducted by the Coast Guard. The board’s role is to determine the cause of the tragedy in order to pursue civil or criminal sanctions as necessary.

Voice recordings between the Titan and its mothership Polar Prince will be reviewed by investigators. The mothership’s crew is also being interviewed by different agencies.

Investigators with the Coast Guard have mapped the accident site and salvage operations are expected to continue, Cpt Jason Neubauer said. Once the investigation is wrapped — a timeline has not been laid out — a report with evidence, conclusions and recommendations will be released.

Since the Titan submersible imploded, killing five people aboard, the subject of extreme tourism has been highly debated online and by professionals.

But when the CEO of Pelagic Research Services, the company that helped oversee the recovery mission of the submersible, was asked what his thoughts were on the trips OceanGate took to the Titanic, he claimed he did not have a strong opinion.

“I don’t necessarily have an opinion on that, it’s a strong investigation going on right now,” Edward Cassano said in a press conference on Friday.

The Independent’s Ariana Baio reports:

A friend of late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush warned him against taking customers aboard the company’s Titan submersible four years before it tragically imploded in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, was director of underwater research at a company that owns the rights to the Titanic wreck and recovers artifacts.

A former commander in the French navy, he was both a deep diver and a mine-sweeper. After retiring from the navy, he led the first recovery expedition to the Titanic in 1987 and several more, becoming a leading authority on the wreck site.

OceanGate described Mr Nargeolet as the “Titanic’s greatest explorer”.

The former naval officer was born in Chamonix, France, but spent his early years in Africa with his parents. He was married to American newsreader Michelle Marsh until she died in 2017.

He completed 35 dives in the submersible. In a 2020 interview, he spoke of the dangers of deep diving, saying: “I am not afraid to die, I think it will happen one day.”