Additional “presumed human remains” and the final pieces of the doomed Titan submersible were plucked from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean last week, officials announced Tuesday.
Marine safety engineers for the US Coast Guard [USCG] recovered several parts of the wreckage, including the 22-foot vessel’s intact titanium endcap, from the ocean floor Wednesday.
The artifacts were located roughly 1,600 feet from the Titanic, the submersible’s destination when it imploded in June, killing all five passengers on board, the New York Post reported.
“Additional presumed human remains were carefully recovered from within Titan’s debris and transported for analysis by US medical professionals,” USCG said in a statement.
The salvage mission was the second, and likely final, to the watery grave. Previously other human remains and pieces of the Titan were recovered ten days after it imploded on June 18.
Officials will investigate the debris and other evidence recovered from the previous recovery mission ahead of an anticipated public hearing on the tragedy.
Investigators believe the Titan imploded just one hour and 45 minutes into its dive to the wreck of the Titanic — as it reached a depth of around 12,000ft under the sea.
The five victims were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, prominent Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son, Sulaiman Dawood.
Harding, Dawood and his son had paid up to $250,000 each per ticket to see the infamous wreck on the trip.
Before the site of the wreck was discovered a frantic international search effort was mounted for the missing sub, with rescuers racing against time to get to the sub before it ran out of oxygen.
Rush, who was piloting the Titan, has since faced scrutiny for seemingly ignoring major safety concerns on previous deep-sea voyages.
The Titan’s carbon-fibre hull has also come under criticism for not being resilient enough to undergo numerous dives, as the Titan had. OceanGate has since gone out of business.
This story first appeared in the New York Post and has been reproduced with permission.