The Coast Guard has recovered remaining debris, including presumed human remains, from a submersible that imploded on its way to explore the wreck of the Titanic, killing all five onboard, deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean’s surface, officials said Tuesday.
The Coast Guard said that the recovery and transfer of remaining parts was completed last Wednesday, and a photo showed the intact aft titanium endcap of the 22-foot (6.7-meter) vessel. Additional presumed human remains were carefully recovered from within Titan’s debris and transported for analysis by U.S. medical professionals, the Coast Guard said.
The salvage mission conducted under an agreement with the U.S. Navy was a follow-up to initial recovery operations on the ocean floor roughly 1,600 feet (488 meters) away from the Titanic, the Coast Guard said.
The new materials were offloaded at an unnamed port.
The Coast Guard previously said it recovered presumed human remains along with parts of the Titan after the debris field was located at a depth of 12,500 feet (3,800 meters).
Investigators believe the Titan imploded as it made its descent into deep North Atlantic waters on June 18.
This is typical in forensics. No one cannot make a definitive claim yet until a lab examines everything that’s been recovered. Most likely, that is what’s been found, yes, but confirming it takes time.
It’s also why you may hear a technician say that a sample is “consistent with” something (say, a person) when it is not possible to confirm where it came from.
Until relatively recently, a hair with no root was just about impossible to match to a single person, so that was a common example of that phrasing. Now, in some cases, it’s possible to get DNA from the strand.