The legend of the Titanic, which sank in 1912 and claimed the lives of 1,500 people, continues to cause fascination and death.
The mystery that has caused a great international mobilization for the rescue is over. Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard, based in Boston, announced at a press conference that the five crew members of the Titan were killed by "a catastrophic implosion of the ship" that caused the loss of pressure in the room
A robot, which reached the depths this Thursday, found five pieces of the submersible about 500 meters from the mythical remains, which are 3,800 meters deep.
When asked about the bodies, Mauger replied that they have to continue scanning the ocean floor with remote teams. He implied that they have not been found and that they may never appear.
According to his calculations, the collapse of the ship could have occurred in the first moments when communication with the supply ship, the Polar Prince, was lost on Sunday. of "buoys in the area and have not detected any catastrophic event".
These buoys were deposited on the same Sunday, after a few hours of the Titan's disappearance.
"The implosion - he insisted - would have generated a significant broadband sound that would have been captured".
His comment has a very clear meaning directed at family and friends. The message is that the five occupants did not suffer in their deaths and were spared all the suffering they would have experienced if they had died after several days locked up without oxygen and at very low temperatures.
Yesterday was the critical day of the rescue of the five crew members of the Titan. This had ceased to be a race against the clock and was already a sprint against destiny. The urgency was absolute due to the calculations that the 96-hour oxygen tank had run out. However, most voices cried out to maintain hope and appeased the pessimists who described gloomy scenes.
But the Coast Guard released a mid-morning tweet that changed the entire narrative. Pieces had been found near the wreckage, about 643 kilometers from the Canadian coast of Newfoundland and 1,440 km from Cape Code (Massachusetts). It was the worst ad. The much-appealed miracle did not occur.
After a short while it was confirmed that the pieces were parts of the Titan. Soon after, OceanGate, the company that owns the Titan and organizes the excursion, issued a statement in which they declared Stockton Rush, its director and pilot, and the four tourists, millionaires Hamish Harling and Shahzada Dawood, dead. his son Suleman (19 years old) and the French adventurer Paul-Henry Nargeolet.
This day had been reached with the machinery at its maximum. There were nine ships in the area, all concentrated there based on the alleged "noises" picked up on Tuesday night and Wednesday. Mauge acknowledged yesterday that the sounds had nothing to do with the story of millionaires that has captured global attention, while the hundreds of drowned people in Greece, people fleeing poverty and political persecution, are being forgotten.
In some media there has been speculation about an alleged slowness in the arrival of the rescue boats. Mauger countered that getting to the point takes time and that the situation was very complex. In his opinion, the collaboration has been spectacular and, as things seem to have unfolded, nothing would have changed.
In addition to the robot that located the scattered pieces of the submarine, one that moved the Atalante, the French ship, had also gone down to the depths. In addition, the British Government sent a submarine there. Mauger pointed out that demobilization will begin in 24 hours, but the robots will remain.
As Mauger emphasized, questions remain to be answered: the why, the how, the when. But once the epic ends, the vulgar begins. The Titan was not just an experimental vehicle, but a shell built from parts bought from Amazon, lacking safety. "These are things for the regulator - said Mauger - now we have to document the scene".
