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The leader of the team which found the debris of the missing Titan sub explained the recovery timeline.
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He fought back tears while speaking to the press and said his team was processing “a lot of emotions.”
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Ed Cassano believed the sub was “pushed beyond its depth rate.”
The deep sea expert who led the team which found the remains of the missing Titan submersible became emotional while discussing the rescue operation.
Ed Cassano, the chief executive of Pelagic Research Services, said his team was contacted by OceanGate soon after the submersible lost contact on June 18.
His company sent down a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), which quickly found the submersible remains.
“We were always conscious of the crew of the Titan,” Cassano said in a press conference. “Plain and simple, we were focused on rescue.”
“There’s a lot of emotions, people are tired”
His company’s ROV Odysseus 6K was the only one in the search effort able to reach the depths of the Titanic wreckage.
He said that his team was prepared to rescue the submersible, but it soon became clear that the passengers could not have survived.
“By 12 o’clock, sadly, a rescue turned into a recovery,” Cassano said.
“Shortly after we arrived on the seafloor, we discovered the debris of the Titan submersible,” he said.
Cassano then paused, sighed heavily, and appeared to be holding back tears. He said: “I have to apologize, were are still demobilizing, there’s a lot of emotions, people are tired.”
“Pushed beyond its depth rate”
All five passengers on the Titan, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, were declared dead after the submersible imploded during a June 18 dive to the Titanic shipwreck.
Cassano said he believed the explanation for the disaster was simple — because the sub was “pushed beyond its depth rate.”
The US Coast Guard said on Thursday that presumed human remains had been recovered.
Those on board were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French sub-pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British billionaire Hamish Harding and British father and 19-year-old son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood.
Read the original article on Insider
