The wreckage of the Titan submersible was seen on shore Wednesday, ten days after the craft suffered a catastrophic implosion, killing all five people aboard.
Multiple large pieces of the submersible were lifted by crane from the recovery ship which carried them back to dry land in Canada. The pieces included the nose cone as well as various electronics.
The Pelagic Research Services organization, whose ship Horizon Arctic retrieved the debris, missed a statement to the media saying: "Our team has successfully completed off-shore operations, but is still on mission and will be in the process of demobilization from the Horizon Arctic this morning."
"They have been working around the clock now for ten days, through the physical and mental challenges of this operation, and are anxious to finish the mission and return to their loved ones."
The Titan went missing on Sunday, June 18, while on its way to the wreckage of the HMS Titanic, 12,500 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. A multi-day search ended on Thursday when a debris field consistent with the submersible was discovered several hundred feet from the Titanic's final resting place, confirming that the craft had suffered an implosion had occurred on Sunday.
OceanGate Expeditions, the company that owned and operated the submersible, said in a statement that all five people in the vessel, including company CEO and founder Stockton Rush, “have sadly been lost.”
The others on board were two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
OceanGate and Rush have been accused of ignoring safety concerns over the quality of their submersible, which was made of a carbon fiber and titanium allow. Experts had warned that carbon fiber had not been properly tested for the intense water pressure all craft encounter at depths of 12,500 feet, which is 400 times greater than the pressure on the ocean surface.
The US Coast Guard and Canadian authorities are investigating the cause of the deadly accident.