Following the tragic news that the voyage of the OceanGate Titan submersible ended in a "catastrophic implosion", many questions surrounding the tragedy are being asked by experts, loved ones, and the public.
On Sunday, it was reported that a small submersible carrying give passengers had gone missing after failing to send signals back to its launch ship, the Polar Prince.
The doomed passengers of the sub were on a mission to explore the Atlantic seabed 12,500 feet below the surface, aiming to get an up-close view of the Titanic's wreckage.
The victims of this ill-fated underwater adventure were OceanGate CEO and co-founder Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, French diving expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and the father-son duo of Shahzada and Suleman Dawood.
According to reports by the Wall Street Journal and CNN, a classified US Navy team had detected the implosion of the Titan on Sunday - shortly after it had departed for the Atlantic's depths.
This revelation has suggested that the days-long international rescue mission was unfortunately futile from the onset. However, further clarity has now been reported as to why the international rescue efforts continued.
As reported by the New York Post, although the Navy's acoustic system picked up an "anomaly" suggestive of an explosion or implosion near the sub's last known location, the information was "not definitive".
A US Navy official has revealed that the intelligence was promptly shared with the command post. But the indeterminate nature of the evidence sparked a decision to continue the search and rescue efforts, in hopes of "making every effort to save the lives on board".
Over the next few days, the world watched on, as a glimmer of hope appeared in the form of internal emails released on Tuesday. Canadian maritime surveillance reported hearing a mysterious "banging" noise every 30 minutes, raising hope that the crew might still be alive.
The search operation escalated on Wednesday as three ships—John Cabot, Skandi Vinland, and Atlantic Merlin—joined the mission, along with a French ship equipped with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV).
The rescue mission's desperation and drama captured global attention, peaking on Thursday when it was projected that the crew's air supply would expire at 7:08AM ET (12:08PM UK time). Yet, the discovery of the sub's debris at the bottom of the ocean confirmed the worst fears - a "catastrophic implosion" had ended the Titan's journey, and the lives of its passengers, on that fateful Sunday.
The remnants of the Titan were located merely 1,600 feet from the final resting place of the RMS Titanic.
Renowned Titanic director and deep-sea explorer, James Cameron, expressed his belief that the simultaneous loss of communication and tracking from the Titan signaled a tragic end for its passengers.
The 68-year-old filmmaker - who has embarked on 33 deep-sea explorations himself - criticized the rescue effort as a "nightmarish charade."
In a candid interview with CNN, Cameron lambasted the delay in sharing information about the noise detected at the time the sub disappeared. He argued that this had led to a prolonged, futile search that only served to give "false hope" to the families of the victims.
The famed director expressed his sorrow, saying: "Then I watched over the ensuing days this everybody running round with their hair on fire search knowing full well that it was futile. Hoping against hope I was wrong but knowing in my bones that I wasn't. It certainly wasn't a surprise today,
"I just feel terrible for the families that had to go through all these false hopes that kept getting dangled as it played out."
Our thoughts continue to go out to anybody affected by this tragedy.
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