The U.S. Navy detected what it suspected may have been an implosion within hours of the Titan submersible descending into the ocean to visit the Titanic wreckage.
A U.S. defense official said the Navy began listening for the Titan immediately after the vessel lost communication with the mother ship, approximately an hour and 45 minutes into its mission Sunday morning.
This file image provided by OceanGate shows the Titan submersible being launched from a platform. (OceanGate Expeditions)
The official said the Navy’s top secret acoustic detection system picked sounds that were consistent with either an explosion or an implosion near where the Titan was found on Thursday.
The Navy passed on that information to the Coast Guard which continued its search because the Navy did not consider the data to be definitive.
“While not definitive, this information was immediately shared with the Incident Commander to assist with the ongoing search and rescue mission,” the official said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
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“If these reports are accurate, the acoustic data point is useful in light of the confirmation that we received today, but would not have been sufficient to suspend the search and rescue effort, only to possibly refine the search area,” said retired Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, a professor of practice at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School and deputy director of the Institute for Security Policy and Law.
The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed earlier Thursday that a debris field found earlier in the day was the missing Titan submersible.
U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger told reporters that the debris was consistent with the “catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.”
This file image provided by OceanGate shows the Titan submersible being towed in the Bahamas. (OceanGate Expeditions)
“On behalf of the U.S. Coast Guard and the entire unified command, I offer my deepest condolences to the families,” he said.
The Titan lost contact with its surface vessel, the Polar Prince, around one hour and 45 minutes into its dive Sunday morning, about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and around 400 miles southeast of St John’s, in Canada’s Newfoundland.
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Inside the vessel were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush; British businessman turned adventurer Hamish Harding; father-and-son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, who are members of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest families; and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a former French navy officer and leading Titanic expert.
Fox News’ Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.
