9:57 PM ET, June 22, 2023
The official says the US Navy detected the explosion on Sunday
From CNN’s Eric Levenson, Priscilla Alvarez, Gabe Cohen, Nooran Salahi and Oren Lieberman
The US Navy detected a sound signature consistent with an explosion in the general area on Sunday. Titanic was sinking into the ocean when it lost contact with its mother ship, a senior Navy official told CNN Thursday.
The Navy immediately relayed that information to scene commanders directing the search effort, and it was used to narrow down the area of the search, the official said.
But the official said the explosion was “not conclusive” and international efforts to locate the submarine continued as a search and rescue effort.
“Any chance of saving a life is worth continuing the mission,” the official said.
That intelligence comes on the same day as the U.S. Coast Guard’s announcement Submersible A “catastrophic explosion” occurred, killing all five on board.
The tail cone and other debris from the missing Titanic were found by a remotely operated vehicle about 1,600 feet from the Titanic at a depth of about 13,000 feet in the North Atlantic Ocean.
“This is an incredibly unforgiving environment on the sea floor and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic explosion of a ship,” said U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said at a press conference Thursday. .
Five different large pieces of debris from the submarine, known as the “Titan,” were found in the area, and each tip of the pressure was found in a different location, said Paul Hankins, the US Navy’s Director of Salvage Operations and Oceanography. Engineering.
The family was immediately informed, Mauger said.
