CNN
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A remotely operated robot maps the waste sector from the hazard area Titan submarine explosionOfficials said investigators will review voice recordings from the mother ship that carried the ship and its five passengers on its journey to the Titanic’s wreck site.
Canadian investigators boarded the Polar Prince on Saturday to “collect information from the ship’s voyage data recorder and other ship systems that contain useful information,” Cathy Fox, head of Canada’s Transportation Safety Board, said Saturday.
Crew and family members were also interviewed aboard the Polar Prince, which returned to Newfoundland and Labrador’s capital, St. John’s, with flags at half-mast on Saturday.
Fox said the agency’s mission is not to assign blame, but to “find out what happened, why it happened, and what needs to change to reduce the likelihood or risk of similar events in the future.”
A voyage data recorder stores audio from the ship’s bridge. “The content of those voice recordings will be useful in our investigation,” Fox said.
This move is recent Expanding international inquiry The sinking of the Titanic on Sunday killed all five people aboard the submarine. U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mager said military experts found debris in the ocean consistent with the loss of the small ship’s pressure chamber about 1,600 feet from the Titanic.
those who were killed Stockton Rush, CEO of the ship’s operator OceanGate Expeditions; British businessman Hamish Harding; French diver Paul-Henri Narcolet; and Pakistani-born businessman Shahjata Dawood and his son Suleman were British citizens.
Communications between the submarine and its mother ship will also be scrutinized. Ships can communicate with submarines Text messagesand contact every 15 minutes, according to OceanGate Expeditions’ archived website.
OceanGate/AFP/Getty Images/File
This undated image from OceanGate Expeditions shows the start of their Titan submarine landing.
Meanwhile, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Investigates “criminal, federal or provincial laws that may have been violated.”
“There’s no suspicion of criminal activity, but the RCMP is taking preliminary steps to assess whether or not we’re going to go down that road,” RCMP Superintendent Kent Osmond told a press conference Saturday, adding that the agency investigates all reported marine deaths.
OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein urged people not to rush to judgment about the outbreak.
“There will be teams on site collecting data for the next few days, weeks, months, and it’s going to be a long time before we know what happened there,” Sohnlein told CNN on Friday. “Therefore, I would encourage us to hold off on speculation until we have more data.”
The US Coast Guard was involved Day-long search and rescue operationThe National Transportation Safety Board is also investigating the explosion.
U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mauger said Thursday that remotely operated vehicles will continue to collect information from the ocean floor.
Vehicles map works A ship’s junk yardIt’s more than 2 miles deep in the North Atlantic, Mauger said.
Five different large pieces of debris were recovered from the submarine Thursday morning, officials said. According to Paul Hankins, the US Navy’s director of salvage operations and ocean engineering, each end of the pressure curve was observed at a different location.
ROV missions are Expected to continue For another week, according to Jeff Mahoney, a spokesman for Pelagic Research Services, a company that specializes in ocean travel.
Any attempt to retrieve anything from the debris field would warrant a major operation with another company helping the mission, Deep Energy, because the debris would be too much for Pelagic’s ROV to lift on its own, Mahoney told CNN on Friday. Rescue efforts include using rigged cabling to haul away any debris.
The international inquiry comes amid mounting questions about the Titan’s design.
A CNN Review OceanGate’s marketing materials, public statements provided by Rush and court filings show that while the company has expressed commitment to safety measures, it has rejected industry standards that impose greater scrutiny on its operations and ships.
The company deviated from industry norms Refusal of voluntary, rigorous security review of shipAccording to an industry leader.
In April 2019, Carl Stanley, a submarine expert, was on the Titan for an underwater excursion off the coast of the Bahamas when he heard a loud noise and realized something was wrong with the ship and emailed Rush, CEO of OceanGate Expeditions. , sounding the alarm on suspected defects.
“What we’ve heard is, in my opinion … a defect/defect in one area that appears to have acted on tremendous pressures and been crushed/damaged,” Stanley wrote in the email, a copy of which was obtained by CNN.
“From the intensity of the soundings, the fact that they never stopped at depth, and that the soundings were at about 300 feet would indicate the release of stored energy/part of the mantle breaking down. The bottom/spongy,” continued Stanley.
Asked for comment about Stanley’s email, a spokesperson for OceanGate told CNN they were unable to provide any additional information at this time.
