'Presumed Human Remains' Recovered From Titan Sub Wreckage

Facts

• The US Guard Coast on Wednesday stated that potential human remains have been found among the debris recovered from the seafloor, where pieces of the doomed deep-sea OceanGate Titan submersible settled after its disastrous implosion.¹
• The evidence, which was returned to the Canadian port of St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador that morning, will now be transferred to a US Coast Guard cutter somewhere in the US for further analysis and testing.²
• This announcement comes as the first photos of the submersible wreckage emerged, with parts of the vessel being brought ashore from the Atlantic Ocean. Marine Board of Investigation Chairman Jason Neubauer has said that a lot of work remains to determine the cause of the implosion.³
• OceanGate had reportedly been under fire for its safety practices before the tragedy occurred, as former employees had raised safety concerns about several issues involving the Titan sub, including how the structure had been tested.⁴
• The 22ft (6.7-meter) Titan craft registered in the Bahamas was launched from the Canadian-flagged Polar Prince on June 18 and lost contact with the surface one hour and 45 minutes into its dive to view the Titanic wreck, which lies at a depth of roughly two miles.⁵
• All five people on board — OceanGate head Stockton Rush, Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet, British billionaire Hamish Harding and British businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman — died in the incident.⁶

Sources: ¹Insider, ²Forbes, ³Washington Examiner, ⁴BBC News, ⁵Guardian, and ⁶Sky News.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Reason. Like every other experimental or exploring endeavor, the Titan voyage had major inherent risks that its passengers were well aware of, yet they decided the opportunity to see the Titanic up close outweighed the dangers of the dive. OceanGate was not expecting the Titan to be found and rescued by the taxpayer-funded Coast Guard, so its right that participation in the dive was solely at the discretion of informed passengers.
• Narrative B, as provided by New York Times. While the tragedy of the Titan should not lead to a halt in undersea voyages, either for scientific purposes or tourism, it is crucial that we draw lessons from this incident to ensure that such disasters will not happen ever again. The sinking of the Titanic prompted the introduction of international regulations regarding ocean-going ships; now, it's time to set international standards for submersibles.
• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Al Jazeera. The submersible's implosion and the death of its occupants is undoubtedly tragic. At the same time, it's telling that the world rallied to find a missing sub while giving minimal coverage to the shipwrecked migrants that went missing off the coast of Greece last week. The scale of global media interest and effort by international marine agencies trying to investigate Titan's loss reveals a depressing hierarchy when it comes to value of life — more resources should be directed towards missing migrants.