Emily Brown
A dive expert and friend of passengers on board the vessel that went missing in the Atlantic has claimed that the debris found includes 'a landing frame and a rear cover from the submersible'.
The US Coast Guard confirmed today (22 June) that debris had been found near the wreckage of the Titanic during the search for the missing Titan vessel.
They announced the news a few hours after oxygen on board the Titan was believed to have run out, approximately 96 hours after the sub went missing on Sunday (18 June), when it descended below the surface of the ocean to explore the wreck of the Titanic.
The Coast Guard has said experts were 'evaluating the information' after the debris was found, and the authority is set to hold a press conference at 3pm EST to discuss the findings.
Dive expert David Mearns has now told the BBC that the president of the Explorers Club, which is connected to the diving and rescue community, informed him that the debris includes 'a landing frame and a rear cover from the submersible'.
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Mearns also shared details with Sky News, saying: "There is a WhatsApp group between ourselves and the explorers club, that we have all been connected to as soon as this happened, and our President is directly connected to the ships that are out there, and the message they are telling me 'if you are talking about debris, it was a landing frame and rear cover from the submersible'."
Mearns continued: "So again, this is a very unconventional submarine, that rear cover is that pointy end of it, and the landing frame is the little frame that it seems to sit on, and that is how its docked into the landing bit, so that confirms it's the submersible."
The US Coast Guard has said it is not yet commenting on what the debris consisted of.
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Mearns has further claimed authorities 'don't use phrases like debris field unless there's no chance of a recovery of the men alive'.
"A debris field implies a break up of the submersible and because we know that they lost communications with it... that really sort of indicates what is the worst case scenario, which is a catastrophic failure, generally that's an implosion," he said.
"The only saving grace about that is that it would have been immediate, literally in milliseconds, and the men would have no idea what was happening," Mearns added.
There were five passengers on board the Titan when it went missing.