Relatives of Titanic victims demand adventurers stop visiting wreck

Descendants of Titanic victims want adventurers to stop visiting the wreck.

On Thursday (22 June) OceanGate Expeditions, a company that takes people to visit the wreck of the Titanic, confirmed that the five crew members on board the missing Titan submersible have died.

"We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost," a statement from OceanGate read.

The group of five embarked on an expedition which set off from St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, however, the vessel went missing on 18 June.

PA

Family members whose loved ones were on the Titanic have since advised people to not go visit the wreck.

Helen Richardson, 40, from Norfolk, is the great-great-granddaughter of Christopher Arthur Shulver, a fireman on the Titanic, who survived the sinking ship but died in another White Star Liner, in 1922.

She told MailOnline: "It should be left alone. It is a site where all those poor people lost their lives, and a tragic site even for those who survived."

Englishman Percy Thomas Ward, a bedroom steward on the ship, was among more than 1,500 people who lost their lives in the sinking.

PA

His great-granddaughter Anna Roberts said: "I deplore the fact Titanic has become a tourist attraction.

"It is a graveyard and should be left in peace and respect."

Brett Gladstone, whose great-great-grandmother was killed on the Titanic, told Inside Edition: "I've always been uncomfortable with the exploitation of the ship down there.

"Over a thousand people died. My great-great-grandmother's body was never found, it lies at the bottom.

"Her soul and the souls of a thousand people remains in a kind of graveyard."

On Thursday (22 June), officials confirmed that the missing OceanGate sub had suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’.

Becky Kagan Schott/OceanGate

Rear Admiral John Mauger said that the tail cone of the missing Titan submersible has also been found close to the wreck of the Titanic.

During a press conference in Boston on Thursday (22 June), he said: “This morning, an ROV, or remote operated vehicle from the vessel Horizon Arctic discovered the tail cone of the Titan submersible approximately 1,600ft from the bow of the Titanic on the sea floor.

“The ROV subsequently found additional debris.

“In consultation with experts from within the unified command, the debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber."