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The Defense Department declined to say whether it notified the families of the passengers on the Titan submarine after detecting a possible implosion noise immediately after the ship lost contact with its mothership.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, the U.S. Coast Guard, which led the Pentagon’s unified command for the incident, said it contacted families when it became aware of the situation and notified them as soon as debris was found days later. was found. However, officials said Thursday that after the debris was found, the US Navy detected an implosion sound almost immediately after the Titan lost contact on June 18.
“The Unified Command contacted the families as soon as we learned of the incident and we have stayed in touch throughout our response,” Coast Guardswoman Anne McGoldrick told Fox News Digital.
“As our focus has been throughout this search, and is the policy within the search and rescue community, officials will always notify next of kin and make every effort to involve the family before releasing information to the public. ,” McGoldrick said. “The families were immediately notified as soon as the debris was identified.”
CREW KILLED IN ‘CATASTROPHIC IMPLOSION’: TIMELINE OF MISSION TO FIND OCEANGATE’S MISSING TITANIC SUBMARINE
Inset, from left: Suleman Dawood, Shahzada Dawood, Stockton Rush, Paul-Henry Nargeolet, and Hamish Harding were aboard the OceanGate Titan submarine. (Engro Corp. | Reuters/Shannon Stapleton | @OceanGateExped/Twitter | Felix Kunze/Blue Origin via AP | Ocean Gate/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
It remains unclear whether U.S. officials leading the response to the incident ever notified families on June 18 or in the following four days that an implosion had likely occurred. The Coast Guard, Navy and Department of Defense have not responded to follow-up questions from Fox News Digital.
On June 18, the five passengers of the Titan, a submarine operated by exploration company OceanGate, boarded the ship to dive for a viewing of Titanic, about 900 miles east of Massachusetts. The passengers were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush; British businessman Hamish Harding; Pakistani father-and-son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood; and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a former French naval officer and Titanic expert.
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About an hour and 45 minutes into the dive, the Titan lost contact with the mothership from which it had launched. In the following days, the Coast Guard led an extensive search and rescue effort involving the private sector and Canadian entities, and regularly updated the public on the estimated amount of oxygen still on board the Titan.
On Wednesday, the Coast Guard said it had heard “underwater noises” in the search area, which some say indicated the Titan was trapped below the surface with its passengers trapped.
Vice Admiral John Mauger speaks with reporters in Boston on Thursday. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder)
But on Thursday, the Coast Guard announced they had discovered a “debris field” in the area where the submarine was believed to have been lost. Officials then told reporters at a news conference that the debris was “consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber,” suggesting that the Titan had instantly imploded when it lost contact days earlier.
“Following this determination, we immediately notified the families,” said Coast Guard Vice Admiral John Mauger. “On behalf of the United States Coast Guard and the entire United Command, I extend my deepest condolences to the families.”
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Shortly after Mauger’s comments, however, a Navy official confirmed to Fox News Digital that a top-secret acoustic detection system heard sounds consistent with an implosion near the Titanic’s site around the time the Titan lost contact on June 18.
“While this information is not final, it was immediately shared with the Incident Commander to aid in the ongoing search and rescue mission,” a Navy official told Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital reporters Bradford Betz, Lucas Tomlinson, Michael Ruiz, Anders Hagstrom and Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.
Thomas Catenacci is a political writer for Fox News Digital.
