Titan sub recovery team member talks moment rescue turned to recovery

Cassano also declined to give an opinion on Oceangate’s operation, which began taking tourists to the wreck of the famous luxury liner in 2021.

The owner of a remotely operated vehicle that recovered pieces of the Titan submersible from the depths of the North Atlantic last week says his ROV found debris from the doomed vessel shortly after reaching the search site.

Ed Cassano, CEO of Pelagic Research Services, said Friday that his company was contacted by the owners of the Titan — OceanGate Expeditions — on June 18, shortly after the submersible lost contact with its mother ship during a dive to the wreck of the Titanic.

“We were asked to activate our deep water remotely operated vehicle system Odysseus 6K and we immediately began assembling a team,” Cassano told a news conference in East Aurora, N.Y.

He said his team started assembling more than 31,000 kilograms of equipment at the Buffalo airport on June 19, adding that it took less than 30 hours to finish and transport it from Buffalo, N.Y., to St. John’s aboard three U.S. military heavy-lift aircraft.

By the time his team arrived at the search site on June 22, located in the North Atlantic about 700 kilometres south of Newfoundland, Cassano said 10 other vessels and aircraft were already scouring the area. His company’s ROV, which was aboard the Canadian-owned ship Horizon Arctic, was deployed within an hour, he said.

The operation began as a rescue mission, he said, but that soon changed. “Shortly after arriving on the sea floor we discovered the debris of the Titan submersible. Sadly, a rescue had turned into a recovery.”

U.S. Coast Guard officials have said the ROV spotted the wreckage about 500 metres from the bow of the sunken Titanic.

“I have to apologize,” Cassano said, his voice cracking as he described the moment the debris was found. He said he and his crew were still experiencing “a lot of emotion.”