NEW YORK: A vast multinational search for five people who had descended to view the wreckage of the sunken RMS Titanic ended on Thursday after pieces of the privately owned submersible vessel that had carried them were found on the ocean floor, evidence of a “catastrophic implosion” with no survivors, according to the United States Coast Guard.
The dramatic search effort, in a remote area of the North Atlantic 900 miles (1,448 kilometres) off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, had mesmerised people worldwide for days after the 22-foot (6.7-metre) watercraft, called Titan, lost contact with its parent ship less than two hours into its voyage on Sunday. The grim discovery, by a remotely operated vehicle scouring the sea bottom, also trained attention on high-risk, high-cost adventure tourism, raising questions about the safety protocols followed by companies that run such expeditions.
