As an investigation into the "catastrophic implosion" of the Titan submersible gets underway, investigators are "taking all precautions" in case they find bodies on the sea floor.
Speaking at a press conference, Captain Jason Neubauer of the US Coast Guard said: "I'm not getting into the details of the recovery operations but we are taking all precautions on site if we are to encounter any human remains."
It came as he announced that the "priority of the investigation is to recover items from the sea floor."
He said: "We have already mapped the accident site in the field so other factors would be part of the investigation."
Rear Admiral John Mauger, of the First Coast Guard District, confirmed that the Coast Guard has launched a Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) into "the loss of the submersible and the five people on board".
The MBI will look into what happened and gather testimony from witnesses. Rear Admiral Mauger explained: "The MBI is also responsible for accountability aspects of the incident and it can make recommendations to the proper authorities to pursue civil or criminal sanctions as necessary."
Captain Neubauer also confirmed during the press conference the UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch is working "in close co-ordination" with the US Coast Guard to establish what happened.
The deaths of the five on board - Hamish Harding, father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, Paul-Henri Nargeolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush - has sparked debate as to the lengths the search went to after a Migrant boat sank off Spain's Canary Islands with dozens feared drowned.
Rear Admiral Mauger told the press conference in Boston: "As a matter of US law and Coast Guard policy, the Coast Guard doesn't charge for search and rescue nor do we associate costs with human life.
"We conduct disciplined operations with warranted risk to put our resources and lives at risk to save others. That's who we are."
Those on board the OceanGate Titan submersible are said to have paid $250,000 each to be part of the crew diving down to the wreck of the Titanic, which lies 3,800m below the ocean's surface off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
On Thursday, June 22, the Coast Guard confirmed that a debris field had been found just 400m from the wreck of the Titanic. They then announced the sub had suffered a "catastrophic implosion" which would have killed all on board within milliseconds.
US officials previously said they were "not sure" if they will ever recover the bodies of the five who died in the depths of the Atlantic, due to the extreme conditions at that depth.
As part of the search, Rear Admiral Mauger confirmed that '11 surface assets, five subsurface assets, and four air assets' had been used in the search which totalled almost 13,000 square miles.
