The Coast Guard has recovered remaining debris, including presumed human remains, from a submersible that imploded on its way to explore the wreck of the Titanic, killing all five onboard, deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean’s surface, officials said Tuesday.
The Coast Guard said that the recovery and transfer of remaining parts was completed last Wednesday, and a photo showed the intact aft titanium endcap of the 22-foot (6.7-meter) vessel. Additional presumed human remains were carefully recovered from within Titan’s debris and transported for analysis by U.S. medical professionals, the Coast Guard said.
The salvage mission conducted under an agreement with the U.S. Navy was a follow-up to initial recovery operations on the ocean floor roughly 1,600 feet (488 meters) away from the Titanic, the Coast Guard said.
I would imagine something similar to the worst of the Byford Dolphin decompression accident, which was a torso and large limbs crushed to the point of being almost unrecognizable with internal organs and some chunks of soft tissue separated from the body. Photos of that exist and you can find the relevant research paper by googling “Byford Dolphin Autopsy,” but seriously those pictures are gruesome. In the case of the Titan, because the hull was compromised, large portions of those bodies were probably lost to the sea.