Investigators say they will examine voice recordings and data from the mother ship that carried the Titanic submarine.

CNN
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A week later Titan is submersible The Titanic went on a disastrous underwater journey to wreckage – killing everyone Five people on board – US officials plan their next steps in investigating the disaster.

The U.S. Coast Guard announced Sunday that it had convened a Maritime Investigation Board to investigate the explosion — “the highest-level investigation the Coast Guard conducts,” said Capt. Jason Neubauer, the U.S. Coast Guard’s chief investigator.

The panel will work to determine what caused the tragedy and “make possible recommendations to the proper authorities to pursue any necessary civil or criminal sanctions,” Neubauer said at a news conference Sunday.

The Coast Guard probe — one of several announced since the Titan explosion — has just begun and will focus on collecting debris from wreckage and interviews. After that, the board will hold a public hearing to gather additional testimony from witnesses, Neubauer said. It will then issue a report containing evidence, conclusions and recommendations, he said.

Canadian officials said investigators will review voice recordings from the mother ship carrying the ship and the five passengers aboard as they try to piece together what happened.

Canadian investigators Kathy Fox, head of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, said on Saturday that she boarded the Polar Prince on Saturday to “collect information from the ship’s voyage data recorder and other ship systems that contain useful information. A voyage data recorder stores audio from the ship’s bridge.”

Crew and family members were also interviewed aboard the Polar Prince, which returned to Newfoundland and Labrador’s capital, St. John’s, with flags at half-mast on Saturday.

Fox said the agency’s mission is not to assign blame, but to “find out what happened, why it happened, and what needs to change to reduce the likelihood or risk of similar events in the future.”

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police It also said it would conduct an investigation into the incident and examine “whether criminal, federal or provincial laws may have been violated.”

Communications between the submarine and its mother ship will also be examined by officials investigating the disaster. Ships can communicate with submarines Text messagesand contact every 15 minutes, according to OceanGate Expeditions’ archived website.

Latest updates It’s been three days The U.S. Coast Guard has since announced the ship suffered a “catastrophic explosion” that killed all on board. U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mager said military experts found debris in the ocean consistent with the loss of the small ship’s pressure chamber about 1,600 feet from the Titanic.

those who were killed Stockton Rush, CEO of the ship’s operator OceanGate Expeditions; British businessman Hamish Harding; French diver Paul-Henri Narcolet; and Pakistani-born businessman Shahjata Dawood and his son Suleman were British citizens.

Meanwhile, the recovery of debris from the submarine explosion is underway in the Atlantic Ocean, according to a report by Pelagic Research Services first seen by CNN on Sunday.

The Odysseus 6K, a remotely piloted vehicle, is on its fourth dive to the surface since arriving at the Titan recovery area, the statement said.

The company added that Odysseus’ heavy lift capabilities “have been used and continue to be used” in the Titan rescue, but did not confirm whether the debris had been recovered and sent CNN to the US Coast Guard. Rescue attempt.

CNN contacted the Coast Guard for comment.

They are collecting information through vehicles Worked to map the ocean floor A ship’s junk yardMore than 2 miles deep in the North Atlantic, US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mauger said.

Five different large pieces of debris were recovered from the submarine Thursday morning, officials said. According to Paul Hankins, the US Navy’s director of salvage operations and ocean engineering, each end of the pressure curve was observed at a different location.

ROV missions are Expected to continue For another week, according to Jeff Mahoney, a spokesman for Pelagic Research Services, a company that specializes in ocean travel.

Any attempt to retrieve anything from the debris field would warrant a major operation with another company helping the mission, Deep Energy, because the debris would be too much for Pelagic’s ROV to lift on its own, Mahoney told CNN on Friday. Rescue efforts include using rigged cabling to haul away any debris.

The international inquiry comes amid mounting questions about the Titan’s design.

A CNN Review OceanGate’s marketing materials, public statements provided by Rush and court filings show that while the company has expressed commitment to safety measures, it has rejected industry standards that impose greater scrutiny on its operations and ships.

The company deviated from industry norms Refusal of voluntary, rigorous security review of shipAccording to an industry leader.

In April 2019, Carl Stanley, a submarine expert, was on the Titan for an underwater excursion off the coast of the Bahamas when he heard a loud noise and realized something was wrong with the ship and emailed Rush, CEO of OceanGate Expeditions. , sounding the alarm on suspected defects.

“What we’ve heard is, in my opinion … a defect/defect in one area that appears to have acted on tremendous pressures and been crushed/damaged,” Stanley wrote in the email, a copy of which was obtained by CNN.

“From the intensity of the soundings, the fact that they never stopped at depth, and that the soundings were at about 300 feet, indicates a release of stored energy/Part of the mantle is breaking down. Down/Spongy,” Stanley continued.

Asked for comment about Stanley’s email, a spokesperson for OceanGate told CNN they were unable to provide any additional information at this time.