(AP) -- The company leading the Titan submersible trip says the five missing crew members are believed to be dead.
The Coast Guard says the Titan submersible likely imploded in the North Atlantic waters and there were no survivors among the five people aboard.
The implosion likely occurred near the Titanic shipwreck, where the submersible was headed.
"The debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber," Rear Adm. John Mauger, the First Coast Guard District, said Thursday. "Our most heartfelt condolences go out to the loved ones of the crew."
The Coast Guard will continue searching the sea floor near the Titanic shipwreck for more clues about what happened to the Titan submersible deep in the North Atlantic waters.
Officials say there isn't a timeframe for when they will call off the massive international search. Efforts to recover the submersible and the remains of the five men who died in a catastrophic implosion aboard the vessel remain ongoing.
Much of the search is being done by remotely operated underwater vehicles known as ROVs that can scan the sea floor.
“This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the seafloor,” Mauger said.
OceanGate Expeditions on Thursday says its pilot and chief executive Stockton Rush, along with passengers Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet "have sadly been lost."
OceanGate did not provide details Thursday when the company announced the "loss of life" in a statement or how officials knew the crew members perished.
The vessel's 96-hour oxygen supply likely ended early Thursday.
The company has been chronicling the Titanic's decay and the underwater ecosystem around it via yearly voyages since 2021.
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