A week after the catastrophic implosion that killed all five passengers aboard the fated submersible, the Coast Guard announced that ROVs (remotely-operated vehicles) remain in place near where the Titan vanished.

The ROV that made the critical finding of the Titan’s chambers 1,600ft from the Titanic’s wreckage, the Odysseus 6K, was launched again on Sunday in further efforts to recover more debris, according to the company that operated the deep-sea robot.

“We continue to work tirelessly in our support role of this mission, alongside the incredible crew of Horizon Artic (the Canadian vessel that carried the Odysseus to the sea),” Pelagic Research Services CEO Ed Cassano said.

The operator charged passengers $250,000 each to participate in the voyage.

“We cannot attribute a monetary value to Search and Rescue cases, as the Coast Guard does not associate cost with saving a life,” the agency said.

While the Coast Guard’s cost for the mission is likely to run into the millions of dollars, it is generally prohibited by federal law from collecting reimbursement related to any search or rescue service, said Stephen Koerting, a US attorney in Maine who specializes in maritime law.

But that does not resolve the larger issue of whether wealthy travelers or companies should bear responsibility to the public and governments for exposing themselves to such risk.

“This is one of the most difficult questions to attempt to find an answer for,” said Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union, noting scrutiny of government-funded rescues dating back to British billionaire Richard Branson’s hot air balloon exploits in the 1990s.

“This should never be solely about government spending, or perhaps not even primarily about government spending, but you can’t help thinking about how the limited resources of rescuers can be utilized,” Sepp said.

Lew Palter, who played the ancestor of OceanGate chief executive Stockton Rush’s wife in James Cameron’s Oscar-winning film Titanic, has died aged 94.

The US actor portrayed retail magnate Isidor Straus in the 1997 film, famously embracing his on-screen wife Ida (Elsa Raven) on a bed in their stateroom as the water rushed onto the ship, having refused to board a lifeboat until all the women and children had been evacuated.

Isidor and Ida Straus were the great-great-grandparents of Wendy Rush, whose husband died last week while piloting the submersible that imploded during a journey to view the Titanic wreckage.

Those on board Titan included UK citizens Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood and French national Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

Palter died on May 21 of lung cancer at his home in Los Angeles, his daughter Catherine Palter told US outlets on Tuesday.
Prior to his role in 1997’s Titanic, Palter also starred as one of the Supreme Court justices in First Monday In October, as well as portraying an LAPD detective on the 1976 CBS series Delvecchio.

Palter joined CalArts School of Theatre in 1971, serving as an “acting teacher, director and mentor” at the Santa Clarita school until his retirement in 2013.

A job advert posted by the company that operated the doomed Titanic submersible that imploded last week in the Atlantic Ocean has sparked backlash on social media.

The company noted that it had an “urgent opening” and was looking for committed individuals with a “combination of strong mechanical and interpersonal skills,” and experience working with submersibles and boats as well as operating complex systems to support dive operations, Insider reported. Among other requirements, applicants were asked to be comfortable in a confined space and be able to fit through a 28-inch diameter ring.

OceanGate not only hosted tours to the wreck of the Titanic, but also to the Azores Archipelago in Portugal and to the Bahamas. One pilot, one “content expert” and three mission specialists — or fee-paying passengers without any previous experience needed — participated in every dive, according to the company’s website.

The post was removed sometime on Friday, a day after the US Coast Guard confirmed that the vessel’s chambers were found 1,600ft from the wreck of the Titanic on the ocean floor, but not without being noticed by furious sleuths that criticised the timing.

“Remember when everyone was saying “Don’t kill yourself for a job that would replace you within two weeks?” one user commented on a TikTok, while another argued, “It was a scheduled post. that’s how our job engine works…”

Although it is unclear when the job posting went up, it was likely well before OceanGate made international headlines as its sub vanished. However, TikTok users argued that the company should have been cautious enough to remove the posting as a four-day frantic search for the submersible unfolded.

It comes amid reports that OceanGate closed its headquarters in Everett, Washington State, following the Titan’s implosion, which killed CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son Suleman Dawood.

An expert with whom the Coast Guard have been consulting said there isn’t any more evidence to collect even as an international group of agencies was tasked with investigating what may have caused the Titan submersible to implode.

“It is my professional opinion that all the debris is located in a very small area and that all debris has been found,” said Carl Hartsfield, a retired Navy captain and submarine officer who now directs a lab at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution that designs and operates autonomous underwater vehicles.

Early summer is the best time to be conducting this type of operation because of the lower likelihood of storms, but it’s still likely to be painstaking, said Donald Murphy, an oceanographer who served as chief scientist of the Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol.

The search is taking place in a complex ocean environment where the Gulf Stream meets the Labrador Current, an area where challenging and hard-to-predict ocean currents can make controlling an underwater vehicle more difficult, Mr Murphy said.

But Mr Hartsfield said based on the data he’s reviewed and the performance of the remote vehicles so far, he doesn’t expect currents to be a problem. Also working in the searchers’ favour, he said, is that the debris is located in a compact area and the ocean bottom where they are searching is smooth and not near any of the Titanic debris.

The US Coast Guard says the priority in its investigation into the fatal Titanic sub implosion is the “recovery of items from the sea floor”.

All five people aboard the OceanGate Titan submersible were killed as it dived to the wreck of the ocean liner in the Atlantic Ocean last week.

The Coast Guard opened a marine board investigation on Friday and is working with the FBI to salvage debris from the sea floor at a depth of more than two miles below surface.

The Independent’s Graeme Massie reports:

As an international group of agencies investigates why the Titan submersible imploded while carrying five people to the Titanic wreckage, US maritime officials say they’ll issue a report aimed at improving the safety of submersibles worldwide.

Investigators from the US, Canada, France and the United Kingdom are working closely together on the probe of the 18 June accident, which happened in an “unforgiving and difficult-to-access region” of the North Atlantic, said US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger, of the Coast Guard First District.

Salvage operations from the sea floor are ongoing, and the accident site has been mapped, Coast Guard chief investigator Captain Jason Neubauer said Sunday. He did not give a timeline for the investigation.

Mr Neubauer said the final report will be issued to the International Maritime Organization.

“My primary goal is to prevent a similar occurrence by making the necessary recommendations to advance the safety of the maritime domain worldwide,” he said.

Evidence is being collected in the port of St John’s, Newfoundland, in coordination with Canadian authorities.

All five people on board the Titan were killed. Debris from the vessel was located about 12,500 feet (3,810 meters) underwater and roughly 1,600 feet (488 meters) from the Titanic on the ocean floor, the Coast Guard said last week.

An international group of agencies is investigating what may have caused the Titan submersible to implode while carrying five people to the Titanic wreckage, and US maritime officials say they’ll issue a report aimed at improving the safety of submersibles worldwide.

Investigators from the US, Canada, France and the United Kingdom are working closely together on the probe of the 18 June accident, which happened in an “unforgiving and difficult-to-access region” of the North Atlantic, said US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger, of the Coast Guard First District.

Salvage operations from the sea floor are ongoing, and the accident site has been mapped, Coast Guard chief investigator Capt Jason Neubauer said Sunday. He did not give a timeline for the investigation.

Mr Neubauer said the final report will be issued to the International Maritime Organization.“My primary goal is to prevent a similar occurrence by making the necessary recommendations to advance the safety of the maritime domain worldwide,” he said.

Evidence is being collected in the port of St John’s, Newfoundland, in coordination with Canadian authorities.