Titanic 1943

A co-founder of OceanGate - The Company which runs The Titan submersible tours to The Titanic - says he fears there may have been an " instantaneous implosion" of The sub.

Guillermo Söhnlein said there was a possibility there had been a catastrophe.

He was being interviewed as news of The emergence of debris in The Atlantic came in.

A friend of passengers aboard The Titan said The debris found was from The sub.

A Coast Guard news conference is scheduled for Thursday afternoon.

Speaking about his fears of an implosion, Mr Söhnlein told The Bbc : " What I do know is regardless of The sub, when you're operating at depth The pressure is so great on any sub that if there is a failure it would be an instantaneous implosion. If that's What Happened that's what would have happened four days ago. "

Mr Söhnlein founded OceanGate in 2009 along with current CEO and pilot of The sub, Stockton Rush, who is among The Missing .

Also onboard The 22-foot vessel is British businessman Hamish Harding, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, and former French Navy diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet.

He Said he would not be surprised if there was something on The Surface .

" I know that our protocol for lost comms is for The Pilot to surface The sub. From The Beginning I always thought that's probably what Stockton would have done.

" In which case it becomes very difficult to find The sub because The Surface ship wouldn't have known it was Coming Up and wouldn't have known where to look.

" My biggest fear through this whole thing watching The operations unfold is that they're floating around on The Surface and they're just very difficult to find. "

Mr Söhnlein, who left OceanGate 10 Years ago, said he would not have acted differently in The circumstances.

He Said : " If anything, I think we need to go back and learn from what's happening, find out what's happened, take those lessons and carry them forward. "

In a statement issued on Thursday after, The US Coast Guard said The debris field was discovered by a remote-controlled underwater search vehicle (ROV) near The Wreck of The Titanic .

Experts are now evaluating The Information to determine whether it is linked to The submersible.

But dive expert David Mearns , who is a friend of passengers aboard The Titan , said The debris found was from The submersible and included a landing frame and a rear cover.

The US Coast Guard will provide an update at a press conference at 15:00 local time (20:00 BST).

Questioned by The Bbc why The Titan sub had not been made subject to official regulations, Mr Söhnlein said that The " human submersible community globally is very small" and that " developing innovations and any new technology, including submersibles, means that sometimes you have to go outside of The Balance of The regulatory scheme".

He Said that within The community " we all know each other and I think generally we all respect each other's opinions".

" But The Bottom Line is that everyone's got different opinions on how subs should be designed, how dives should be conducted, how expeditions should be conducted.

" The Challenge , though, is with all of us having opinions is none of us have all The facts. So it's difficult to form these opinions. "

OceanGate describes The sub as an experimental vessel and when a correspondent from The Bbc 's US partner, CBS, travelled on it a few years ago, he had to sign a waiver accepting that it " has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death".

In a press release in 2019, The Company explained why The Titan had not been classed by an independent body. " Bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing is anathema to rapid innovation, " it said.

In a promotional video, OceanGate Expeditions software security expert Aaron Newman tells prospective clients that travelling on The sub is " not a ride at Disney, you know".

" There's a lot of real risk involved, and there's a lot of challenges, " he says.

Source of news: bbc.com