The OceanGate sub Titan suffered a 'catastrophic implosion' and all five people on board died as a result.
A statement from the company confirmed the tragedy: “We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost.
“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans."
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“Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew."
Contact had been lost with the sub on 18 June, and search and rescue efforts launched since then have found only scraps of debris from the vessel.
The likelihood of recovering any of the bodies of the five people who died in the 'catastrophic implosion' is essentially zero, according to the Coast Guard.
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Dr. Dale Molé, the former director of undersea medicine and radiation health for the US Navy, said those on board the sub wouldn't have had time to process what had happened before they died.
He said: “It would have been so sudden, that they wouldn't even have known that there was a problem, or what happened to them.
“It's like being here one minute, and then the switch is turned off. You're alive one millisecond, and the next millisecond you're dead.”
As for what happens next, there's going to be an investigation which will aim to piece together as much information as possible on how this happened.
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That will mean gathering up as much debris from the submersible as possible with the aim of analysing the imploded sub for signs that it failed under the pressure of the ocean.
There is no black box on board the submersible, however, former Navy submarine captain, Ryan Ramsey, told the BBC that the process 'isn't too dissimilar to that of an airplane plane crash'.
Instead, they will be putting the recovered pieces under the microscope to look for possible tears and breaks, which could point towards where on the sub the hull rupture took place.
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Investigators will also likely be looking into what sort of safety tests the Titan sub went through to ensure it was a vessel capable of taking people deep beneath the ocean surface.
The US Coast Guard will lead the investigation, with some assistance from The US National Transportation Safety Board, as per Sky News.
Passengers going on board the submersible had to sign a waiver which acknowledged the risk of death multiple times, while some people who had the chance to be on board backed out due to safety concerns.
Featured Image Credit: Xinhua / Alamy Stock Photo/Becky Kagan Schott/OceanGateTopics: Titanic, World News, US News