The discovery of a new set of parts belonging to the doomed Titan sub appears to shed some light on what caused the disaster that claimed the lives of five people in June 2023. 

According to the US Coast Guard, last week investigators recovered various parts of the vessel, including an intact aft titanium endcap that was covered by a tail cone on the submersible. 

Analyst Michael Chillit, who has been conducting his own investigation into the disaster, wrote in a post on X that the emergence of the endcap photo suggested that investigators may now be able to solve the mystery.

‘There was a lot of speculation that it was the observation port that failed, but now a damaged landing frame and a fully intact rear hemisphere suggests to me that failure occurred in the composite near where it was joined to the frame and the aft hemisphere,’ Chillit said. 

He also wondered if officials recovered any pieces of the ship’s observation port was recovered. The coast guard has not said in detail what new pieces of the submersible were recovered. 

Investigators have recovered various pieces of the craft, including the aft end cap which connected the hull to the rear of the vessel

Shahzada Dawood, 48, one of Pakistan’s richest men, who along with his teenage son Suleman Dawood, 19, (together, left) died on the Titan along with British explorer Hamish Harding (right)

Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, which launched, Titan, perished on board the submersible last Sunday along with his four passengers, including PH Nargeolet (right)

Tourists Hamish Harding, 58, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Sulaiman Dawood, 19, French Navy pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush all perished on board the submersible. 

The observation port and the end cap were linked to the hull with titanium. The hull of the vessel was made of carbon fiber, a cheaper alternative more commonly used in aerospace.

Carbon fiber is thought to be as strong as titanium against pulling forces but not pushing ones such as the extreme pressure created by being deep in the Atlantic Ocean. 

When it fails, it shatters without warning, compared to titanium which would bend. 

A July 2023 New York Times feature also noted how difficult it can be to bond the joints of different materials such as titanium and carbon fiber. The hull was glued to the titanium rings at either end and the end caps were attached. 

Forensic metallurgist Tim Foecke told the Times at the time that altering the size of the hull’s geometry  

Read Related Also: Detroit supports effort to allow plastic bag ban

Another theory put forward in the Times feature is that the titanium glue could have been degraded by saltwater.  

Additional presumed human remains were carefully recovered from within Titan’s debris and transported for analysis by U.S. medical professionals, the Coast Guard said.

The U.S. Coast Guard announced that they recovered presumed human remains along with parts of the Titan after the debris field was located at a depth of 12,500ft 

Its vehicle Odysseus 6K reached the seafloor after days of searching and found debris of the sub around 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic

The recent salvage mission conducted under an agreement with the U.S. Navy was a follow-up to initial recovery operations on the ocean floor roughly 1,600 feet away from the Titanic, the Coast Guard said.

The new materials were offloaded at an unnamed port.

Chillit later indicated that he believed the implosion took place in ‘the area where the landing frame, the hull, and the Titanium end-cap were joined.’ 

The Coast Guard previously said it recovered presumed human remains along with parts of the Titan after the debris field was located at a depth of 12,500 feet.

Investigators believe the Titan imploded as it made its descent into deep North Atlantic waters on June 18.

The multiday search mounted after Titan went silent captured attention around the world. The submersible was attempting to view the British passenger liner that sank in 1912.

The Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation said investigators from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada joined the salvage expedition, and the Coast Guard is coordinating with international investigative agencies to schedule a joint review of the evidence to determine the next steps for forensic testing.

The Marine Board of Investigation, meanwhile, will continue its analysis and witness interviews ahead of a public hearing on the tragedy, officials said Tuesday.

OceanGate, the operator of the vessel, has since gone out of business. Among those killed in the implosion was Stockton Rush, the submersible’s pilot and CEO of the company.