Most of the Human Remains Have Been Recovered From the OceanGate Titan Submersible

On June 18, 2023, five individuals got inside the OceanGate Titan submersible with the hopes of seeing the long-sunken Titanic with their own eyes. According to CNN, the Titan was not without its issues which included but were not limited to "safety concerns about the thickness of the Titan’s hull."

Sadly, those on board never returned from their trip as the Titan submersible imploded mere hours after beginning its descent. Four months later, the Coast Guard finally recovered the last of the vessel's debris. This included human remains, which were sent to medical professionals so that DNA testing could be done, per NBC News. By all accounts, not much was left of the five people who stepped into the craft several months earlier. Here's what we know.

In September 2024, footage of the Titan submersible wreckage recovery effort was released to the public. While the video did not show any human remains, the Coast Guard confirmed during the OceanGate hearing that some were located. The video was recorded on June 22, 2023, four days after the submersible lost contact with its support vessel, Polar Prince.

Located 1,600 feet from the Titanic's bow, the remotely operated machine is seen picking up parts of the vessel using robotic arms. Both the tail and the hull are visible in the video, sitting 2.5 miles from the ocean's surface. The recovery mission was completed in October 2023, after which the Coast Guard's Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) released a statement saying they were going to analyze the evidence and conduct forensic testing.

A post on the OceanGate Titan Reddit asked about the identification of human remains, namely how this was possible since we were told very little was left of anyone on board. Many people in the comments compared the Titan submersible situation to the herculean efforts made after 9/11. Per the posts, initially, the medical examiner's office instructed first responders to not identify anything smaller than a thumb until they realized most of the remains were much smaller than that.

Obviously, these two tragedies are extremely different, but the processes are similar. As of September 2023, "New York City's medical examiner has now been able to link remains to 1,649 World Trade Center victims, a painstaking process that relies on leading-edge DNA sequencing techniques to test body fragments recovered in the rubble," per CBS News. Sadly, more than a thousand remains have yet to be identified. It's a painstaking process that hasn't stopped since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Perhaps the only good news to come from all this is the leaps in DNA technology that have occurred due to the desire to identify these remains. For the families of the victims, this is one way they can find some sort of closure.

In January 2024, the remains of John Ballantine Niven, 44, were identified, thanks in part to these efforts. Ellen Niven, his wife, told NBC News that it was an extremely emotional moment for her. "My son and I are so appreciative of this tremendous endeavor," she wrote in an email.