Crews recovered the remains while searching through the wreckage.
The "presumed human remains" of the passengers aboard the Titan submersible have been recovered.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Coast Guard announced that crews recovered the remains while searching through the wreckage.
Per a news release from the Coast Guard, medical professionals will conduct a "formal analysis" of the "presumed human remains" that have been carefully recovered within the wreckage at the site of the incident.
Additionally, the Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) intends to transport the evidence aboard a U.S. Coast Guard cutter to a port in the United States, where the MBI will be able to facilitate further analysis and testing.
While an investigation is ongoing, MBI Chair Captain Jason Neubauer says the evidence uncovered from the submersible's wreck will "provide investigators from several international jurisdictions with critical insights into the cause of this tragedy."
The statement continued, "There is still a substantial amount of work to be done to understand the factors that led to the catastrophic loss of the TITAN and help ensure a similar tragedy does not occur again.”
The MBI will continue evidence collection as well as witness interviews as they search for answers in the unthinkable tragedy. OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush, Pakistani-born businessman Shahzada Danwood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman, British billionaire Hamish Harding and veteran Titanic explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet were among passengers on the Titan submersible's voyage on June 18.
The harrowing incident occurred after Titan took the five-person crew on a dive to explore the wreckage site of the Titanic but quickly went missing. The crew included an operator and four "mission specialists" -- a term used by OceanGate Expeditions for its passengers, who each paid $250,000 per seat for the experience.
The tourist sub lost contact with the Polar Prince research ship an hour and 45 minutes after submerging in an area approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod, in the North Atlantic, where the ocean reaches a depth of around 13,000 feet.
Titan had emergency oxygen and a 96-hour sustainment capability in the case of an emergency on board but the vessel -- owned by OceanGate Expeditions -- reportedly ran out of oxygen at approximately 6 a.m. EST on Thursday. Officials are still unsure when the vessel imploded.
That same day, Rear Admiral John Mauger, the commander of the U.S. Coast Guard leading the search, announced that an ROV -- or a remote-operated vehicle -- found "five major pieces of debris" consistent with the "catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber."
He added that the vessel was found 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic. The nose cone was among the five major pieces of debris found. Mauger said that, upon this determination, the Coast Guard immediately notified the families, and he offered his "deepest condolences."
Following the announcement, a spokesperson for OceanGate Expeditions told ET, "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."
"This is an extremely sad time for our dedicated employees who are exhausted and grieving deeply over this loss. The entire OceanGate family is deeply grateful for the countless men and women from multiple organizations of the international community who expedited wide-ranging resources and have worked so very hard on this mission," the statement continued. "We appreciate their commitment to finding these five explorers, and their days and nights of tireless work in support of our crew and their families. This is a very sad time for the entire explorer community, and for each of the family members of those lost at sea. We respectfully ask that the privacy of these families be respected during this most painful time."
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