About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (June 23, 2023)
NATION The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com Weekend Edition-June 23-24, 2023 7A Coast Guard: Submersible imploded, killing 5 aboard STEVEN SENNE I Associated Press U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger, commander of the First Coast Guard District, center at microphone, talks to the media Thursday, June 22, at Coast Guard Base Boston in Boston. BY PATRICK WHITTLE, HOLLY RAMER AND LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press A submersible carrying five people to the Titanic imploded near the site of the shipwreck and killed everyone on board, authori ties said Thursday, bring ing a tragic end to a saga that included an urgent around-the-clock search and a worldwide vigil for the missing vessel. The sliver of hope that remained for finding the five men alive was wiped away early Thursday, when the submersible’s 96-hour supply of oxygen was expected to run out follow ing its Sunday launch and the Coast Guard announced that debris had been found roughly 1,600 feet from the Titanic in North Atlantic waters. “This was a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” said Rear Adm. John Mauger, of the First Coast Guard District. After the craft was reported missing, the U.S. Navy went back and ana lyzed its acoustic data and found an anomaly that was “consistent with an implo sion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communi cations were lost,” a senior Navy official told The Asso ciated Press on Thursday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive acoustic detection system. The Navy passed on that information to the Coast Guard, which continued its search because the Navy did not consider the data to be definitive. OceanGate Expeditions, the company that owned and operated the submers ible, said in a statement that all five people in the vessel, including CEO and pilot Stockton Rush, “have sadly been lost.” The others on board were two members of a prominent Pakistani fam ily, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet. “These men were true explorers who shared a dis tinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” OceanGate said in a statement. “We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.” OceanGate has been chronicling the Titanic’s decay and the underwa ter ecosystem around it via yearly voyages since 2021. The company has not responded to additional questions about the Titan’s voyage this week. The Coast Guard will con tinue searching for more signs about what happened to the Titan. While the Navy likely detected the implosion Sun day through its acoustics system, underwater sounds heard Tuesday and Wednes day — which initially gave hope for a possible rescue — were probably unrelated to the submersible. The Navy’s possible clue was not known publicly until Thurs day, when The Wall Street Journal first reported it. With a search area cov ering thousands of miles — twice the size of Con necticut and in waters 21/2 miles deep — rescuers all week rushed ships, planes and other equipment to the site of the disappearance. Broadcasters around the world started newscasts at the critical hour Thursday with news of the submers ible. The Saudi-owned sat ellite channel A1 Arabiya showed a clock on air count ing down to their estimate of when the air could poten tially run out. The White House thanked the U.S. Coast Guard, along with Canadian, British and French partners who helped in the search and rescue efforts. “Our hearts go out to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives on the Titan. They have been through a harrowing ordeal over the past few days, and we are keeping them in our thoughts and prayers,” it said in a statement. The Titan launched at 6 a.m. Sunday and was reported overdue that after noon about 435 miles south of St. John’s, Newfound land. By Thursday, when the oxygen supply was expected to run out, there was little hope of finding the crew alive. In 2021 and 2022, at least 46 people successfully traveled on OceanGate’s submersible to the Titanic site, according to letters the company filed with a U.S. District Court in Nor folk, Virginia, that oversees matters involving the ship wreck. But questions about the submersible’s safety were raised by former passengers. One of the company’s first customers likened a dive he made to the site two years ago to a suicide mission. “Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other,” said Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman and adven turer from Germany. “You can’t be claustrophobic.” During the 2 1/2-hour descent and ascent, the lights were turned off to conserve energy, he said, with the only illumination coming from a fluorescent glow stick. The dive was repeatedly delayed to fix a problem with the battery and the bal ancing weights. In total, the voyage took 101/2 hours. Nicolai Roterman, a deep-sea ecologist and lec turer in marine biology at the University of Ports mouth, England, said the disappearance of the Titan highlights the dangers and unknowns of deep-sea tourism. “Even the most reliable technology can fail, and therefore accidents will happen,” Roterman said. “With the growth in deep- sea tourism, we must expect more incidents like this.” Associated Press writ ers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia; Frank Jordans in Berlin; Danica Kirka in London; and John Leicester in Paris contributed to this report. Biden defends calling Chinese President Xi a ‘dictator’ BY ELLEN KNICKMEYER AND SYLVIE CORBET Associated Press WASHINGTON — Presi dent Joe Biden on Thurs day defended his harsh public comments on China, including calling President Xi Jinping a dictator, say ing his words would have no negative impact on U.S.- China relations and that he still expects to meet with Xi sometime soon. Biden said his blunt state ments regarding China are “just not something I’m going to change very much.” The remarks, which drew a formal protest from China, opened a new rift just days after Secretary of State Antony Blinken concluded a visit to Beijing that was meant as a step toward sta bilizing ties and improving communications. But Biden was undeterred. “I expect to be meeting with President Xi sometime in the future, near-term. And I don’t think it’s had any real consequence,” he said. His latest rebuff to China came on the same afternoon he welcomed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the White House in an alli ance-strengthening move against their shared rival, China. Just hours earlier, Chi na’s embassy in Washing ton said it had delivered a formal protest, with Chi nese Ambassador Xie Feng telling senior White House and State Department officials Wednesday that Washington “should take earnest actions to undo the negative impact” of what Biden said or “bear all the consequences.” “With the latest irrespon sible remarks about China’s political system and its top leader, people cannot help but question the sincerity of the U.S. side” in seek ing to stabilize relations, the embassy said in a state ment. “The Chinese gov ernment and people do not accept any political provo cation against China’s top leader and will resolutely respond.” At a campaign fundraiser on Tuesday, Biden had called the Chinese president a dictator, depicted him as out-of-touch during last win ter’s tumult over a Chinese spy balloon, and dismissed China as having “real eco nomic difficulties.” As an official govern- ment-to-government communication, the ambas sador’s message to the Biden administration car ries more weight than the critical comments made a day earlier by a Chinese government spokesperson to reporters. China gave no further details of how the ambassador delivered his message, whether it was seeking an apology from the Biden administration, or what the consequences would be. China and the U.S. in recent years have been cycling in and out of dip lomatic flare-ups. China has used measures ranging from cutting diplomatic ties to staging military maneu vers off Taiwan to show its displeasure. Biden administration officials on Wednesday defended Biden’s remarks, saying the president has made a point of drawing distinctions between the world’s democracies and autocracies. The State Department said Thurs day that it does not com ment on private diplomatic discussions. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen addressed the latest rift Thursday at an unre lated news conference in Paris, saying, “with respect to the comments, I think President Biden and I both believe it’s critical to main tain communication ... to clear up misperceptions, miscalculations. We need to work together where possible.” “But we have disagree ments, and we are also forthright in recognizing we do have disagreements,” she added. Yellen has recently advo cated for improving rela tions between the U.S. and China, arguing cooperation is needed for the sake of maintaining global stability. U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, at the same global finance and climate event as Yellen, expressed the urgency of resuming cli mate discussions between China and the U.S., the No. 1 and No. 2 emitters of cli mate-damaging fumes from fossil fuels. Talks between the two countries were vital in the breakthrough that led to the 2015 Paris climate accord. But climate discus sions between the two have stalled in the past couple of years over the governments’ diplomatic disputes and other issues. When it comes to slowing JACQUELYN MARTIN I Associated Press President Joe Biden speaks during a news conference with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the East Room of the White House on Thursday, June 22 in Washington. climate change, it “should be China and the United States working together on a global threat in a way that can build some confidence and change the dynamics of the relationship. That’s the hope,” Kerry told a small group of reporters. He said Xi and Biden understood the urgency of the emissions talks. “Every day that goes by without them is a day for mischief,” Kerry said. 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