Eerie 'Titanic' Scene Goes Viral During Search for Missing 'Titan' Sub

By Allison Schonter

As search and rescue crews from around the world worked tirelessly to locate the missing OceanGate submersible carrying five passengers to the site of the Titanic wreck, an eerie scene from James Cameron's 1997 film Titanic resurfaced. On Monday, the OceanGate submersible, named the Titan, vanished approximately 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland just one hour and 45 minutes into its descent, the tragic story capturing global attention and quickly causing many to reflect on Cameron's hit film.

While Titanic is most known for the ill-fated love story of Rose and Jack, it was another moment in the movie that garnered plenty of attention. The 1997 award-winning movie, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, opens with a research crew aboard the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, with researchers investigating the wreckage of the RMS Titanic from their submarine window. While the scene was no cause for chatter in the more than two decades since Titanic's release, amid this week's devastating news, it was an eerie similarity.

The OceanGate crew aboard the Titan included OceanGate Expeditions founder and CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, renowned French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, and his 19-year-old son Suleman. The group embarked on an 8-day voyage, which included a descent to the remains of the RMS Titanic, which sits around 12,500 feet below sea level. OceanGate's Titan submerged at 8 .a.m Sunday around 400 miles southeast of St John's, Newfoundland, and at approximately 9:45 a.m., less than two hours into the descent, it lost contact with its mothership, the Polar Prince.

After several days of searching, and after the critical 96-hour mark, after which the oxygen on the submersible was believed to have officially run out, the search and rescue mission tragically moved to a search and recovery mission Thursday after the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed that a "debris field" discovered near the Titanic wreck belonged to the 21-foot submersible. It is now believed that all five persons aboard the submersible died immediately after a "catastrophic implosion" – "the sudden inward collapse of the vessel" – occurred.

US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger, the First Coast Guard District commander, told reporters Thursday, "This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel." A remotely operated vehicle found the tail cone and other debris about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic. According to Mauger, the remotely operated vehicles will remain on the scene and continue to gather information.

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