23 June

We probably won’t ever find out, but I’d have a bet that the bodies of the 5 men in the Titan are actually there, directly beneath where the sub imploded, on the ocean floor. Just as the debris they found was, as James Cameron predicted. At that depth I don’t think there are large currents, the lot would have dropped straight down like a stone after implosion. If the carbon fibre shell didn’t just disintegrate completely (and it’s an implosion, not explosion, so all the bits would have tended to move inwards, not outwards), then they’re a gelatinous thin film sandwiched between carbon fibre sheets, lying on the bottom. One reason we may never find out is that they don’t tend to report on human remains in sea wrecks. It creates resistance to that exploration with the public. For example they’re always very cagey about whether they found any bodies in the Titanic itself. One of the laws of the sea is that wrecks are a type of sacred tomb. Talking about bodies triggers debates around tomb raiding. Similarly they’ve never spoke openly about what happened to the 7 astronauts that were on the Challenger shuttle when it exploded in 1986. If you access the official reports though the crew capsule survived the explosion and was thrown thousands of feet through the air, into the ocean. That capsule was recovered, and the crushed astronauts inside it. The analysis suggested it had hit the water from a height of 9 miles, intact. And that at least some of the astronauts were alive when it did. Again, they don’t publicise this.