distinct spirit of adventure and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world s oceans. our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. they go on to say, quote, 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. tom, there are, inevitably, going to be questions, as some have come up already, about regulations and about safety standards. the coast coast guard was asked during the press briefing what questions might you have at this point, as we learn of this tragic ending to your friend s story? well, the other submersible operations that i ve worked with all have relationships with the
at least two debris fields they are combing through right now to gather evidence. in the meantime i want to bring back in tom detswyler, who has not only a personal connection to someone on board this vessel but to the titanic wreckage himself. he s an ocean explorer and engineering consultant and also a close friend of paul-henri nargeolet. tom, you were part of the team that discovered the titanic wreckage initially when it was found back in the 1980s, and you were close to paul-henri, as i understand, as someone who often visited that site, known as mr. titanic, had been down there more than 30 times. now that you are hearing the news that he was apparently lost in this catastrophic implosion, i m wondering what you want the world to remember about your friend? p.h. had just an incredible
them or not. there s some condolence there. the other thing is that titanic became a very important part of p.h. s life and i don t think he would consider it an unnecessarily bad place to be buried. tom, i do want to ask you to standby for a moment. again, we are awaiting a press briefing from the u.s. coast guard. we understand that they are at the podium now. thank you for joining us now. this afternoon, rear admiral john mauger will be providing an update on the most recent findings from rov operations in search of the titan submersible. he will provide a brief statement and provide the opportunity for questions after. please limit your questions to one per outlet. following the briefing, the joint information center staff and i will be here to help you with any of your further needs. may i please introduce rear admiral john mauger.
in titanic just because he had the opportunities to, but all of us have had opportunities like the titanic and they re all very exciting. it s really the spirit of adventure. it s finding something new. it s seeing something that hasn t been seen by people before or hasn t been seen for maybe 100 years. it s, you know, there is a risk taking involved, you know. i would have to admit we probably are all a little bit of risk takers, but we like to say we manage the risks so we re not being stupid with our lives. we are managing the risks and doing everything we can to keep it safe, but we all know something like this could happen at some point. failures do happen when you re going to these extremes. tom, i do want to share with you a statement that we ve recently gotten from oceangate, the operator of the titan vessel. they say, quote, these men were true explorers who shared a
program right now. you know, we re making great strides in the space program through privatization of some of it, but at the same time, you know, are those programs as safe as say the government-run programs? so i think we have to work that out. we certainly don t want to stop the entrepreneurial developments because, quite often, they develop technologies that are major steps because they re not hindered by the regulations. you know, we need to find where that line is, where we can allow them to be somewhat unregulated, but at the same time not sacrifice safety. as you noted, it requires risk to have innovation. tom, i am curious about another aspect of this. the coast guard shared that it may be very difficult to find any remains in part because of the unforgiving conditions down there, the fact that this was an