'Sadly been lost’: Titanic submersible operator says all 5 aboard have died

All five people aboard the submersible that went missing Sunday have died, the company that operates the vessel said in a statement Thursday.

“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,” OceanGate Expeditions said in a statement, The New York Times reports.

The company’s statement follows news earlier in the day that remote-operated search vessels deep in the waters of the North Atlantic observed what was described as a “debris field.”

The 22-foot-long submersible owned and operated by OceanGate on Sunday morning lost communications with a chartered ship during a tour of the wreck of the Titanic. It was believed to have four days’ worth of oxygen.