Coast Guard heard an 'explosion' less than 2 hours after Titan sub began voyage: report

The U.S. Coast Guard admitted Friday that an “explosion” was heard in the Atlantic shortly after the submersible Titan was lost, the Independent reported.

An “anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion” was picked by U.S. Navy monitors about 105 minutes after the doomed craft began its descent towards the sunken wreckage of the Titanic, the newspaper reported.

Five people, including the CEO of the sub’s developers OceanGate Expeditions, were killed.

Parts of the craft were found in a debris field Thursday, four days into a search and rescue mission believed to have cost millions of dollars.

The rescue mission went ahead because the Coast Guard considered that the sound of the explosion was "not definitive at that point,” a Coast Guard told the Independent.

Among those killed were British billionaire Hamish Harding, French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, 19.

The noise “was consistent with an explosion but not conclusive,” the Coast Guard spokesman told the Independent. “We cannot definitively say if the explosion sound was or was not the incident that killed those on board.”