Human remains are believed to have been found in wreckage of the Titan submersible, the US Coast Guard says.
Pieces from the sub, which imploded on a deep dive to the Titanic, were unloaded in St John’s, Canada, on Wednesday.
Coast Guard officials say the sub’s landing frame and a rear cover were found among the debris.
US medical professionals will conduct a formal analysis of presumed remains, the coast guard said in a statement.
The agency is in the early stages of an investigation into the causes of the Titan disaster. The Coast Guard said its Marine Board of Investigation will transport the evidence to a US port for further analysis and testing.
“I am grateful for the coordinated international and interagency support to recover and preserve this vital evidence at extreme offshore distances and depths,” stated MBI Chair Captain Jason Neubauer in a statement on Wednesday.
He said there is “still a substantial amount of work to be done to understand the factors that led to the catastrophic loss of the Titan and help ensure a similar tragedy does not occur again”.
All five people on board the vessel died on 18 June after it imploded about 90 minutes into a dive to view the famous 1912 shipwreck, which sits at a depth of 3,800m (12,500ft) in the north Atlantic.
The passengers were the head of OceanGate, which organised the dive, 61-year-old Stockton Rush; British explorer Hamish Harding, 58; Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son, Suleman Dawood, 19; and French diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 77.
So far, the Coast Guard says, five major pieces have been found below the surface in a large debris field near the bow of the Titanic.
The debris brought ashore on Wednesday appeared to include at least one titanium end cap, the sub’s porthole with its window missing, as well as a titanium ring, landing frame and the end equipment bay, according to BBC science correspondent Jonathan Amos.