NEW YORK, June 23. /TASS/. The secret equipment of the US Navy has registered what was later presumed to be the sound of implosion of the Titan submersible last week, The Wall Street Journal said citing a high-ranking US Navy official.

The paper wrote that "a top secret US Navy acoustic detection system designed to spot enemy submarines" began listening for the Titan almost immediately after communication with the sub was lost. The name of the system was withheld for "national security concerns."

Soon after beginning its work, the US system registered the sound of the presumed explosion near the area where the wreckage of the submersible was discovered on Thursday.

"The US Navy conducted an analysis of acoustic data and detected an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost," the paper quoted a senior US Navy official as saying. "While not definitive, this information was immediately shared with the Incident Commander to assist with the ongoing search and rescue mission."

On June 19, the OceanGate Expeditions company announced that it had lost communication with the Titan sub, which was taking tourists to the site of the Titanic wreckage. According to the US Coast Guard, there were five people inside the vessel; communication was lost about 1 hour 45 minutes after diving on June 18. The submersible’s passengers were OceanGate Expeditions President and Founder Stockton Rush, French aquanaut Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British billionaire Hamish Harding, owner of Action Aviation, Pakistani-born British businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman.

Late on Thursday the US Coast Guard confirmed that the wreckage, previously discovered during a search operation, was from the Titan. An examination revealed that fragments of the submersible had signs "consistent with a catastrophic implosion," and all its passengers were declared dead.