We were afraid for the Titan five. But this story generated an uglier emotion, too: excitement | Bryony Clarke

Passengers aboard the sub lost on a dive to the Titanic became characters in a tragic drama. The rest of us were spectators

Finally, we know. The discovery of debris on the seafloor - confirming that the missing OceanGate Titan submersible probably disintegrated in an instantaneous implosion on the same day that it disappeared - brings to a bleak end the mystery that has horrified and mesmerised people across the globe.

The plight of the five passengers - the British adventurer Hamish Harding, the businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son Suleman, the French veteran explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet and OceanGate's CEO, Stockton Rush - has dominated front pages everywhere and spurred an international response that involved four countries and may have cost millions of dollars.

Bryony Clarke is an assistant letters editor at the Guardian

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