The support vessel Polar Prince returned to St. John’s harbour yesterday, amid a throng of media and other onlookers.

The vessel which launched the ill-fated submersible mini-sub Titan went directly to the Canadian Coast Guard pier on the south side of the harbour where it remains tied up.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada announced it will conduct the investigation into the tragedy since the Polar Prince is a Canadian-registered vessel.

Officials confirmed Thursday that the 21-foot vehicle likely imploded some time during its descent to the Titanic wreakage last Sunday, killing all five people on board.

Meanwhile, St. John’s Mayor Danny Breen says the shocking ending gripped the city and the province even though those aboard were not from this province.

“There was a tremendous amount of empathy because it brings back memories of events that happened in the past. More than perhaps anywhere else, we would know what the families were going through in this and I think it put us in a special place to be able to appreciate and be able to sympathize with the issues that the families were feeling and the emotions they were feeling at that time.”

Breen says the events this week were particularly poignant for him, having lost a brother in the crash of Cougar Flight 491 off St. John’s in 2009.

The mayor says he had a bad feeling about Titan from the start.

“I just felt that given the machine they were in, what they were doing, the depth of water, I never really did have a good feeling. And I think what was really striking about this one was you also had this oxygen supply issue that it was almost like a timer you had on this, right? So you were racing against the clock in our own minds of how you can get there.”