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Too soon? Subway under fire for ‘distasteful’ Titanic sub sign

File - Photo of a Subway store sign taken in London, England. Peter Dazeley/Getty Images

A Subway location in Georgia is facing backlash over a message it displayed on its store sign that made light of the Titan submersible implosion that claimed five lives.

On Sunday, numerous social media posts cropped up that showed the same Subway sign, reading: “Our subs don’t implode.”

One woman tweeted at Subway, “this is at your store in Rincon, GA. Not only is it distasteful, it’s just sad. Do better.”

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Local news agency WTOC reported that the sign was visible along U.S. Highway 21. The outlet noted it received “several messages and comments in reference to the sign saying it was in poor taste.”

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WTOC contacted the Subway location and a store manager said the sign was removed. They issued no further comment.

A Subway spokesperson confirmed the sign was removed and stated that “this kind of comment has no place in our business.”

Timothy Mauck, a resident of Brooklet, Ga., posted one of the images of the Subway sign that went viral on social media.

He told TODAY that he noticed the sign while driving on the highway and he pulled over to take a picture of it. He found it “surprisingly disrespectful,” the report reads.

“I’m sure it would be disrespectful to the family, you know what I mean?” Mauck said. “It was a very uncalled-for kind of thing because that’s a place of business, and for one of their employees to put that up on their sign that only lets everybody know that the situation is a joke.

“I’ve told many people, ‘You know, if it was your family, whether it was a situation like that or if it was just another tragic accident, and people were to make fun of them, it wouldn’t be so funny to you, would it, man?’”

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The Titan sub tragedy inspired a wave of morbid humour and “eat-the-rich” style jokes after it was revealed that the passengers on board paid US$250,000 to tour the shipwreck of the Titanic.

The search for the missing OceanGate submersible captivated the world’s attention last month when the Titan went dark mere hours into its dive. With only 96 hours of reserve oxygen on board, international crews collaborated to find the sub before the five men on board ran out of air.

Four days into the search, the U.S. Coast Guard announced it had found wreckage of the Titan sub in the northern Atlantic off St. John’s. It’s believed the sub imploded, killing OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush; two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

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