Rear Admiral Mauger says he cannot confirm whether the US Coast Guard will be able to recover the bodies of the five passengers on board the Titan sub.
"This is an incredibly unforgiving environment," he adds.
The site of the fatal accident is believed to be 1600ft (487m) off the bow of the Titanic wreck.
It's in an area where there is not any debris of the Titanic.
It is too early to tell what the timing of the implosion was, Rear Adm Mauger tells reporters.
He said the US Coat Guard had sonar buoys out in the water for 72 hours. Since they had been in place, they had not detected "any catastrophic events," he adds.
Rear Adm Mauger says right now there are nine vessels on the scene, as the search for more details continues.
"We have medical personnel on the scene, we have other technicians on scene, and we will begin to demobilise personnel and vessels from the scene over the course of the next 24 hours," he says.
"This is an incredibly difficult and dangerous environment to work in."
Throughout the search, the coastguard had listening devices in the water, but did not detect any catastrophic failures, he reiterated.
The US Coast Guard says their thoughts are with the families and making sure they have an understanding as best as they can provide on what happened and to begin to find some closure.
In terms of the large process, they are going to continue to investigate the site of the debris field.
There’s a lot of questions about how, why and when this happened.
Those are questions that we will collect now while governments meet and discuss an investigation.
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