This photo provided by OceanGate Expeditions shows a submersible vessel named Titan used to visit the wreckage site of the Titanic. The wrecks of the Titanic and the Titan sit on the ocean floor, separated by 1,600 feet (490 meters) and 111 years of history.
| Photo Credit: AP
On June 18, contact was lost with a 6.7 metre-long submersible named ‘Titan’ which was carrying one pilot and four crew members to a depth of around 3,800 metres to see the wreckage of the RMS Titanic in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. The U.S Coast Guard confirmed on June 22 that parts of the submersible and “debris” were found near the Titanic, and said this was consistent with a “catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.” All those onboard have died. The U.S. Navy also confirmed evidence of an implosion or explosion near Titan’s last recorded location.
Titan’s five crew members were billionaire Hamish Harding, businessman Shahzada Dawood and his university-going son Suleman Dawood, and Titanic researcher Paul-Henri Nargeolet. Piloting the submersible was Stockton Rush, the CEO of the company which operated Titan — OceanGate Inc. The tour reportedly cost $250,000.
Titan was one hour and forty-five minutes into the dive when it lost contact. Through the week, U.S., Canadian, and French authorities used planes, boats, and remote operated vehicles to re-establish contact with Titan, which had life support of 96 hours for five persons.
As a submersible, Titan was designed to be launched and recovered with the help of a surface vessel. Made of carbon fibre and titanium, and weighing 10,432 kg, Titan was built with “off-the-shelf” components, according to OceanGate’s website, making it lighter and less expensive to replace. Its CEO had shown BBC that Titan was operated with one button and a “Sony PlayStation-style controller” made by Logitech. Titan had a small porthole window and toilet at one end, and needed external crew to open it from the outside. There was enough space to sit, though not stand inside.
Past expeditions
OceanGate said it had conducted “successful” Titanic expeditions in 2021 and 2022, in line with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and UNESCO regulations. The British passenger liner Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, after hitting an iceberg, killing over 1,500 people. It is important to remember that the Titanic is a grave site where victims experienced unimaginable horror and suffering in their final hours. OceanGate noted its expeditions were meant to document the Titanic and its rate of decay on the ocean floor.
OceanGate said in a statement on June 23 that the five crew members had “sadly been lost”. However, the company had been called out over Titan’s safety standards in the past. CBS Sunday Morning correspondent David Pogue claimed that Titan was lost for a few hours when he was part of an expedition last year as a journalist, though he was on a ship and not on the submersible at the time. He claimed the company could text Titan that day but did not know where the submersible was.
Mr. Pogue added that Internet was shut off to stop those on the surface from tweeting, though he did not report this on the show at the time. He also claimed the submersible did not have a beacon that could be detected.
In 2018, OceanGate fired its employee David Lochridge and sued him after he filed a whistle-blower complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration over the safety of the Titan, CBS reported. Mr. Lochridge allegedly pushed for better testing of the submersible’s hull before sending it down for dives.
According to Mr. Lochridge’s court filings from August 15, 2018, he learned that “the viewport at the forward of the submersible was only built to a certified pressure of 1,300 megtres, although OceanGate intended to take passengers down to depths of 4,000 metres.”
Experimental design
His filing said OceanGate refused to pay for the manufacturer to build a viewport that would meet the expedition requirements.
The fired employee’s other concerns included the “experimental” design, a lack of comprehensive hull testing, and the use of hazardous flammable materials inside the submersible, as per the filings.
While authorities further investigate the tragedy, the Titan deaths have ignited a debate about the discrepancy between the advanced rescue efforts for the crew onboard the missing submersible and the chaotic aid received by migrants on a sinking boat off the Greece coast, where dozens died and are still missing.
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