Titan Submersible Implosion

On 18 June 2023, ''Titan'', a submersible operated by the American tourism and expeditions company OceanGate, imploded during an expedition to view the wreck of the ''Titanic'' in the North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. Aboard the submersible were Stockton Rush, the American chief executive officer of OceanGate; Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French deep-sea explorer and ''Titanic'' expert; Hamish Harding, a British businessman; Shahzada Dawood, a Pakistani-British businessman; and Dawood's son, Suleman.

Communication between ''Titan'' and its mother ship, , was lost 1 hour and 33 minutes into the dive. Authorities were alerted when it failed to resurface at the scheduled time later that day. After the submersible had been missing for four days, a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) discovered a debris field containing parts of ''Titan'', about from the bow of the ''Titanic''. The search area was informed by the United States Navy's (USN) sonar detection of an acoustic signature consistent with an implosion around the time communications with the submersible ceased, suggesting the pressure hull had imploded while ''Titan'' was descending, resulting in the instantaneous deaths of all five occupants.

The search and rescue operation was performed by an international team organized by the United States Coast Guard (USCG), USN, and Canadian Coast Guard. Support was provided by aircraft from the Royal Canadian Air Force and United States Air National Guard, a Royal Canadian Navy ship, as well as several commercial and research vessels and ROVs.

Numerous industry experts had stated concerns about the safety of the vessel. OceanGate executives, including Rush, had not sought certification for ''Titan'', arguing that excessive safety protocols and regulations hindered innovation.

Background

OceanGate

OceanGate was a private company, initiated in 2009 by Stockton Rush and Guillermo Söhnlein. From 2010 until the loss of the ''Titan'' submersible, OceanGate transported paying customers in leased commercial submersibles off the coast of California, in the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Atlantic Ocean. The company was based in Everett, Washington, US.

Rush realized that visiting shipwreck sites was a method of getting media attention. OceanGate had previously conducted voyages to other shipwrecks, including its 2016 dive to the wreck of aboard their other submersible ''Cyclops1''. (A near disaster on that expedition was recounted in '' Vanity Fair'' in 2023.) In 2019, Rush told ''Smithsonian'' magazine: "There's only one wreck that everyone knows... If you ask people to name something underwater, it's going to be sharks, whales, ''Titanic''".

''Titanic''

The ''Titanic'' was a British ocean liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912, after colliding with an iceberg. More than 1,500 people died, making it the deadliest sinking of a single ship at the time. In 1985, Robert Ballard located the wreck of the ''Titanic'' from the coast of Newfoundland. The wreck lies at a depth of about . Since its discovery, it has been a destination for research expeditions and tourism. By 2012, 140 people had visited the wreck site.

Submersible ''Titan''

Formerly known as ''Cyclops 2'', ''Titan'' was a five-person submersible vessel operated by OceanGate Inc. The , vessel was constructed from carbon fibre and titanium. The entire pressure vessel consisted of two titanium hemispheres (domes) with matching titanium interface rings bonded to the internal diameter, carbon fibre-wound cylinder. One of the titanium hemispherical end caps could be detached to provide the hatch and was fitted with a acrylic window. In 2020, Rush said that the hull, originally designed to reach below sea level, had been downgraded to a depth rating of after demonstrating signs of cyclic fatigue. In 2020 and 2021, the hull was repaired or rebuilt. Rush told the ''Travel Weekly'' editor-in-chief that the carbon fibre had been sourced at a discount from Boeing because it was too old for use in the company's airplanes. Boeing stated they have no records of any sale to Rush or to OceanGate. OceanGate had initially not sought certification for ''Titan'', arguing that excessive safety protocols hindered innovation. Lloyd's Register, a ship classification society, refused OceanGate's request to class the vessel in 2019.

''Titan'' could move at as much as using four electric thrusters, arrayed two horizontal and two vertical. Its steering controls consisted of a Logitech F710 wireless game controller with modified longer analogue sticks resembling traditional joysticks. The University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory assisted with the control design on the ''Cyclops 1'' using a DualShock 3 video game controller, which was carried over to ''Titan'', substituting with the Logitech controller. The use of commercial off-the-shelf game controllers is common for remote-controlled vehicles such as unmanned aerial vehicles or bomb disposal robots, whilst the United States Navy uses Xbox 360 controllers to control periscopes in s.

OceanGate claimed on its website that ''Titan'' was "designed and engineered by OceanGate Inc. in collaboration ithexperts from NASA, Boeing, and the University of Washington" (UW). A -scale model of the ''Cyclops 2'' pressure vessel was built and tested at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) at UW; the model was able to sustain a pressure of , corresponding to a depth of about . After the disappearance of ''Titan'' in 2023, these earlier associates disclaimed involvement with the Titan project. UW claimed the APL had no involvement in the "design, engineering, or testing of the ''Titan'' submersible". A Boeing spokesperson also claimed Boeing "was not a partner on ''Titan'' and did not design or build it". A NASA spokesperson said that NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center had a Space Act Agreement with OceanGate, but "did not conduct testing and manufacturing via its workforce or facilities". It was designed and developed originally in partnership with UW and Boeing, both of which put forth numerous design recommendations and rigorous testing requirements, which Rush ignored, despite prior tests at lower depths resulting in implosions at UW's lab. The partnerships dissolved as Rush refused to work within quality standards.

According to OceanGate, the vessel contained monitoring systems to continuously monitor the strength of the hull. The vessel had life support for five people for 96 hours. There is no GPS underwater; the support ship, which monitored the position of ''Titan'' relative to its target, sent text messages to ''Titan'' providing distances and directions.

According to OceanGate, ''Titan'' had several backup systems intended to return the vessel to the surface in case of emergency, including ballasts that could be dropped, a balloon, thrusters, and sandbags held by hooks that dissolved after a certain number of hours in saltwater. Ideally, this would release the sandbags, allowing the vessel to float to the surface. An OceanGate investor explained that if the vessel did not ascend automatically after the elapsed time, those inside could help release the ballast either by tilting the ship back and forth to dislodge it or by using a pneumatic pump to loosen the weights.

Dives to wreck of ''Titanic''

Dives by ''Titan'' to the wreck of ''Titanic'' occurred as part of multi-day excursions organized by OceanGate, which the company referred to as "missions". Five missions occurred in the middle of 2021 and 2022. ''Titan'' imploded during the fifth mission of 2023; it was the first mission of the year in which a dive came close to ''Titanic'', due to poor weather during previous attempts.

Passengers would sail to and from the wreckage site aboard a support ship and spend approximately five days on the ocean above the ''Titanic'' wreckage site. Two dives were usually attempted during each excursion, though dives were often cancelled or aborted due to weather or technical malfunctions.

Each dive typically had a pilot, a guide, and three paying passengers aboard. Once they were inside the submersible, the hatch would be bolted shut and could only be reopened from the outside. The descent from the surface to the ''Titanic'' wreck typically took two hours, with the full dive taking about eight hours. Throughout the journey, the submersible was expected to emit a safety ping every 15 minutes to be monitored by the above-water crew. The vessel and surface crew were also able to communicate via brief text messages.

Customers who travelled to the wreck with OceanGate, referred to as "mission specialists" by the company, paid each for the eight-day expedition.

OceanGate intended to perform multiple dives to the ''Titanic'' wreck in 2023, but the dive in which ''Titan'' was destroyed was the only one the company had launched that year.

Safety

Because ''Titan'' operated in international waters and did not carry passengers from a port, it was not subject to safety regulations. The vessel was not certified as seaworthy by any regulatory agency or third-party organization. Reporter David Pogue, who completed the expedition in 2022 as part of a ''CBS News Sunday Morning'' feature, said that all passengers who enter ''Titan'' sign a waiver confirming their knowledge that it is an "experimental" vessel "that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death". Television producer Mike Reiss, who also completed the expedition, said the waiver "mention death three times on page one". A 2019 article published in ''Smithsonian'' magazine referred to Rush as a "daredevil inventor". In the article, Rush is described as having said that the U.S. Passenger Vessel Safety Act of 1993 "needlessly prioritized passenger safety over commercial innovation". In a 2022 interview, Rush told ''CBS News'', "At some point, safety just is pure waste. I mean, if you just want to be safe, don't get out of bed. Don't get in your car. Don't do anything." Rush said in a 2021 interview, "I've broken some rules to make 'Titan'' I think I've broken them with logic and good engineering behind me. The carbon fibre and titanium, there's a rule you don't do that. Well, I did."

OceanGate claimed that ''Titan'' was the only crewed submersible that used an integrated real-time monitoring system (RTM) for safety. The proprietary system, patented by Rush in 2021, used acoustic sensors and strain gauges at the pressure boundary to analyse the effects of increasing pressure as the watercraft ventured deeper into the ocean and to monitor the hull's integrity in real time. This would supposedly give early warning of problems and allow enough time to abort the descent and return to the surface.

Prior concerns

In 2018, OceanGate's director of marine operations, David Lochridge, composed a report documenting safety concerns he had about ''Titan''. In court documents, Lochridge said that he had urged the company to have ''Titan'' assessed and certified by the American Bureau of Shipping, but OceanGate had refused to do so, instead seeking classification from Lloyd's Register. He also said that the transparent viewport on its forward end, due to its nonstandard and therefore experimental design, was only certified to a depth of , only a third of the depth required to reach the ''Titanic'' wreck. According to Lochridge, RTM would "only show when a component is about to fail – often milliseconds before an implosion" and could not detect existing flaws in the hull before it was too late. Lochridge was also concerned that OceanGate would not perform nondestructive testing on the vessel's hull before undertaking crewed dives and alleged that he was "repeatedly told that no scan of the hull or Bond Line could be done to check for delaminations, porosity and voids of sufficient adhesion of the glue being used due to the thickness of the hull". The viewport was rated to only , and the engineer of the viewport also prepared an analysis from an independent expert that concluded the design would fail after only a few dives.

OceanGate said that Lochridge, who was not an engineer, had refused to accept safety approvals from OceanGate's engineering team and that the company's evaluation of ''Titan'' hull was stronger than any kind of third-party evaluation Lochridge thought necessary. OceanGate sued Lochridge for allegedly breaching his confidentiality contract and making fraudulent statements. Lochridge counter-sued, stating that his employment had been wrongfully terminated as a whistleblower for stating concerns about ''Titan'' ability to operate safely. The two parties settled the case a few months later, before it came to court. He filed a whistleblower complaint with Occupational Safety and Health Administration, but withdrew it after the lawsuit was filed.

Later in 2018, a group organized by William Kohnen, the chair of the Submarine Group of the Marine Technology Society, drafted a letter to Rush expressing "unanimous concern regarding the development of 'TITAN' and the planned ''Titanic'' Expedition", indicating that the "current experimental approach ... could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry". The letter said that OceanGate's marketing of the Titan was misleading because it claimed that the submersible would meet or exceed the safety standards of classification society DNV, even though the company had no plans to have the craft certified formally by the society. While the letter was never sent officially by the Marine Technology Society, it did result in a conversation with OceanGate that resulted in some changes, but in the end Rush "agreed to disagree" with the rest of the civilian submarine community. Kohnen told ''The New York Times'' that Rush had telephoned him after reading it to tell him that he believed industry standards were stifling innovation.

Another signatory, engineer Bart Kemper, agreed to sign the letter because of OceanGate's decision not to use established engineering standards like ASME Pressure Vessels for Human Occupancy (PVHO) or design validation. Kemper said the submersible was "experimental, with no oversight". Kohnen and Kemper stated OceanGate's methods were not representative of the industry. Kohnen and Kemper are both members of the ASME Codes and Standards committee for PVHOs, which develops and maintains the engineering safety standards for submarines, commercial diving systems, hyperbaric systems, and related equipment. Kemper is an engineering researcher who has published a number of technical papers on submarine windows, including the need to innovate.

In March 2018, one of Boeing's engineers involved in the preliminary designs, Mark Negley, carried out an analysis of the hull and emailed Rush directly stating, "We think you are at high risk of a significant failure at or before you reach 4,000 meters. We do not think you have any safety margin." He included a graph of the strain of the design with a skull and crossbones at a red line of 4,000 meters.

Also in March 2018, Rob McCallum, a major deep sea exploration specialist, emailed Rush to warn him he was potentially risking his clients' safety and advised against the submersible's use for commercial purposes until it had been tested independently and classified: "I implore you to take every care in your testing and sea trials and to be very, very conservative." Rush replied that he was "tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation ... We have heard the baseless cries of 'you are going to kill someone' way too often. I take this as a serious personal insult". McCallum then sent Rush another email in which he said: "I think you are potentially placing yourself and your clients in a dangerous dynamic. In your race to ''Titanic'' you are mirroring that famous catch cry: 'She is unsinkable. This prompted OceanGate's lawyers to threaten McCallum with legal action.

In 2022, the British actor and television presenter Ross Kemp, who had participated previously with deep sea dives for the television channel Sky History, had planned to mark the 110th anniversary of the sinking of the ''Titanic'' by recording a documentary in which he would undertake a dive to the wreck using ''Titan''. Kemp's agent Jonathan Shalit said that the project was cancelled after checks by production company Atlantic Productions deemed the submersible to be unsafe and not "fit for purpose".

Previous incidents

In 2021, a new hull was constructed after a previous hull had cracked after 50 submersion dives, only three of which were to 4,000 m. Scale models of the new hull imploded when tested at the UW lab, so a different method of curing the hull was developed and passed a full-sized pressure test at a facility in Maryland. Rush refused to construct new domes and their interface rings, instead instructing engineers to salvage and reuse those parts from the previous hull. Anonymous former employees told ''Wired'' that damage to the rings could have weakened the joints between the domes and the new hull. The new submersible also included lifting rings, which had previously been warned against by engineers, as the submersible's titanium parts could not handle the associated tension or load.

In 2022, reporter David Pogue was aboard the surface ship when ''Titan'' became lost and could not locate the wreck of the ''Titanic'' during a dive. Pogue's December 2022 report for ''CBS News Sunday Morning'', which questioned ''Titan'' safety, went viral on social media after the submersible lost contact with its support ship in June 2023. In the report, Pogue commented to Rush that "it seems like this submersible has some elements of MacGyvery jerry-rigged-ness". He said that a $30 Logitech F710 wireless game controller with modified control sticks was used to steer and pitch the submersible and that construction pipes were used as ballast.

In another 2022 dive to the wreck, one of ''Titan'' thrusters was accidentally installed backwards and the submersible started spinning in circles when trying to move forward near the sea floor. According to the BBC documentary ''Take Me to Titanic'', the issue was bypassed by steering while holding the game controller sideways. According to November 2022 court filings, OceanGate reported that in a 2022 dive, the submersible suffered from battery problems and as a result had to be attached manually to a lifting platform, causing damage to external components.

On 15 July 2022 (dive 80), ''Titan'' experienced a "loud acoustic event" as it was ascending, which was heard by the passengers aboard and picked up by ''Titan'' real-time monitoring system (RTM). Data from ''Titan'' strain gauges later revealed that the hull's strain response had permanently shifted following this event.

The US Coast Guard investigation found that the loud acoustic event was the carbon fibre delaminating, and that every dive after this one was a disaster waiting to happen.

Incident

Expedition arrangements

The voyage was booked in early 2023. Rush offered Jay Bloom, an American businessman, two discounted tickets, intending for Bloom and his son to be on the excursion. Bloom, a billionaire, was offered a price of $150,000 per seat, rather than the full price of $250,000, with Rush claiming that it was "safer than crossing the street", but Bloom declined the offer due to his concerns about its safety. At that time, the excursion was scheduled for May, but unfavourable weather caused it to be delayed until June.

16–17 June preparations

On 16 June 2023 at 9:31 a.m., (local time; 12:01 UTC) the expedition to the ''Titanic'' wreck, which the company referred to as "Mission 5," departed from St. John's, Newfoundland, aboard the Canadian-flagged research and expedition ship . One of the occupants, Hamish Harding, posted on Facebook: "Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only crewed mission to ''Titanic'' in 2023. A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow." He also indicated that the operation was scheduled to begin about 4:00 a.m. EDT (08:00 UTC).

18 June, dive, disappearance, and implosion

The ship arrived in vicinity of the ''Titanic'' wreck site on 18 June 5:15 a.m. Newfoundland Daylight Time (NDT; UTC−02:30). Around 8:30 a.m., five people were on-boarded into the ''Titan'' mounted on top of a floating platform, known as the launch and recovery system (LARS). Subsequently, the forward dome was secured for the expedition designated by the company as "Dive 88". At 8:55 a.m., the platform was vented, causing it to sink below the surface of the water. At 9:18 a.m., ''Titan'' disengaged from the platform and commenced diving. For the first hour and a half of the descent, ''Titan'' communicated with ''Polar Prince'' via text about every 15 minutes and received a "ping" every 5–10 seconds. At a depth of , the submarine sent "all good here", and usual "pings" continued on the communications channel. There were no messages during the descent that indicated trouble. A final text communication was sent from ''Titan'' at 10:47:27 a.m., at an approximate depth of which read "dropped two wts". The final "ping" (data) from ''Titan'' was received at 10:47:33 a.m. NDT (13:17:33 UTC), at depth of . ''Titan's'' location was . Before this final text was received, a loud bang was heard by people monitoring the submersible on the support ship. It transpired that this bang was the implosion of the submersible, the sound from which travelled faster than the message.

A U.S. Navy acoustic detection system designed to locate military submarines detected an acoustic signal consistent with an implosion at 11:04 a.m. (13:34 UTC), less than two hours after ''Titan'' submerged. OceanGate had not informed any government agency that they were diving. Since the small composite submersible did not conform to known acoustic profiles of large military submarines with metal hulls, it was classed as "an anomaly".

Shortly after the disaster, James Cameron indicated that it was likely that the submersible's early warning system alerted the passengers to an impending delamination of the hull, saying "we understand from inside the community that they had dropped their ascent weights and were coming up, trying to manage an emergency." In a 2024 interview with ''60 Minutes Australia'', Cameron stated that "nobody could admit that they didn't have the means to go down and look", referring to the limitations faced by parties attempting to reach the last known position. Oceanographer Bob Ballard, the discoverer of the ''Titanic'' wreck, also said that the crew was likely "experiencing difficulties" and was trying to ascend at the time of the implosion.

In September 2024, Tym Catterson, an OceanGate contractor who was aboard the ''Polar Prince'' at the time of the disaster, testified at the United States Coast Guard's inquiry that there was no indication the crew was aware of any problems before the implosion. The last human-written communication by ''Titan'' indicated that they dropped two weights, amounting to about of the to of dropweights on board. This was apparently routine to adjust the ''Titan''s buoyancy from negative to neutral as it approached the seabed, and was an indication that the crew was not aware of any emergency situation. The last automatic ping was received by the ''Polar Prince'' approximately six seconds later, after which contact was lost.

Simulations developed in 2023 suggest that due to the immense pressure – nearly 400 atm, or 6,000 psi – implosion of the vessel likely took only tens of milliseconds, fast enough to kill the occupants before they became aware of it.

18–22 June, search and rescue efforts

The submersible was expected to resurface at 4:30 p.m. (19:00 UTC). At 7:10 p.m. (21:40 UTC), the U.S. Coast Guard was notified that the vessel was missing. The Navy reviewed its acoustic data from that time and passed the information about the possible implosion event to the Coast Guard. ''Titan'' had as much as 96 hours of breathable air supply for its five passengers when it set out, which would have expired on the morning of 22 June 2023 if the submersible had remained intact.

The United States Coast Guard, United States Navy, and Canadian Coast Guard organized the search. Aircraft from the Royal Canadian Air Force and United States Air National Guard, a Royal Canadian Navy ship, and several commercial and research ships and remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROVs) also assisted with the search. The surface was searched, as were the depths by sonar.

Crews from the United States Coast Guard launched search missions from the shore of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Joint Rescue Coordination Centre Halifax reported that a Royal Canadian Air Force Lockheed CP-140 Aurora aircraft and CCGS ''Kopit Hopson 1752'' were participating in the search in response to a request for assistance by the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in Boston made on 18 June at 9:43 p.m. (00:13 UTC). The search on 19 June involved three C-130 Hercules aircraft, two from the United States and one from Canada; a P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine warfare aircraft from the United States, and sonobuoys. Search and rescue was hampered by low-visibility weather conditions, which cleared the next day.

The U.S. Coast Guard indicated that the search and rescue mission was difficult because of the remote location, weather, darkness, sea conditions, and water temperature. Rear Admiral John Mauger said that they were "deploying all available assets". Many submersibles have acoustic beacons that can be detected underwater by rescuers; ''Titan'' did not.

The pipe-laying ship ''Deep Energy'', operated by TechnipFMC, arrived on site on 20 June 2023, with two ROVs and other equipment suited to the seabed depths in the area. As of 10:45 a.m. (13:15 UTC), the U.S. Coast Guard had searched . The New York Air National Guard's 106th Rescue Wing joined in the search and rescue mission with a HC-130J, with plans for two more to join by the end of the day."New York Air National Guard assisting in search for missing Titanic submersible"
. WABC-TV. 21 June 2023. Retrieved 24 June 2023.

According to an internal U.S. government memo, a Canadian CP-140 Aurora's sonar picked up underwater noises while searching for the submersible. The U.S. Coast Guard officially acknowledged the sounds early the next morning, but reported that early investigations had not yielded results. Rear Admiral John Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard said the source of the noise was unknown and may have come from the many metal objects at the site of the wreck. A Canadian CP-140 Aurora airplane had previously spotted a "white rectangular object" floating on the surface. A ship sent to find and identify the object was diverted to help find the source of the noise. The noises were later described by the U.S. Coast Guard as being apparently unrelated to the missing vessel.

CCGS ''John Cabot'' arrived on the morning of 21 June, bringing additional sonar capabilities to the search effort. Commercial vessels ''Skandi Vinland'' and ''Atlantic Merlin'' also arrived that day, as did a US Coast Guard C-130 crew. As of about 3:00 p.m. (17:30 UTC), five air and water vehicles were searching actively for ''Titan'', and another five were expected to arrive in the next 24–48 hours. Search and rescue assets included two ROVs, one CP-140 Aurora aircraft, and the C-130 aircraft.

The U.S. Navy's Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System (FADOSS), a ship lift system designed to lift large and heavy objects from the deep sea, arrived in St. John's, though no ships were available to carry the system to the wreck site. Officials estimated it would take about 24 hours to weld the FADOSS system to the deck of a carrier ship before it could set sail to the search and rescue operation.

Despite increasing concerns about the depletion of air supplies in ''Titan'', a U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson said at a press conference "This is a search and rescue mission 100%", rather than a wreckage recovery mission.

An ''Odysseus6k'' ROV from Pelagic Research Services, travelling aboard the Canadian-flagged offshore tugboat MV '' Horizon Arctic'', reached the sea floor and began its search for the missing submersible. The French RV ''L'Atalante'' also deployed its ROV , which can reach depths of as much as and transmit images to the surface.

22 June, discovery of debris

At 1:18 p.m. (15:48 UTC) on 22 June the U.S. Coast Guard's Northeast Sector announced that a debris field had been found near the wreck of the ''Titanic''. The debris, located by Pelagic Research Services' ''Odysseus6k'' ROV five hours into its search, was later confirmed to be part of the submersible. At 4:30 p.m. (19:00 UTC) – at a U.S. Coast Guard press conference in Boston – the Coast Guard said that the loss of the submersible was due to an implosion of the pressure chamber and that pieces of ''Titan'' had been found on the sea floor about 1,600 feet (about 500 metres) northeast of the bow of the ''Titanic''.

The identified debris consisted of the tail cone (not part of the pressure vessel) and the forward and aft end bells – both part of the pressure vessel intended to protect the crew from the ocean environment. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the debris field was concentrated in two areas, with the aft end bell lying separate from the front end bell and the tail cone.

Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard said that the debris was consistent with a "catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber". Mauger stated that he did not have an answer as to whether the bodies of those on board would be recovered, but he did say that it was "an incredibly unforgiving environment".

Fatalities

The implosion killed all five occupants:

Recovery operations

Pelagic Research Services confirmed on 23 June 2023 that a new mission to the ''Titan'' debris field was already underway and that it had taken the ''Odysseus 6k'' ROV one hour to reach the site to continue searching and documenting debris.

It was further reported that the debris from ''Titan'' was too heavy for Pelagic's ROV to lift and that any recovery would need to occur at a later time.

On 24 June, ''Polar Prince'' returned to St. John's harbour. In their bid to understand what caused ''Titan'' catastrophic loss, investigators boarded the support ship. Another boat was seen in the harbour towing the floating launch platform, which the company referred to as the launch and recovery system (LARS), which ''Titan'' used.

On 28 June, ''Horizon Arctic'' returned to St. John's Harbour with the remains of ''Titan'' that were recovered from the debris field. Photographs and videos showed the titanium covers on both ends of ''Titan'' intact, with the single viewport missing, mangled pieces of the tail cone, electronics, the landing frame and other debris. The debris was to be transported to the U.S. as evidence for the investigation. The Coast Guard confirmed that presumed human remains were found within the debris, and that American medical professionals would conduct an analysis. Pelagic Research Services, which was operating the ''Odysseus 6K'' ROV from ''Horizon Arctic'', confirmed that its team had completed their mission. The initial human remains underwent DNA testing, but no report was released shortly after. In September 2024, during the public hearing by the Marine Board of Investigation, USCG confirmed that the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, located in Dover, Delaware, positively identified DNA profiles for the five victims.

On 30 June, ''Insider'' published an analysis of the recovery photos by University of Plymouth professor Jasper Graham-Jones. He concluded that a failure of the carbon-fibre hull was the most likely cause of the loss, given that no large pieces of carbon fibre are known to have been recovered. Another possible cause was the acrylic viewing window. He noted that the window was absent from its bell housing when it was recovered. While the salvage team may have removed the window before salvaging its bell housing, they more likely would have left it in place. However, Graham-Jones said that if the window had failed before the hull rather than after, he would have expected larger pieces of carbon fibre to be recovered.

During early October, engineers recovered the rest of the debris and presumed human remains.

Investigations

On 23 June, both the Canadian and the United States federal governments announced that they were beginning investigations of the incident. They were joined by authorities from France (Bureau d'Enquêtes sur les Événements de Mer, BEAmer) and the United Kingdom (Marine Accident Investigation Branch, MAIB) by 25 June; the final report will be issued to the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Whether lasting reforms will result from the investigation is uncertain. While there are variety of possible options, the IMO may not have appropriate regulatory authority.

United States

The United States investigation is being directed by the Coast Guard (USCG) with support from the National Transportation Safety Board; the Coast Guard is taking control because it declared the incident a "major marine casualty". USCG Captain Jason Neubauer was named the chief investigator for a Marine Board of Investigation. Though at first it was anticipated to be completed within one year, the USCG eventually acknowledged it would take longer. "The investigation into the implosion of the ''Titan'' submersible is a complex and ongoing effort", said Neubauer in June 2024. "We are working closely with our domestic and international partners to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the incident."

The public hearings for the Marine Board of Investigation were held 16–27 September 2024 in Charleston, South Carolina. They were convened under the joint authority of the NTSB and the US Coast Guard. All of the testimony was livestreamed through YouTube. In addition to providing the recorded testimony, the US Coast Guard provided over 100 exhibits, photos, animations, and other supporting documents on the MBI website. Notable testimony was provided by: Tony Nissen (former Director of Engineering, OceanGate); David Lochridge (former Director of Marine Operations and whistleblower, OceanGate); Patrick Lahey (CEO, Triton Submarines); Roy Thomas (Sr. Principal Engineer, American Bureau of Shipping); Phil Brooks (former Director of Engineering, OceanGate); Don Kramer (NTSB Materials Laboratory); William Kohnen (Hydrospace Group); Bart Kemper (Kemper Engineering Services); Justin Jackson (NASA); and Mark Negley (Boeing). There were a total of 25 witnesses who gave testimony during the MBI and two more "mission specialists" interviewed after the MBI hearings. Some of the key observations by the media include the repeated theme of putting cost above safety concerns; OceanGate's refusal to listen to safety concerns from staff such as David Lochridge or experts such as William Kohnen or Bart Kemper; and over 100 equipment issues over the two years prior to the final dive.

In videos of the wreckage released by the US Coast Guard, evidence of the hull delaminating is present, and has been verified through analysis conducted by the NTSB following the retrieval of the wreckage . The analysis also details a number of other issues with the manufacture of the submersible. In order to achieve the required thickness of the hull, wrinkles in the hull were machined away and another layer of carbon fibre was glued onto it. The adhesive used was discovered to vary in thickness, and even contained voids, and caused uneven levels of adhesion to separate layers. Evidence of rubbing damage was discovered, where the adhesive had turned into a powder by the forces of delamination. Additionally, porosity was discovered in the manufacture of the hull.

The analysis also contains details of the RTM system which OceanGate claimed would provide "early warning detection" . On Dive 80, July 15 2022, an extreme spike on one of the acoustic sensors was noted during the ascent to the surface. A loud bang was reported by the passengers during this dive, which Kramer determined was the cause for the spike. This coincided with anomalous strain readings, resulting in the next 3 dives following the spike containing a non-linear relationship between strain and depth, before settling back into a linear relationship.

Whilst the analysis provides insight into the manufacturing defects present in the hull, investigations remain ongoing.

Canada

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is investigating because ''Titan'' support vessel, MV ''Polar Prince'', is a Canadian-flagged ship. A team of TSB investigators headed to the port of origin, St. John's, Newfoundland, to "gather information, conduct interviews and assess the occurrence", with other agencies also expected to be involved. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) also announced that it was performing a preliminary examination of the incident in order to determine whether to begin a full investigation, which will occur if the RCMP determine criminal, federal, or provincial laws were broken.

Lawsuit

On 6 August 2024, Nargeolet's family sued OceanGate for wrongful death. The family of Nargeolet sought $50m in damages, claiming that OceanGate and Stockton Rush failed to disclose the condition and durability of the submersible as well as its composition and components. The lawsuit further alleges that many of the flaws with the vessel were not disclosed and purposely concealed. The lawsuit states that "experts agree that the Titan’s crew would have realized exactly what was happening", in relation to the implosion.

The case was initially requested to move to a federal court in January 2025, but a federal judge moved it back to a state court by February. The lawsuit remains ongoing.

Financial costs of operations

Numerous assets from the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Coast Guard were deployed to search for the submersible, and to subsequently retrieve the victims' remains. On 23 June 2023, a ''Washington Post'' analysis made by Mark Cancian, a defence budget expert, estimated the costs of U.S. Coast Guard operations alone at about USD$1.2 million of taxpayers' money as of 23 June 2023, with the additional operations to recover the submersible's debris not included. Cancian said that while the ''Titan'' search operation was funded by money already in the federal budget, the U.S. military would assume some unexpected costs, since personnel and equipment were used in an unforeseen manner. Deploying a single Lockheed CP-140 Aurora aircraft and 341 sonobuoys cost Canadian taxpayers at least CAD$3 million, and the total Canadian contribution is likely to be much greater when all expenditures are tallied.

Chris Boyer of the National Association for Search and Rescue said the search for ''Titan'' likely cost millions of dollars of public funds; however, the USCG refused to give an estimate, saying they "do not associate cost with saving a life". According to U.S. attorney Stephen Koerting, the USCG is generally prohibited by federal law from collecting reimbursement related to any search or rescue service.

The incident renewed past debates about whether taxpayers should bear the cost of search and rescue missions involving wealthy people engaged in high-risk adventuring, such as incidents involving Steve Fossett and Richard Branson.

Reactions

Discussing the scale of the search and rescue response, Sean Leet, co-founder and chair of Horizon Maritime Services, the company that owns ''Polar Prince'', said:

The scale of the search and rescue efforts and media coverage compared to those for the Messenia migrant boat disaster, which occurred days earlier, sparked criticism. In the Ionian Sea off the coast of Pylos, Messenia, Greece, a fishing boat sank while carrying an estimated 400 to 750 migrants, resulting in nearly 100 persons confirmed dead, another 100 rescued, and hundreds more missing and presumed dead. Search and rescue efforts for the migrant ship were conducted by the Hellenic Coast Guard and military. Ishaan Tharoor of ''The Washington Post'' wrote that Pakistani Internet users compared and contrasted the Pakistani victims in both incidents, who were on opposite sides of Pakistan's large socioeconomic divide. According to David Scott-Beddard, the CEO of White Star Memories Ltd, a ''Titanic'' exhibition company, the likelihood of performing future research at the ''Titanic'' wreck decreased due to the incident.

James Cameron, who directed the 1997 movie ''Titanic'', visited the ''Titanic'' wreck 33 times, and piloted ''Deepsea Challenger'' to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, said he was "struck by the similarity" between the submersible's implosion and the events that resulted in the ''Titanic'' disaster. He noted that both disasters seemed preventable, and were caused indirectly by someone deliberately ignoring safety warnings from others. Cameron criticized the choice of carbon-fibre composite construction of the pressure vessel, saying it has "no strength in compression" when subject to the immense pressures at depth. Cameron said that pressure hulls should be made out of contiguous materials such as steel, titanium, ceramic, or acrylic, and that the wound carbon fibre of ''Titan''s hull had seemed like a bad idea to him from the beginning. He stated that it was long known that composite hulls were vulnerable to microscopic water ingress, delamination, and progressive failure over time. He also criticized Rush's real-time monitoring of the hull as an inadequate solution that would do little to prevent an implosion. Cameron expressed regret for not being more outspoken about these concerns before the accident, and criticized what he termed "false hopes" being presented to the victims' families; he and his colleagues realized early on that for communication and tracking (the latter housed in a separate pressure vessel, with its own battery) to be lost simultaneously, the cause was almost certainly a catastrophic implosion.

The Logitech F710 game controller used to steer ''Titan'' sold out on Amazon soon after the incident, which was described as "a more benign form of disaster tourism" by the ''New York'' weblog the ''Cut''.

In social and mass media

The submersible became widely discussed on social media as the story developed and was the subject of "public schadenfreude", inspiring grimly humorous Internet memes, namely interactive video game recreations and image macros that ridiculed the submersible's deficient construction, OceanGate's perceived poor safety record, and the individuals who died. The memes were criticized as insensitive, with David Pogue regarding such media as "inappropriate and a little bit sick". Some have felt the negative reaction to the victims may be a response to past news coverage of other expeditions by billionaires, often using their own companies such as Blue Origin. Molly Roberts wrote in ''The Washington Post'' that those joking about the incident were demonstrating Internet users' impulses to be ironic, provocative, and angry with each other, combined with an " eat-the-rich attitude".

According to media psychology expert Pamela Rutledge, an American expert in social media and mass media, the ''Titan'' incident was widely treated on social media as entertainment. Major elements include the allure of disasters, fascination with the wealthy, conspiracy theories, uncertainty, and the mythology of the ''Titanic'', as well as the romance of rescue operations. Rutledge opined that the trend displayed a lack of accountability and empathy. She asserted there is a need for individuals to rethink the way in which they use social media.

In September 2023, it was announced that a new movie about the ''Titan'' submersible incident, named ''Salvaged'', was in development. The amount of media coverage and public attention for the ''Titan'' incident was criticized by people such as Barack Obama, the former U.S president, commenting that the contemporaneous 2023 Messenia migrant boat disaster had received much less attention.

The 2024 American Broadcasting Company (ABC) special ''Truth and Lies: Fatal Dive to the Titanic'' examined the submersible implosion of the ''Titan''. In February 2024, a movie inspired by the events of the ''Titan'' submersible incident, titled ''Locker'', was announced. In March 2024, a two-part documentary by ITN Productions, ''Minute by Minute: The Titan Sub Disaster'', was broadcast by UK's Channel 5. The documentary included interviews with the Canadian air crew that searched the surface, Edward Cassano of the Pelagic remotely-operated vehicle team that found the wreckage, and members of the Marine Technology Society William Kohnen and Bart Kemper. Kohnen and Kemper had warned OceanGate about their deviation from accepted engineering practices in 2018. Analysis of the mysterious "banging" sounds that seemed to indicate the occupants were still alive was a main feature of the first part.

On June 11, 2025, Netflix released the documentary '' Titan: The OceanGate Disaster.'' The documentary primarily examines a number of issues, such as Stockton Rush, OceanGate's manufacturing and operating practices prior to the ''Titan'' Implosion as well as the cause, response, and aftermath to the ''Titan'' implosion. The documentary includes interviews with former Oceangate employees, whistleblowers, and government officials.

See also

* List of shipwrecks in 2023
* List of submarine and submersible incidents since 2000

Notes

References

External links

Titan Submersible Marine Board of Investigation
, U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation
Marine transportation safety investigation M23A0169
, Transportation Safety Board of Canada

{{DEFAULTSORT:Titan submersible implosion
June 2023
Maritime incidents in 2023
Maritime incidents involving engineering failures
Submarine accidents
Submarines lost with all hands
Internet memes introduced in 2023
submersible, 2023 incident
Articles containing video clips
Implosion
2023 controversies