The search for the Titan submarine, which lasted several days, ended with tragic news – the submarine experienced a disaster at the bottom of the sea, and all passengers died, writes the BBC.
The submarine Titan, carrying five passengers, lost contact with the support vessel Polar Prince on the 18th of June, an hour and 45 minutes after going underwater. On the 22nd of June, after a five-day search operation, wreckage consistent with a submarine was found. It is now believed that the implosion happened (an inward explosion caused by external pressure) when communication with the ocean surface was lost.
On Titan are British businessmen Hamish Harding and Shahzada Dawood with his son Suleiman, French researcher Paul-Henry Nargeolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.
Rush was an experienced engineer who had previously built experimental aircraft and worked on various submarine models. OceanGate was founded in 2009 and offered customers the opportunity to go on trips to the bottom of the sea.
For the first time, a trip to the wreck of the Titanic was offered in 2021,
and it cost 250 thousand dollars for each adventure seeker. The price also included taking tourists to the base ship, about 595 kilometers from the nearest shore, and the dive to the bottom to view the more than a century old wreck took eight hours. Rush personally attended every Titan dive.
Harding, 58, ran Action Aviation, a private jet trading company based in Dubai, and the fateful Titan ride was not his first adrenaline-seeking foray. Harding has visited the South Pole several times, and in 2022 went on a trip to space. In addition, the businessman was the owner of three Guinness World Records, including for the longest time spent at the bottom of the ocean, landing in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench. The BBC writes that in an interview Harding, when asked about his thirst for adventure, said: “I think it’s a well-calculated risk and I’m aware of that before we start.”
Dawood, the vice-chairman of Pakistani fertilizer conglomerate Engro Corporation, also worked at the SETI Institute, whose main focus is the search for extraterrestrial civilizations. His family said the businessman enjoyed exploring different ecosystems and had given speeches at both the UN and Oxford University. Along with Dawood, his 19-year-old son Suleiman also went to the wreck of the Titanic, who, as his aunt told NBC News, was scared of going to the bottom, but wanted to please his father.
Former French Navy diver Nargeolet was known by the nickname Mr. Titanic
because he is believed to have visited the wreck more times than anyone else. Nargeolet, 77, led underwater research for the company that owns the rights to the Titanic wreck.
After it became clear that a tragedy had occurred, various theories emerged – among them conspiracy theories, that businessmen and researchers simply staged their own deaths, as well as the theory that it was known from the beginning what had happened, and the search operation was necessary to distract the media from more important news. However, most experts in the field talk about the flawed design of the Titan submarine and possible operational failures.
James Cameron, the director of the legendary film Titanic, told the BBC that important points were bypassed in the construction of the Titan, and this is what cost lives. Cameron said:
“I was very suspect of the technology that they were using. I wouldn’t have gotten in that sub.”
The director landed near the wreck of the Titanic 33 times, and indicated that he understood what had happened after the first news about lost communications: “For the sub’s electronics to fail and its communication system to fail, and its tracking transponder to fail simultaneously – sub’s gone.”
The director told the BBC that as soon as he heard about the missing submarine on Monday, he contacted other members of the deep-sea diving community and when he learned the facts, he first thought of an implosion.
On Thursday, the 22nd of June, the US Navy informed CBS News that an acoustic anomaly consistent with an implosion was recorded when the Titan lost contact with the base ship.
Cameron described the incident as a “terrible irony of fate” and likened the submarine’s demise to the disaster of the Titanic itself, which was also caused by ignoring warnings. A letter sent in 2018 said that OceanGate’s experimental approach could lead to a negative outcome, from minor inconvenience to disaster. US court documents show that
a former employee also tried to warn about possible safety problems.
In 2019, the company stated that the design of the Titan did not fit into the usual system, however, this does not mean that the submarine is not safe.
Cameron said that anyone going to the Titanic wreck should be fully aware of the risks, as the location of the wreck is very dangerous. At the same time, he also stated: “In the 21st Century, there shouldn’t be any risks. We’ve managed to make it through 60 years, from 1960 until today, 63 years without a fatality… So, you know, one of the saddest aspects of this is how preventable it really was.”
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