The US Coast Guard has concluded that the OceanGate submarine Titan implosion, which killed all five of its passengers, could have been prevented if the company had paid more attention to safety requirements, writes BBC.
The 335-page Coast Guard report says that OceanGate did not follow the submarine’s maintenance and inspection protocols. Coast Guard spokesman Jason Neubauer said that stricter supervision is needed for operators who try out concepts that do not apply to normal regulations.
The Titan submarine disappeared on the 18th of June, 2023, when it dived to the Titanic wreck in the Atlantic Ocean.
The two-year investigation has reached several conclusions about the tragedy. The OceanGate report called safety procedures inadequate. The main contributing factor to the implosion was the company’s failure to follow “generally accepted engineering protocols” for safety and inspections. There was a huge gap between the company’s official safety rules and its practices. Neubauer said the loss of five lives was entirely preventable. The company continued to operate the Titan without proper evaluation after previous incidents damaged the vessel’s structural integrity.
The investigation found that
the submarine imploded 90 minutes into the dive because the carbon fiber hull lost its structural integrity.
The crew died instantly, given the immense water pressure at such great depths. Carbon fiber hulls had not previously been used for submarines that descend to such depths. Carbon fiber is known to be fragile, and its layers tend to separate under certain conditions.
Before the tragedy, the Titan had made 13 submersible dives to the Titanic wreck in two years. Despite finding a number of problems, the company continued to use the submersible without carrying out a thorough inspection of the hull. Deep-sea operations specialist Rob McCallum, who was an advisor to OceanGate from 2009 to 2016, told the BBC that carbon fibre was an unreliable material. “When you listen to the sounds the hull makes under pressure, the creaks and pops, that means the hull is damaged, that it is getting weaker,” McCallum said. He pointed out that you can’t lower a submersible to the same depth, knowing that its hull is weaker than the last time, and expect it to hold up – it is mathematically certain that at some point the hull will give way.
The report accuses OceanGate of deliberately evading official inspections through threats and manipulation. In the years leading up to the tragedy, the company had allowed the equipment to be used for scientific expeditions and relied on its good reputation to prevent inspections. This meant that
OceanGate was eventually able to conduct expeditions with the Titan completely disregarding the rules
that apply to going to the deep sea dives.
The Coast Guard investigation concluded that Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate who died in the implosion, was also largely to blame for the tragic outcome. Investigators said that if Rush had survived, he would have had to face trial. Neubauer told the BBC that the company’s structure was seriously flawed. He said: “One of the biggest standouts that I think that any company could take away is, if your CEO, was also filling the role of safety officer, and lead engineer at the end, it’s just too many. It’s a consolidation of power that leads to no checks and balances.”
Read also: What does Titan’s wreckage tell about the tragedy?