Evidently, the OceanGate Titan experienced a “catastrophic” pressure loss deep inside the Atlantic Ocean.
In a “debris field” close to the Titanic’s buried wreck, the US Coast Guard discovered a fragment of a deep-sea submersible. A “catastrophic explosion,” according to the military department, claimed the lives of the five passengers on board.
According to a statement released by the Coast Guard’s northeastern region on Thursday, “a debris field was discovered within the search area by [a Remotely Operated Vehicle] near the Titanic.” Later that afternoon, at a news conference, District Commander Rear Admiral John Mauger informed the media that the submersible’s tail cone had been discovered among the debris.
The submersible’s remnants are “consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber,” according to Mauger. In such a case, all five of the ship’s occupants would have perished right away.
Sunday morning, about an hour and a half into its dive, the OceanGate Titan lost contact with its surface craft, the Polar Prince. At the time of the disappearance, the ship also had Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman Dawood on board, along with French sailor Paul-Henry Nargeolet, British explorer Hamish Harding, and CEO of OceanGate Stockton Rush.
With the help of the Canadian military, the Coast Guard immediately started scouring a region that was almost 20,000 square kilometers in size. A Canadian P-3 surveillance plane reported hearing banging noises on Tuesday and Wednesday near the location of the submersible’s disappearance.
According to Mauger, there “doesn’t appear to be any connection” between the noises and the position of the debris field, he told reporters.
The submersible search attracted international attention and brought to light some concerns within OceanGate. Rush said in a November interview with CBS News that the ship was totally controlled by a basic bluetooth video game controller, which web sleuths learned had a bad reputation for dependability.
Rush once bragged in an undated interview with Teledyne Marine about recruiting people based on diversity, saying that, in contrast to others in the field, he didn’t find “50-year-old white guys” to be “inspirational.”
During a dive to the Titanic that was captured on camera by CBS News, the Titan earlier became lost for two and a half hours. Years ago, marine experts warned that the ship was unsafe, and in 2018, one of OceanGate’s former employees filed a lawsuit against the corporation alleging safety violations and fearing a “catastrophic” accident.
