Oct. 16 (UPI) — Federal investigators released their final report on the Titan submersible implosion, saying faulty engineering and undetected damage caused the accident that killed five people at the bottom of the north Atlantic Ocean.
The National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday that parent company OceanGate didn’t adequately test the Titan, so the company wasn’t aware of the vessel’s actual strength and durability, which was much lower than its target.
The Titan imploded on June 18, 2023, killing five people. They were OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush; British billionaire Hamish Harding; French maritime expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet; Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood.
The report said earlier dives had caused damage to the hull, including delamination, that was undetected by OceanGate. Also, the company’s real-time monitoring data was flawed, so the company was unaware that the Titan should have been removed from service after dive 80. The final dive was No. 88.
«The existing delaminations and additional damage that deteriorated the condition of the pressure vessel between dive 82 and the casualty dive (dive 88) resulted in a local buckling failure that led to the implosion of the Titan,» the NTSB said.
The body of the Titan was made of carbon fiber composite instead of titanium, which is what other submersibles have used. Titanium is more expensive but much stronger.
The NTSB released a report in August saying that the disaster was preventable. Wednesday’s report is the follow-up to that and its final report with recommendations.
The 21-foot Titan lost contact with the crew of the Polar Prince — its launching ship — about 1 hour and 45 minutes into its dive. Responders searched the north Atlantic Ocean, near the wreckage of the Titanic passenger liner that sank in 1912, for four days to find the missing vessel before its oxygen ran out. We now know finding it sooner wouldn’t have saved the people aboard.
The report said that if OceanGate had followed guidance for emergency response plans, it would have had emergency response teams standing by, and the Titan would have been found sooner, which would have saved time and resources.
The report urged the U.S. Coast Guard to create a panel of experts to study submersible and human-occupied pressure vessels’ safety. It said the Coast Guard should create new rules and share those findings with the private exploration industry.
Nargeolet’s family filed suit last year against OceanGate for $50 million for wrongful death and gross negligence. Marc and Sharon Hagle of Florida had sued Rush for allegedly misleading them about their planned trip to visit the Titanic wreckage and then refusing to refund their money. They dropped the suit after the accident.