Titan submersible implosion

2023 Titan submersible incident

Location of the wreck of the Titanic, where the Titan was diving
Date	18 June 2023 – present
Location	North Atlantic, near the wreck of the Titanic
Coordinates	41°43′32″N 49°56′49″W
Participants	OceanGate Expeditions
Outcome	Submersible missing, search and rescue operation underway
Missing	5

On 18 June 2023, the submersible Titan operated by OceanGate went missing in international waters in the North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The submersible was on a tourist expedition to view the wreck of the Titanic, with five people on board. Communication was lost with the submersible one hour and 45 minutes into its dive to the wreck site, and authorities were notified when it did not resurface at its scheduled time later that day. The craft's estimated four-day breathable air supply was expected to be exhausted on the morning of 22 June 2023.

Concerns about the safety of the vehicle had previously been raised. Search and rescue efforts are being carried out by an international team led by the United States Coast Guard, United States Navy, Canadian Coast Guard and Canadian Armed Forces.

Background

OceanGate is a private company founded by Stockton Rush and a business partner in 2009. Since 2010, it has transported paying customers in commercial submersibles off the coast of California, in the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Atlantic Ocean.

Rush realized that visiting shipwreck sites was a way to get media attention, and in 2016 the company transported customers to a shipwreck for the first time, utilizing their submersible Cyclops 1 to visit the Andrea Doria wreck site. 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

Main article: Wreck of the Titanic

The Titanic was a British ocean liner that sank in the North Atlantic on 15 April 1912, after colliding with an iceberg. In 1985, the wreckage was discovered on the ocean floor around 400 nautical miles (740 km) from the coast of Newfoundland. The wreck lies at a depth of about 3,810 metres (12,500 feet; 2,080 fathoms).

Titan submersible

See also: OceanGate § Titan

OceanGate's Cyclops 1, an earlier version of the Titan. The Titan only has one 380 mm (15 inch) window.

Titan is a five-person submersible vessel operated by OceanGate, Inc. According to OceanGate, it is designed to dive as deep as 4,000 m (13,000 ft) "for site survey and inspection, research and data collection, film and media production, and deepsea testing of hardware and software."

The 6.7-metre-long (22 ft), 10,432 kg (23,000 lb) vessel is constructed from carbon fibre and titanium. The entire pressure vessel consists of two titanium hemispheres, two matching titanium interface rings, and the 142 cm (56 in) internal diameter, 2.4-metre-long (7.9 ft) carbon fibre wound cylinder. One of the titanium hemispherical end caps is fitted with a 380 mm-diameter (15 in) acrylic window. In 2020, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush stated that the hull had been downgraded to a depth rating of 3,000 m (9,800 ft) after demonstrating signs of cyclic fatigue. In 2020 and 2021, the hull was either repaired or rebuilt.

Titan's steering controls consist of a Logitech G F710 (a wireless game controller) with modified analogue sticks. It moves at up to 3 knots (5.6 km/h; 3.5 mph) using four electric thrusters, arrayed two horizontal and two vertical.

According to OceanGate, the vessel contains monitoring systems to continuously monitor the strength of the hull. The vessel has life support for five crew members for 96 hours. There is no on-board navigation system; the support ship, which monitors the position of Titan relative to its target, sends text messages to Titan providing distances and directions.

The Titan has seven backup systems intended to return the vessel to surface in case of emergency, including ballast that can be dropped, a balloon, and thrusters. Some of the backup systems are designed to work even if all aboard the submersible are unconscious; there are sandbags held by hooks that dissolve after a certain number of hours in the water and release the sandbags, letting the vessel float to the surface.

Titanic expeditions

Typically, each dive has a pilot, three paying passengers, and a guide on board. Once these people are inside the submersible, the hatch is bolted shut and must be reopened from the outside. The descent from the surface to the Titanic typically takes three hours, with the full dive taking approximately eight hours. Throughout the journey, the submersible is expected to emit a safety ping every 15 minutes to be monitored by the above-water crew. The vessel and surface crew can also communicate via short text messages.

Customers who travel to the Titanic with OceanGate, referred to as "mission specialists" by the company, spend US$250,000 to be involved in the eight-day expedition.

Technology writer and reporter David Pogue, who completed the expedition in 2022 as part of a CBS News Sunday Morning feature, stated that all passengers who enter the 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 has also completed the expedition, noted that the waiver "mention[s] death three times on page one." On this expedition, the communication system also failed on one of the dives, preventing the crew from finding the wreckage.

OceanGate intended to conduct multiple expeditions to the Titanic in 2023, but because of poor weather in Newfoundland, the company has only launched a single expedition so far in 2023.

Prior concerns

Because the Titan operated in international waters, it was not subject to any safety regulations. A 2019 article published in Smithsonian magazine referred to OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush as a "daredevil inventor". In the article, Rush is described as having said 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."

Travel company Henry Cookson Adventures Ltd. filed a lawsuit against OceanGate stating that the company did not have a seaworthy vessel when it entered into a 2016 agreement to transport nine passengers to the Titanic in 2018. OceanGate stated that weather conditions prevented them from testing a vessel in time. Henry Cookson Adventures Ltd. later dropped the case.

Lochridge report

In 2018 OceanGate's director of marine operations, David Lochridge, composed a report documenting safety concerns he had about the Titan. In court documents, Lochridge said that he had urged the company to have the Titan assessed and certified by an agency, but OceanGate had declined to do so, citing an unwillingness to pay. He also said that the transparent viewport on its forward end was only certified to reach a depth of 1,300 meters (4,300 feet), only a third of the depth required to reach the Titanic. Lochridge was also concerned that OceanGate wouldn't perform nondestructive testing on the vessel's hull before undertaking manned 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".

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 the 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 countersued, stating that he had been wrongfully terminated as a whistleblower for bringing up concerns about the Titan's ability to operate safely. The two parties settled a few months later.

Later in 2018, the Marine Technology Society wrote 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". A signatory of the letter later told The New York Times that Rush had called him after reading it to tell him that he believed industry standards were stifling innovation.

A Logitech F710 wireless game controller. A modified version was used to steer the Titan.

Earlier incidents

External videos
CBS Sunday Morning / David Pogue report on OceanGate, broadcast November 27, 2022 (YouTube)

The Titan has made three expeditions to the Titanic wreck site, the first of which was in July 2021. In 2022, reporter David Pogue was onboard the surface ship when communication to the Titan was lost during a dive. Pogue's December 2022 report for CBS Sunday Morning, which questioned Titan's safety, went viral on social media after the submersible again 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 noted that a $30 Logitech F710 Bluetooth game controller with modified control sticks is used to steer and pitch the submersible, and that construction pipes were used as ballast.

In a 2022 dive to the Titanic, one of the thrusters on the Titan was accidentally installed backwards and the submersible started spinning in circles when trying to move forward near the sea floor. As documented by 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 issues and as a result had to be manually attached to a lifting platform, causing damage to external components.

Incident

Timeline of events

500km
300miles

  

MV Polar Prince departed St. John's, Newfoundland (1) on 16 June, and arrived at the dive site (2) on 17 June, where the Titan was deployed and began its descent the day after.

MV Polar Prince transported Titan and the expedition's crew to the dive site above the wreck of the Titanic.

On 16 June, the expedition to the Titanic departed from St. John's, Newfoundland, aboard the research and expedition ship MV Polar Prince. The ship arrived at the dive site on 17 June, and the dive operation began the following day on Sunday, 18 June at 9:30 a.m. Newfoundland Daylight Time (NDT; UTC−02:30) (12:00 UTC). For the first hour and a half of the descent, the Titan communicated with the Polar Prince every 15 minutes, but communication stopped after a recorded communication at 11:15 a.m. (13:45 UTC). The vessel 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 of the missing vessel. The submersible had up to 96 hours of breathable air supply for its five passengers when it set out, which was estimated to expire in the morning of 22 June 2023.

Many errors could have occurred. One possibility is that the Titan's communication equipment may have failed, meaning they cannot communicate with the surface crew but can freely navigate. It is also possible there is a problem with the ballast system, which is responsible for managing the vessel's buoyancy. Another scenario is that the Titan became snared or fouled on a piece of debris, preventing ascent. It may also have suffered damage or a mechanical failure that caused the submersible to implode, which would have killed the occupants instantly due to the underwater ambient pressure.

People aboard

• Shahzada Dawood, British-Pakistani businessman (of the Dawood Hercules Corporation) and a trustee at the SETI Institute.
• Suleman Dawood, 19-year-old son of Shahzada Dawood.
• Hamish Harding, British businessman, aviator, and space tourist.
• Paul-Henri Nargeolet, former French Navy commander, diver, submersible pilot, member of the French Institute for Research and Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER), and director of underwater research for E/M Group and RMS Titanic, Inc., which owns salvage rights to the wreckage site. Nargeolet has led several expeditions to the wreck, supervised the recovery of thousands of artifacts, and is "widely considered the leading authority on the wreck site" according to The Guardian.
• Stockton Rush, submersible pilot, chief executive and founder of OceanGate, Inc.

Search and rescue operations

The United States Coast Guard, United States Navy, and Canadian Coast Guard are leading the search and rescue efforts. Aircraft from the Royal Canadian Air Force and United States Air National Guard, as well as a Royal Canadian Navy vessel are also assisting in the search.

The search involves both a surface search and an underwater sonar search.

All dates are in Newfoundland Daylight Time (NDT; UTC−02:30).

19 June, Monday

Crews from the Northeast Sector of the United States Coast Guard, based in Boston, launched search missions 900 nautical miles (1,700 km) 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 21:43 NDT.

The U.S. Coast Guard indicated that the search and rescue mission is difficult because of the remote location. Rear Admiral John Mauger stated that they are "deploying all available assets". Beyond the difficulty in reaching the location, all search and rescue operations are hindered by weather, darkness, sea conditions, and water temperature". While many submersibles are equipped with an acoustic beacon which emits sounds that can be detected underwater by rescuers, it is unclear whether the Titan has such a device.

The search involved three C-130 Hercules aircraft, two from the United States and one from Canada; a P-8 Poseidon aircraft from the United States and sonar buoys. Neither country has underwater vessels capable of easily assisting in the search and rescue missions. The U.S. Navy has one submarine rescue vehicle, although the vessel cannot reach the Titan's potential depth. The Navy also has remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs), but these vessels may not arrive at the site in time. Search and rescue was also hampered by low visibility weather conditions, which cleared on Tuesday.

20 June, Tuesday

Deep Energy (pictured in the Netherlands, 2015) arrived with two ROVs on 20 June.

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 NDT, the U.S. Coast Guard had searched 10,000 square miles (26,000 km²). An Air National Guard C-130 also joined in the search and rescue mission, with plans for two more to join by the end of the day.

The U.S. Coast Guard reported that additional ships and ROVs were en route to assist with the search: CCGS John Cabot, CCGS Ann Harvey, CCGS Terry Fox, Atlantic Merlin (ROV), MV Horizon Arctic, Skandi Vinland (ROV), French Research Vessel L'Atalante  (ROV), and HMCS Glace Bay. Glace Bay carries medical personnel and a mobile decompression chamber. L'Atalante carries Victor 6000 , a ROV that can reach depths of up to 6,000 metres (20,000 ft). The ship is operated by the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea, and is scheduled to arrive at the site on the evening of 21 June.

According to an internal American government memo, a Canadian CP-140 Aurora's sonar picked up banging sounds occurring in thirty-minute intervals while searching for the submersible. The U.S. Coast Guard officially acknowledged the sounds early the following 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 plane 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.

21 June, Wednesday

Despite rising concerns about the oxygen levels on the Titan, the U.S. Coast Guard stated they are "100%" still viewing the disappearance of the Titan as a search and rescue mission rather than a wreckage recovery mission. As of approximately 15:00 NDT, five air and water vehicles were actively searching for the Titan, and another five are expected to arrive in the next 24–48 hours. Current search and rescue assets include two ROVs, one CP-140 Aurora aircraft, and one 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 around 24 hours to weld the FADOSS system to the deck of a carrier ship before it can set sail to the search and rescue operation.

On Wednesday evening, the US Coast Guard stated that the following assets were still en route to deliver assistance: three ROVs (i.e., MV Horizon Arctic, French research vessel L'Atalante  and another from Magellan), an Air National Guard C-130, Canadian CCGS Ann Harvey and CCGS Terry Fox, and Canadian ship Glace Bay.

22 June, Thursday

In summer 2022, UK company Magellan Ltd. had carried out extensive underwater surveys to create the most detailed 3D scan of the Titanic wreck site ever made, which was released on 17 May 2023. Magellan were contacted by OceanGate on 19 June and asked to mobilise as quickly as possible. On 22 June, one of Magellan's survey ROVs, Juliet, was loaded onto a C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft at Jersey, with arrival at the search area expected to take 48 hours - its departure had been delayed by several days due to 'permissions issues'.

Reactions

Parks Stephenson, director of the USS Kidd Veterans Museum and Titanic researcher, commented on the disappearance of the Titan via Facebook: "No matter what you may read in the coming hours, all that is truly known at this time is that communications with the submersible have been lost and that is unusual enough to warrant the most serious consideration." He added: "I am most concerned about the souls aboard." Stephenson is experienced in deep-sea explorations such as the Titan's, having previously dived to view the Titanic on five occasions. Stephenson later added that the divers "wouldn't be out there if it wasn't for the public demand for information regarding this wreck".

Discussing the search and rescue response, Sean Leet, co-founder and chair of Horizon, the company that owns the Polar Prince, said, "I've been in the marine industry since a very young age and seen a lot of different situations, and I've never seen equipment of that nature move that quickly ... The response from the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Military, folks at the airport, the people here, various companies who were involved in the mobilization of that equipment … it was done flawlessly."

See also

• Deep-submergence rescue vehicle – Submersible used for rescue of people from disabled submarines and submersibles
• List of submarine incidents since 2000
• Rescue of Roger Mallinson and Roger Chapman – Rescue of two crew of a submersible

External links

• Media related to 2023 Titan submersible incident at Wikimedia Commons