Titan submersible imploded due to poor engineering, say US officials
According to an official report, OceanGate’s Titan submarine exploded during its journey towards the wreckage of the Titantic due to poor engineering and multiple failures in testing the ship.
Titan exploded in June 2023, killing all five passengers on board, including OceanGate’s chief executive.
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that the engineering process behind the vehicle was “inadequate”, leading to errors that meant it failed to meet strength and durability requirements.
The NTSB said the company did not adequately test Titan because it did not know its true power. He was also unaware that it was damaged and would have to be taken out of service before its final voyage.
Titan, Newfoundland’s St. He was lost in the North Atlantic while trying to dive for the wreck of the Titanic, located approximately 372 miles from St. John’s and Labrador, Canada.
In August, the U.S. Coast Guard released a damning report into the explosion that found the incident was “preventable” and criticized OceanGate’s “critically flawed” security practices.
Stockton Rush, OceanGate’s general manager, piloted Titan on its final voyage.
Passengers who paid up to $250,000 per person to take part in the dive include deep-sea explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Shahzada Dawood and her 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood, and Hamish Harding.
During its investigation, the NTSB discovered problems with the security culture at OceanGate.
While some employees said safety was a priority, others, including a former marine operations manager and a technician, highlighted an environment where “safety issues, especially design issues, were ignored.”
A technician at the firm said he had concerns about OceanGate’s business model, specifically that it treats paying customers as “task experts” rather than passengers.
Under US regulations, it is illegal to carry passengers on an experimental submarine.
The technician told the NTSB that he informed Mr. Rush: “… you can’t just change a person’s title while receiving compensation.”
In a later conversation on the same subject, the technician related that Mr. Rush said: “If [US] “The Coast Guard was becoming a problem… He was going to buy himself a congressman and make it go away.”
