Titanic submersible news summary, Thursday 6 July 2023: “catastrophic implosion” on Titan, carbon fiber hull

Renata Rojas visited the site of the Titanic with OceanGate Expeditions in 2022. She spoke to Newsday in April about her experience, "It's hard to get there. It's not easy, it's not a cruise ship", she explained.

OceanGate suspends all commercial operations

OceanGate announced on Thursday that it has suspended all exploration and commercial operations. The company, which had planned two expeditions to Titanic wreckage in June 2024, fixed a banner to the top of it's official website which reads: "OceanGate has suspended all exploration and commercial operations." No further details were published on its social media accounts.

Why did passengers go on Titan?

As news of the tragedy began to spread around the world, many people were asking the same thing, 'Why were passengers willing to risk their lives for the expedition?'

Each of the five who tragically died on the voyage will have had their own reasons, but one member of the crew is emblematic of the desire to explore. Paul Henri Nargeolet was 77 at the time of the expedition and his friend Jessica Saunders has paid tribute to his love of deep-sea diving. 

What is the difference between a submarine and a submersible?

Titan, which was manufactured by OceanGate Enterprises was classed as a submersible and not a submarine.

The difference being that a submarine has enough power to launch itself from port and return to port by its own means while a submersible relies on a mothership or support vessel that can launch it, recover it and in Titan’s case, guide it.

The five people aboard had been enroute to visit the remains of the Titanic some 12,500 feet below the surface. The experimental submersible succumbed to the immense pressure of the depths with the hull failing causing a “catastrophic implosion” killing all aboard instantly. 

TITANIC

Watch as Titan submersible wreckage found and returned to land

The moment when the first parts of the doomed submersible were brought ashore.

Nargeolet reportedly stuck underwater for three days on prior dive

Paul-Henri Nargeolet, one of the five people killed in the Titan tragedy, was reportedly trapped underwater for three days on a previous dive to the Titanic.

Christine Dawood, whose husband and son, Shahzada Dawood and Suleman Dawood, also died in the tragedy, has told the New York Times that Nargeolet gave a talk about prior trips to the shipwreck ahead of last month's ill-fated dive.

According to Dawood, Nargeolet said he had been “stuck down there for three days and the sub was out of communication”.

Dawood added that this story didn’t appear to bother her husband, who told her:  “Oh, my god, this is so cool.” She went on: “He was lapping everything up. He had this big glow on his face talking about all this nerdy stuff."

TITANIC

Haunting video shows just how deep the Titanic is

This video illustrates just how far down the wreckage of the Titanic sits at the bottom of Atlantic Ocean.

Subway franchise makes light of Titan tragedy

A Georgia franchise of the fast-food chain Subway attracted widespread condemnation this week after putting up an advertising sign that appeared to make fun of the Titan tragedy.

WTOC11 first reported the appearance of the sign, which read: “Our subs don’t implode”.

The Subway in question is located in Rincon, a town located some 20 miles outside Savannah.

"We have been in contact with the franchise about this matter and made it clear that this kind of comment has no place in our business," Subway told Fox News Digital. "The sign has since been removed."

TITAN TRAGEDY

Expert offers theory on how Titan tragedy might have unfolded

The Spanish media outlet NIUS has spoken to an expert who has put together a potential timeline of the events that led to the Titan's presumed implosion.

The engineer José Luis Martín has suggested that an electrical fault unleashed a chain reaction that caused the tragedy.

AS USA's Raúl González has the full story.

TITANIC

The OceanGate CEO’s warning if the battery malfunctioned: “I thought he was kidding”

A filmmaker who boarded an OceanGate dive to the Titanic in 2021 told the BBC last year of her experience of a Titan malfunction, when the vessel's batteries went flat as it neared the seafloor.

“[When OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush said the Titan would have to return to the surface], I thought he was joking because we were over two hours into our expedition and so close to the bottom,” Jaden Pan revealed on the BBC's Travel Show.

“But then he explained that one of the batteries went kaput and we were having trouble using the electronic drops for the weights, so it would be hard for us to get back up to the surface."

According to Pan, Rush suggested that the crew members fall asleep while the weights that the submarine had attached dissolved in the water - a process that would take about 24 hours.

Read the full story.

Titan 'audio footage' spreads on social media

Newsweek has reported that social media is witnessing a growing spread of videos falsely purporting to contain audio of the Titan implosion and even screams from the vessel's occupants.

TITANIC

Who were the five passengers on board the Titan submarine?

Together with AS USA's Alejandro Martín, Greg has put together this profile of the five people who were on board the Titan.

The vessel's occupants were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush; British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood his son, Suleman; Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French deep-sea explorer; and Briton Hamish Harding, also a deep-sea explorer.

TITANIC

How many expeditions did OceanGate submersible make to Titanic? When were they?

Last month's accident came some two years after OceanGate's Titan submersible made its first dive to visit the wreckage of the Titanic.

AS USA's Greg Heilman looks back over the vessel's history.

Carbon fiber's ability to withstand underwater pressure "not well understood"

As the Titan's carbon-fiber hull comes under scrutiny following last month's tragedy, a professor of physics has discussed the drawbacks of using the material for an underwater vessel, noting that there are question marks over its ability to bear the extreme forces exerted by deep-water pressure.

The Titanic sits at about 12,500 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, a depth at which pressure is around 400 times greater than on the surface.

“For components requiring light weight and high strength, carbon fiber-based composites have been successfully developed for use in aerospace, automotive, sports, medical and consumer industries,” Northeastern University’s Arun Bansil told Northeastern Global News. 

“When it comes to deep-sea applications, however, this is not the case, and steel, titanium and aluminum are used widely for making pressure hulls.

“Titan was the first deep-sea vehicle with a hull made mainly from carbon fibers. The ability of carbon fibers to withstand repeated cycles of stress, especially compressive stress, under deep-sea pressures is not well understood, making it difficult to design safe hulls based on carbon fibers.”

Titan implosion a result of "hubris"

The journalist Ben Taub, whose recent New Yorker article laid out the many ignored warnings about the Titan in the years before the submersible imploded, has told CNN that the tragedy is a story of “hubris” on the part of OceanGate and its CEO, Stockton Rush.

“At the end of the day, this tragedy comes down to hubris," Taub said. "It was a matter of this kind of Silicon-valley-disruptor attitude, but it wasn’t about beating the other companies. It was about trying to beat physics. You’re not going to win that - and they didn’t win that. 

“It was blindingly obvious for years that this sub was not being constructed in a manner that would work under great pressure.”