Posted on 08/05/2025 8:06:56 AM PDT by Red Badger
The deadly Titan submersible disaster that raised global alarms about private deep-sea tourism was the result of preventable safety failures and deliberate efforts to avoid oversight, according to a U.S. Coast Guard report released Tuesday.
All five people inside the Titan died in a catastrophic implosion as it descended to the wreck of the Titanic off Canada, and the dayslong search for the missing vessel grabbed international headlines. The Coast Guard convened its highest level of investigation in the aftermath.
The Titan was owned by OceanGate, a private company based in Washington state. The operator of the submersible, OceanGate head Stockton Rush, died in the implosion.
The report found the company’s safety procedures were “critically flawed,” citing “glaring disparities” between their safety protocols and actual practices. The disaster has led to lawsuits and calls for tighter regulation of the developing private deep sea expedition industry.
Preventing the next Titan disaster
Jason Neubauer, with the Marine Board of Investigation, said that the findings will help prevent future tragedies.
“There is a need for stronger oversight and clear options for operators who are exploring new concepts outside of the existing regulatory framework,” he said in a statement.
OceanGate suspended operations in July 2023. A spokesperson for the company said it has been wound down and was fully cooperating with the investigation.
“We again offer our deepest condolences to the families of those who died on June 18, 2023, and to all those impacted by the tragedy,” said the spokesperson, Christian Hammond.
Coast Guard report details ‘red flags’ at OceanGate
Throughout the report, which spans more than 300 pages, investigators repeatedly point to OceanGate’s culture of downplaying, ignoring and even falsifying key safety information to improve its reputation and evade scrutiny from regulators. OceanGate ignored “red flags” and had a “toxic workplace culture,” while its mission was hindered by lack of domestic and international framework for submersible operations, the report says.
Numerous OceanGate employees have come forward in the two years since the implosion to support those claims. The report says firings of senior staff members and the looming threat of being fired were used to dissuade employees and contractors from expressing safety concerns.
“By strategically creating and exploiting regulatory confusion and oversight challenges, OceanGate was ultimately able to operate TITAN completely outside of the established deep-sea protocols,” the report found.
The Titan’s inadequacies
Investigators found that the submersible’s design, certification, maintenance and inspection process were all inadequate. Coast Guard officials noted at the start of last year’s hearing that the submersible had not been independently reviewed, as is standard practice.
Mounting financial pressures in 2023 led to a decision by OceanGate to store the Titan submersible outdoors over the Canadian winter, where its hull was exposed to temperature fluctuations that compromised the integrity of the vessel, the report said.
The Marine Board concluded that Rush, OceanGate’s CEO, “exhibited negligence” that contributed to the deaths of four people. If Rush had survived, the case would have been handed off to the U.S. Department of Justice and he may have been subject to criminal charges, the board said.
The Marine Board said one challenge of the investigation was that “significant amounts” of video footage evidence that had been captured by witnesses was not subject to its subpoena authority because the witnesses weren’t U.S. citizens.
The victims of the Titan disaster
In addition to Rush, the implosion killed French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British adventurer Hamish Harding and two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood.
The family of Nargeolet, a veteran French undersea explorer known as “Mr. Titanic,” filed a more than $50 million lawsuit last year that said the crew experienced “terror and mental anguish” before the disaster. The lawsuit accused OceanGate of gross negligence.
The Titan’s final dive
Titan had been making voyages to the Titanic site since 2021. The Titan’s final dive came on June 18, 2023, a Sunday morning when the submersible would lose contact with its support vessel about two hours later. The submersible was reported overdue that afternoon, and ships, planes and equipment were rushed to the scene about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Wreckage of the Titan would subsequently be found on the ocean floor about 330 yards (300 meters) off the bow of the Titanic, Coast Guard officials said.
The Marine Board of Investigation held several days of hearings about the implosion in October 2024. During those hearings, the lead engineer of the submersible said he felt pressured to get the vessel ready to dive and refused to pilot it for a journey several years earlier.
Tony Nissen told the board that he had told Rush: “I’m not getting in it.”
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Typical liberal reaction: needs more oversight. They never ask how effective Government oversight actually is. Milton Friedman made the excellent point that the people who do the Government oversight are usually controlled by the industry they are watching. It is simply because the industry being watched has the most incentive to control the people watching it.
Right. The owner was an outspoken supporter of DEI and woke ideology. It killed him. Karma.
I see no date cited in this article.
“Preventable”? Even to the causal observer it looked like train wreck waiting to happen.
Date for what?................
I highly doubt that was true.
The implosion would take about 1/1000 of a second.
They were dead, their brains crushed before their nerves had a chance to fire.
Preventable up until the point they put it in the water.
The events and preparation leading up to the incident and the incident itself of course. This happened awhile ago if it's the incident I'm thinking of.
June 18, 2023. OceanGate suspended operations in July 2023.
The Coast Guard Report was released yesterday............
Do you realize how well-built those game controllers have to be to stand up to the abuse that gamers put them thru?
That controller was probably the most dependable part of that sub.
He had some old white men. Most of them told him the submersible had serious design flaws. So they got fired. Even a few of their young replacements didn’t like how things were going, spoke up, and got fired. He really wasn’t about young and diverse, he was about gullible and agreeable.
Actually in this case they’re right. They went way out of their way to avoid oversight regulations. Including declaring all passengers as crew members because there’s lower regulations for thing that don’t have passengers. So there’s the first loophole to close.
From the report:
As the TITAN approached the ocean floor, it followed standard procedure by releasing ballast weights to slow its descent. At 10:47:02 a.m., at a depth of 3,341 meters, the TITAN messaged the POLAR PRINCE, reporting “dropped two wts.” Six seconds later, at 10:47:08 a.m., at a depth of 3,346.28 meters, the TITAN sent an automated transmission that recorded its final location at 41° 44.06’ North; 49° 56.54’West. At approximately 10:47:09 a.m., the TITAN suffered a catastrophic implosion, resulting in the immediate loss of all lives on board. Two seconds later the TITAN Communications and Tracking Team on the POLAR PRINCE heard a “bang” emanating from the ocean’s surface, which the investigation later correlated to the TITAN’s implosion. After that, all communications and tracking with the TITAN were lost.
They never knew what hit them.
“That controller was probably the most dependable part of that sub.”
Considering the circumstances, that isn’t necessarily a very high bar.
Part of my point was that it was a pretty bad article not including dates for a 2-year-old incident.
Further:
Following the implosion, the five individuals aboard were exposed to approximately 4,930 pounds per square inch of water pressure, resulting in the instantaneous death of all five occupants.
I recall seeing a picture of Stockton Rush with members of his design team. They sure were young and diverse. So that had to be a goal of his.
But your point is certainly well taken.
Perhaps “young and diverse” and “gullible and agreeable” are two sides of the same coin..
Thank you!
there’s an a amazing documentary about this: “Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster”
Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster
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