Titanic sub update: OceanGate shuts down two weeks after deadly Titan implosion found
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OceanGate Expeditions, the company that launched the doomed Titan submersible trip to the wreckage of the Titanic, has ceased operations.
A small message in the top-left corner of OceanGate’s website reads: “OceanGate has suspended all exploration and commercial operations.”
The announcement comes a full two weeks after the submersible imploded while carrying five people, sparking an international search, rescue and recovery operation.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son Suleman Dawood all died in the implosion.
The company has come under scrutiny in the weeks following the tragic accident as former employees, former passengers and experts in the industry have criticised OceanGate for embarking on a potentially dangerous trip in the questionably designed submersible.
OceanGate’s decision to cease operations comes just after the company’s former finance director claimed she quit after CEO Stockton Rush asked her to captain the Titan once he fired the craft’s original chief pilot David Lochridge.
Key points
Titanic sub victim’s wife reveals how crew spent their final moments
US Coast Guard recovers ‘presumed human remains’ from sea floor near Titanic sub debris
Hamish Harding’s friend reveals race to get ROV to site of doomed sub
Why we are obsessed with the missing Titan submarine, according to experts
OceanGate suspends all expeditions
Friend of late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush warned Titan needed more testing after 2019 dive
18:00 , Joe Sommerlad
A friend of late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush warned him against taking customers aboard the company’s Titan submersible four years before it tragically imploded in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
Karl Stanley, the owner of a diving expedition company in Honduras and a close friend of Mr Rush, went on a tour aboard the Titan off the coast of the Bahamas in 2019, The New York Times first reported. In emails obtained by Insider of an alleged exchange between the two deep-sea enthusiasts, Mr Stanley told Mr Rush that he had heard a large cracking sound while on the 12,000-foot-deep dive.
“I think that hull has a defect near that flange, that will only get worse. The only question in my mind is will it fail catastrophically or not,” Mr Stanley wrote in a premonitory email, years before the Titan’s catastrophic implosion that killed all five of its passengers.
Friend of late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush warned Titan needed more testing in 2019
Titanic sub debris and human remains have been recovered. But we still don’t have answers to these 9 questions
17:00 , Joe Sommerlad
The desperate search for the missing Titanic submersible came to a tragic end when debris was discovered deep in the ocean. But, we still don’t know many crucial aspects of the doomed voyage.
The Independent’s Rachel Sharp, Io Dodds, Bevan Hurley and Andrea Blanco report.
These nine questions remain unanswered in the Titanic sub catastrophe
OceanGate CEO said glue holding Titanic sub together was ‘like peanut butter’
16:00 , Joe Sommerlad
Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions whose submarine imploded during a trip to see the wreckage of the Titanic, once described the glue holding the vessel together as similar to “peanut butter.”
The Independent’s Graig Graziosi reports.
OceanGate CEO said glue holding Titanic sub together was ‘like peanut butter’
OceanGate suspends all expeditions
15:00 , Ariana Baio
The company has announced on its website that all expeditions are suspended following the tragedy that killed its CEO and four other passengers aboard OceanGate’s Titan submersible.
Titanic sub passenger recalls brutal implosion warning
14:00 , Andrea Blanco
A former passenger of the Titan submersible that imploded last month, killing all five people on board, has spoken out about a brutal implosion warning.
Retired California businessman Bill Price, who went on a Titan dive in 2021, recalled discussing the effects of an implosion before the deep ocean expedition started.
Mr Price recalled some of the analogies of what it would be like to be crushed by extreme pressure in the ocean. He said it would be like a Coke can smashed with a sledgehammer. Or like “an elephant standing on one foot with 100 more elephants on top of it”.
The Independent’s Maroosha Muzzafar has more:
Titanic sub passenger recalls brutal implosion warning
OceanGate touted ‘very safe’ Titanic sub in promo video weeks before doomed trip
13:00 , Andrea Blanco
OceanGate Expeditions released a promo video boasting about its “very safe” submersible two months before the vessel catastrophically imploded in the depths of the Atlantic while on a dive to the wreck of the Titanic.
The company’s CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, renowned French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman were killed in the ill-fated expedition after the sub lost contact with its mothership on 18 June.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, past passengers who previously went on the 12,000-foot dive aboard the Titan have shared several concerns they had with OceanGate’s safety measures. However, a promotional video posted 10 weeks before the implosion on OceanGate’s Youtube channel advertised the $250,000-a-ticket trip as extremely safe.
OceanGate’s ex-finance director claims she quit after being asked to captain doomed vessel
12:00 , Joe Sommerlad
OceanGate Expeditions’ former finance director has claimed she quit the company after CEO Stockton Rush asked her to captain the doomed Titan submersible after firing the craft’s original chief pilot David Lochridge.
The employee, who spoke to The New Yorker on condition of anonymity, said: “It freaked me out that he would want me to be head pilot, since my background is in accounting, I could not work for Stockton. I did not trust him.”
She added that several of the engineers working for the company were in their late teens and early 20s and were at one point being paid $15 an hour.
WATCH: Resurfaced documentary footage shows Titan spinning out of control
11:00 , Andrea Blanco
WATCH: OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush reveals Titanic submersible built ‘with camping parts’
09:00 , Andrea Blanco
Voice recordings under scrutiny in Titanic sub implosion investigation
08:00 , Andrea Blanco
Voice recordings and other data will be reviewed as part of a US Coast Guard-appointed expert board’s probe into the catastrophic implosion of the Titan submersible last week.
American and Canadian marine authorities have announced investigations into the circumstances that led to the vessel’s malfunction after its chambers were found in a sea of debris 1,600ft from the wreck of the Titanic.
US Coast Guard Captain Jason Neubauer, who is chairing the investigation, said that he has summoned a Marine Board of Investigation, the highest level of investigation conducted by the Coast Guard. The board’s role is to determine the cause of the tragedy in order to pursue civil or criminal sanctions as necessary.
Voice recordings between the Titan and its mothership Polar Prince will be reviewed by investigators. The mothership’s crew is also being interviewed by different agencies.
Investigators with the Coast Guard have mapped the accident site and salvage operations are expected to continue, Cpt Jason Neubauer said. Once the investigation is wrapped — a timeline has not been laid out — a report with evidence, conclusions and recommendations will be released.
WATCH: Search and rescue company boss visibly emotional describing Titan search
06:00 , Andrea Blanco
Why did the Titanic sub implode?
05:00 , Andrea Blanco
In the days after OceanGate chief executive Stockton Rush and his four-paying crew members went missing on their dive to the wreck of the Titanic, experts had several theories as to their fate.
On 26 June, those worst fears were confirmed when the US Coast Guard announced that it had found pieces of the Titan submersible scattered across the ocean floor about 1,600 feet from the bow of the ill-fated ocean liner.
But what exactly caused the Titan to implode? While we don’t yet know the truth of what happened, we do know enough to have some idea of what might have sealed the sub’s fate.
The Independent’s Io Dodds reports:
Why did the Titanic sub implode?
Titan sub victims spent last moments listening to music and watching sea
04:00 , Andrea Blanco
Passengers on board the sunk Titan submersible likely spent their final moments listening to music in darkness and watching sea creatures in the deep, it has been revealed.
All five onboard the Titanic tourist submarine were confirmed dead on 22 June after the vessel suffered a “catastrophic explosion”.
The tail cone of the submersible was found around 1,600ft from the bow of the Titanic wreck following a frantic five-day search operation in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Father and son Shahzada Dawood, 48, and Suleman Dawood, 19, were among the victims.
Christine Dawood, wife of Shahzada and mother of Suleman, has told of the preparations carried out by Stockton Rush, the pilot of the vessel and founder and CEO of OceaGate, the company that ran the voyage.
“It was like a well-oiled operation - you could see they had done this before many times,” Ms Dawood, said of a briefing given to the passengers, in an interview with the New York Times.
Friend of late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush warned Titan needed more testing after 2019 dive
03:00 , Andrea Blanco
A friend of late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush warned him against taking customers aboard the company’s Titan submersible four years before it tragically imploded in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
Karl Stanley, the owner of a diving expedition company in Honduras and a close friend of Mr Rush, went on a tour aboard the Titan off the coast of the Bahamas in 2019, The New York Times first reported. In emails obtained by Insider of an alleged exchange between the two deep-sea enthusiasts, Mr Stanley told Mr Rush that he had heard a large cracking sound while on the 12,000-foot-deep dive.
“I think that hull has a defect near that flange, that will only get worse. The only question in my mind is will it fail catastrophically or not,” Mr Stanley wrote in a premonitory email, years before the Titan’s catastrophic implosion that killed all five of its passengers.
Friend of late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush warned Titan needed more testing in 2019
Head of key Titanic sub recovery team dodges question about OceanGate
02:00 , Ariana Baio
Since the Titan submersible imploded, killing five people aboard, the subject of extreme tourism has been highly debated online and by professionals.
But when the CEO of Pelagic Research Services, the company that helped oversee the recovery mission of the submersible, was asked what his thoughts were on the trips OceanGate took to the Titanic, he claimed he did not have a strong opinion.
“I don’t necessarily have an opinion on that, it’s a strong investigation going on right now,” Edward Cassano said in a press conference last week.
Mr Cassano helped lead the team of people from Pelagic Research Services who used their remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to find the debris from the submersible last week.
OceanGate employee feared CEO could ‘kill himself and others in quest to boost his ego’ with Titanic sub
01:00 , Andrea Blanco
“I’m so worried he kills himself and others in the quest to boost his ego,” a former OceanGate employee wrote in a 2018 email obtained by The New Yorker.
The Independent reports:
OceanGate employee feared deadly consequences in CEO’s ‘quest to boost his ego’
OceanGate’s ex-finance director claims she quit after being asked to captain doomed vessel
14:23 , Joe Sommerlad
OceanGate Expeditions’ former finance director has claimed she quit the company after CEO Stockton Rush asked her to captain the doomed Titan submersible after firing the craft’s original chief pilot David Lochridge.
The employee, who spoke to The New Yorker on condition of anonymity, said: “It freaked me out that he would want me to be head pilot, since my background is in accounting, I could not work for Stockton. I did not trust him.”
She added that several of the engineers working for the company were in their late teens and early 20s and were at one point being paid $15 an hour.
Titanic sub debris and human remains have been recovered. But we still don’t have answers to these 9 questions
Thursday 6 July 2023 00:00 , Andrea Blanco
The desperate search for the missing Titanic submersible came to a tragic end when debris was discovered deep in the ocean. But, we still don’t know many crucial aspects of the doomed voyage.
The Independent’s Rachel Sharp, Io Dodds, Bevan Hurley and Andrea Blanco report:
These nine questions remain unanswered in the Titanic sub catastrophe
Was it an explosion or implosion and how would that have affected the passengers?
Wednesday 5 July 2023 23:00 , Andrea Blanco
“Knowing where the accident occurred, the assumption of an implosion makes sense,” Dr Joerg Reinhold, a professor at the Department of Physics at Florida International University, told The Independent.
“Both an implosion and an explosion need some form of stored energy. In typical explosive materials, the stored energy is chemical and is released through a chemical reaction. In the case of a submerged pressure vessel, the stored energy is mechanical – it is released when the surrounding water fills the space of the vessel.”
“If there is a catastrophic failure of the hull, this energy is first released in an implosion,” he notes. “Eventually, this will be followed by an outgoing shockwave – otherwise, listening devices would not be able to pick up the sound of the event.”
He went on to say that “implosions or explosions in water should behave differently than those in air. Air is a compressible fluid while water is an incompressible fluid. I expect the stored mechanical energy to be vastly bigger than any other source of energy on the submersible”.
“Even if the breach of the vessel would have been triggered by an internal source of energy, the final result will be an implosion,” Dr Reinhold said.
Jonas Mureika, a professor of physics at Loyola Marymount University, tells The Independent that calling the implosion “catastrophic” is referring to the intensity and speed of what took place.
Dr Mureika added that “an explosion results when there is a sudden release of energy that results in a powerful outward pressure wave. Implosions, on the other hand, are due to an inward pressure differential. This was most certainly an implosion”.
“That being said, when the air inside the submarine was rapidly compressed, it most likely ignited and created an explosion – like a piston in a car engine – but this wouldn’t compare in magnitude to the implosive force,” he says.
“As for the passengers, because of the time interval for this to occur, as well as the magnitude of the pressure, it’s very likely they didn’t even know what hit them. It’s also doubtful they had time to process what was happening unless the implosion was preceded by something like a leak,” Dr Mureika adds.
What photos of the Titanic sub debris tell us about its implosion
Wednesday 5 July 2023 22:10 , Andrea Blanco
Images of the wreckage recovered from the Titan submersible at the bottom of the North Atlantic appear to confirm the theory that the vessel suffered a massive implosion under the pressure of the ocean.
Earlier this week, the US Coast Guard brought the debris left by the sub on the ocean floor onto dry land.
Jonas Mureika, a professor of physics at Loyola Marymount University, tells The Independent that calling the implosion “catastrophic” is referring to the intensity and speed of what took place.
“The pressure at that depth (3.8 km) is incredibly high, about 400 times atmospheric pressure. That’s 6,000 pounds per square inch acting on the submarine – atmospheric pressure is roughly 15 pounds per square inch,” he noted in an email.
The Independent reports:
What photos of the Titanic sub debris tell us about its implosion
WATCH: Resurfaced documentary footage shows Titan spinning out of control
Wednesday 5 July 2023 21:08 , Andrea Blanco
OceanGate CEO said glue holding Titanic sub together was ‘like peanut butter’
Wednesday 5 July 2023 20:38 , Andrea Blanco
Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions whose submarine imploded during a trip to see the wreckage of the Titanic, once described the glue holding the vessel together as similar to “peanut butter.”
The Independent’s Graig Graziosi reports:
OceanGate CEO said glue holding Titanic sub together was ‘like peanut butter’
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush downplayed ‘really loud bang’ on prior Titanic sub trip
Wednesday 5 July 2023 20:01 , Bevan Hurley
OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush dismissed concerns about a “really loud bang” during a previous dive on the doomed Titan submersible.
Rush was filmed speaking to passengers for an episode of BBC’s The Travel Show in 2022 when he mentioned that a crew member had heard a troubling sound come from the sub while it was on the ocean surface.
He said the noise was “not a soothing sound” but downplayed the danger, adding that “almost every deep-sea sub makes a noise at some point.”
It’s unclear what caused the noise, but former OceanGate employees and industry experts have said they repeatedly raised concerns about the Titan’s construction since it imploded on a dive to the Titanic wreckage, killing Rush and four others on board.
The sub’s “experimental” carbon-fibre hull wasn’t suitable for extreme depths in deep-sea exploration, and glue had leaked from the seams of ballast bags, whistleblowers said.
Titan’s hull ‘subjected to repeated stress over time’
Wednesday 5 July 2023 19:02 , Andrea Blanco
The 22-foot long, 23,000-pound Titan’s larger internal volume — while still cramped with a maximum of five seated people — meant it was subjected to more external pressure.
Elongating the cabin space in a submersible increases pressure loads in the midsections, which increases fatigue and delamination loads, said Jasper Graham-Jones, an associate professor of mechanical and marine engineering at the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom.
Fatigue, he said, is like bending a wire back and forth until it breaks. Delamination, he said, is like splitting wood down the grain, which is easier than chopping across the grain.
Furthermore, the Titan’s hull had been subjected to repeated stress over the course of about two dozen previous dives, Graham-Jones said.
Each trip would put tiny cracks in the structure, he said.
“This might be small and undetectable to start but would soon become critical and produce rapid and uncontrollable growth,” he said.
Wife and mother of Titan passengers talks about waiting to hear from the doomed sub
Wednesday 5 July 2023 18:09 , Andrea Blanco
Christine Dawood was on board a support vessel when she got word that communications were lost with the submersible carrying her husband and son, to view the Titanic wreckage.
She didn’t initially understand what it meant that the Titan submersible had lost contact with the ship an hour and 45 minutes into its voyage, Dawood told the BBC Monday.
It would be four more days before she would learn the fate of her husband Shahzada Dawood and son Suleman Dawood, when authorities announced the vessel carrying five people had imploded and there were no survivors.
“We all thought they are just going to come up,” she said. “That shock was delayed about 10 hours or so. There was a time ... where they were supposed to be up on the surface. When that time passed, that is when the ... worry and not so good feelings started.”
Christine Dawood said she had “loads of hope” during the international search for the Titan, noting that it was the “only thing that got us through it.”
“There were so many actions on the sub that people can do in order to surface,” she said of believing they may survive. “It was like a rollercoaster, more like a wave ... We kept looking at the surface.”
Christine Dawood said she “lost hope” when they passed the 96 hour mark, sending a message to her family that she was preparing for the worst. Her 17-year-old daughter, Alina, was was still hopeful until the call with the U.S. Coast Guard about finding debris from the Titan.
Physicist calls for ‘pause’ on all tourist trips to Titanic wreckage
Wednesday 5 July 2023 17:19 , Shweta Sharma
A physicist has called for an end to all the tourist voyages to the Titanic wreckage after four days of frantic search for the Titan submersible ended and experts said all five people on board died in an implosion.
Michael Guillen, a former Harvard University physics instructor who himself had a near-death experience near the Titanic wreckage, said the ocean is a “merciless beast” and the Titanic’s wreckage is a “sacred ground” where all activities should cease.
“Certainly, we need to stop, pause all trips to the Titanic, I believe, and figure out, you know, what kind of restrictions should we place,” he said in an interview with GB News.
“This is not a joyride. This is a serious business. The ocean is a merciless beast, really. It’s ready to swallow you up.”
Mr Guillen went into the depths of the Atlantic aboard a Russian scientific research vessel in 2000 when he was a correspondent with the ABC network.
Heartbreaking final photo shows smiles of father and son moments before doomed Titanic sub trip
Wednesday 5 July 2023 16:50 , Andrea Blanco
OceanGate suspends all expeditions
Wednesday 5 July 2023 15:58 , Andrea Blanco
The company has announced on its website that all expeditions are suspended following the tragedy that killed its CEO and four other passengers aboard OceanGate’s Titan submersible.
Subway shop slammed for mocking Titanic sub implosion on billboard
Wednesday 5 July 2023 15:22 , Andrea Blanco
Sandwich chain Subway has come under fire after making mocking reference to the Titan submersible disaster in its advertising.
A billboard outside one Subway restaurant in Georgia featured the slogan: “Our subs don’t implode”.
But the pun didn’t go down well with customers, with one describing the move as “distasteful” and “sad”, and another adding: “talk about poor taste”.
The Independent reports:
Subway shop slammed for mocking Titanic sub implosion on billboard
OceanGate employee feared CEO could ‘kill himself and others in quest to boost his ego’
Wednesday 5 July 2023 13:00 , Andrea Blanco
A former OceanGate employee warned safety concerns with the company’s Titanic submersible could have deadly consequences in an ominous ego calling out CEO Stockton Rush’s “ego”.
David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations from 2015 to 2018, was asked by Rush to conduct a quality inspection after safety issues with the Titan were raised. During this process, Mr Lochridge “identified numerous issues that posed serious safety concerns” but he was allegedly “met with hostility and denial of access” to necessary documents, according to a lawsuit he brought in 2018 after he was terminated.
Bombshell emails reported by The New Yorker show Mr Lochridge’s desperate attempts to expose safety issues with the Titan, five years before it imploded while on a 12,500-foot dive to the wreck of the Titanic with five passengers, including Rush, aboard last month.
“I don’t want to be seen as a Tattle tale but I’m so worried he kills himself and others in the quest to boost his ego,” Mr Lochridge wrote in an email to expedition leader and dive master Rob McCallum. “... I would consider myself pretty ballsy when it comes to doing things that are dangerous, but that sub is an accident waiting to happen.”
“There’s no way on earth you could have paid me to dive the thing,” another email by Mr Lochridge read.
Marien experts signed letter warning about safety concerns with the Titan
Wednesday 5 July 2023 12:00 , Josh Marcus
In 2018, leaders in the submarine industry wrote a letter from the Marine Technology Society to the company warning of “catastrophic” issues with the submarine’s development.
Three dozen signatories including executives, oceanographers, and explorers expressed “unanimous concern”, particularly with the company’s decision not to seek outside evaluation and testing.
“While this may demand additional time and expense,” the signatories wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times. “It is our unanimous view that this validation process by a third party is a critical component in the safeguards that protect all submersible occupants.”
In a 2019 blog post, the company defended its decision not to have its sub “classed” by an outside evaluator.
“The vast majority of marine (and aviation) accidents are a result of operator error, not mechanical failure,” it reads. “As a result, simply focusing on classing the vessel does not address the operational risks. Maintaining high-level operational safety requires constant, committed effort and a focused corporate culture – two things that OceanGate takes very seriously and that are not assessed during classification.”
That same year, Mr Rush, the CEO, told Smithsonian Magazine that submarine regulations were stifling innovation.
“There hasn’t been an injury in the commercial sub industry in over 35 years. It’s obscenely safe, because they have all these regulations,” he said. “But it also hasn’t innovated or grown – because they have all these regulations.”
Shahzada and Suleman Dawood ‘s final photo together
Wednesday 5 July 2023 11:00 , Bevan Hurley
Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son Suleman are pictured arm in arm and appear excited to board the sub, which suffered a “catastrophic implosion” less than two hours into a dive to the Titanic wreckage killing all five crew on board.
The beaming pair wear matching hi-vis orange jackets, vests, gloves and helmets in the photo, which was reportedly shot from the Polar Prince support ship shortly before the 18 June dive.Christine Dawood, Shahzada’s widow, told the New York Times that she and her 17-year-old daughter Alina were on board the support ship when the Titan departed for the famous shipwreck. The $250,000-per-ticket trip had been a Father’s Day celebration, she said.
Friend of British billionaire reveals desperate race to get remote vehicle to site of doomed Titanic sub
Wednesday 5 July 2023 10:00 , Andrea Blanco
A family friend of a British billionaire who perished in the tragic implosion of the Titan last week has shared her desperate efforts to help in the failed rescue of the submersible’s crew.
Several investigations by international maritime agencies have been launched to determine the potential malfunctions that led to the deaths of OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British pilot Hamish Harding, renowned French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Pakistani businessman Shahzeda Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman.
Before hopes of a miracle rescue were dashed when debris from the Titan was found 1,600ft from the bow of the Titanic on 22 June, the US Coast Guard had led a frantic four-day search for the missing crew with help from American, Canadian and French deep-sea robots and ships.
The agency had warned before the tragic developments that even if the sub was located, there was no guarantee that a rescue operation would be successful due to the conditions on the ocean floor.
Tracy Ryan, a close friend of Harding’s wife Linda, has now revealed that she was “working behind the scenes” trying to get a remote-operated submarine capable of reaching the Titanic wreck to join the search for the doomed Titan.
“When I heard it was Hamish my heart dropped to my stomach,” Ms Ryan told People, in an exclusive interview. “I had been working behind the scenes for four days to get the Magellan sub there and get their permits approved because they did have the capabilities to dive all the way down to the site.”
Father and son killed in Titan tragedy were ‘best friends,’ widow says
Wednesday 5 July 2023 09:00 , Andrea Blanco
The widow of a Pakistani tycoon who lost both her husband and son after their submersible imploded in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean has opened up about her grief.
More than a week after all five passengers on an expedition aboard the Titan sub were killed, their families continue to reel from the tragedy as international marine authorities have launched multi-agency probes to determine what caused the catastrophic implosion.
Speaking at a televised memorial last week, Christine Dawood, whose husband Shahzada Dawood and 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood were among the victims, said the expedition to the Titanic meant the world for father and son, who she described as true explorers who bonded over their love for adventure.
“These two best friends embarked upon this last voyage, their final journey together,” Ms Dawood told Sky News through tears. “These past few days have been incredibly challenging as a family ... Emotions from excitement to shock to hope and finally despair and grief.”
An 1851 maritime law protected the Titanic’s owners in court. Could OceanGate use it too?
Wednesday 5 July 2023 08:00 , Andrea Blanco
The owners of Titanic sought to limit liability following the ship’s sinking by petitioning under 1851 legislation.
The owners of the submersible lost on its dive to visit that famed ship’s wreckage may do the same thing, legal experts tell The Independent’s Sheila Flynn:
An 1851 maritime law protected Titanic owners in court. Could OceanGate use it too?
WATCH: Stockton Rush appears to boast about 'bending rules' to construct Titanic tourist sub
Wednesday 5 July 2023 19:05 , Andrea Blanco
Presumed human remains found in debris from Titan submersible
Wednesday 5 July 2023 22:42 , Andrea Blanco
Medical professionals will formally analyse presumed human remains recovered from the wreckage of the Titan submersible.
The US Coast Guard (USCG) said it received debris and evidence from the sea floor at the site of the deep-sea vessel’s fatal implosion, which killed five people.
British adventurer Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood were killed on board the vessel near the wreckage of the Titanic, alongside OceanGate Expeditions’ chief executive, Stockton Rush, and French national Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
WATCH: Search and rescue company boss visibly emotional describing Titan search
Wednesday 5 July 2023 07:00 , Andrea Blanco
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush downplayed ‘really loud bang’
Wednesday 5 July 2023 06:00 , Bevan Hurley
OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush dismissed concerns about a “really loud bang” during a previous dive on the doomed Titan submersible.
Rush was filmed speaking to passengers for an episode of BBC’s The Travel Show in 2022 when he mentioned that a crew member had heard a troubling sound come from the sub while it was on the ocean surface.
He said the noise was “not a soothing sound” but downplayed the danger, adding that “almost every deep-sea sub makes a noise at some point.”
It’s unclear what caused the noise, but former OceanGate employees and industry experts have said they repeatedly raised concerns about the Titan’s construction since it imploded on a dive to the Titanic wreckage, killing Rush and four others on board.
The sub’s “experimental” carbon-fibre hull wasn’t suitable for extreme depths in deep-sea exploration, and glue had leaked from the seams of ballast bags, whistleblowers said.
The Titan had not been independently certified.
Inside the dangerous world of explorer tourism for the thrill-seeking super rich
Wednesday 5 July 2023 05:00 , Andrea Blanco
The trend of the world’s wealthiest paying above the odds for high-risk adventures is nothing new.
Gabriella Le Breton investigates the elite’s age-old obsession with discovering the furthest – and most dangerous – corners of the globe:
Inside the dangerous world of explorer tourism for the super-rich
Why we are obsessed with the missing Titan submarine, according to experts
Wednesday 5 July 2023 04:00 , Meredith Clark
The search for the missing Titan submersible fully captured the world’s attention, from reports of mysterious “banging” noises to estimates of how much oxygen may have been left in the underwater vessel.
On 18 June, the OceanGate Expeditions submersible Titan was beginning its trip to visit the Titanic wreckage at a depth of 12,500ft. About one hour and 45 minutes into its deep dive, the submersible lost communications with its surface ship, the Polar Prince, and was believed to have suffered a “catastrophic implosion”.
The search for the submersible captured the attention of millions, as phrases such as “Titan” and hashtags like #OceanGate dominated Twitter’s top trending and TikTok For You Pages. According to Dr Justin D’Arienzo – a clinical psychologist in Jacksonville, Florida and former US Navy psychologist – the reason the public has been so invested is down to our desire to relate to others that sustains our obsession.
“We all can relate to that feeling of being trapped somewhere or being in the water or experiencing that level of uncertainty,” he tells The Independent. “What makes it so relatable is that we all could imagine being helpless with other humans and not know what to do.”
Of course, many people would argue the opposite. OceanGate Inc, the company that owns and operates OceanGate Expeditions, offers people the chance to join a crew in a five-person submersible for the price of $250,000 – a number that very few people have just lying around.
“People paying $250,000 to go into a tube that’s going to go underwater, there is some obsession with rich and famous people. We’re sensitized to voyeurism in that regard,” says D’Arienzo. “We quickly follow people who we see are powerful; we give them more leeway. There’s a reason that we follow the lifestyles of the rich and famous.”
WATCH: Stockton Rush appears to boast about 'bending rules' to construct Titanic tourist sub
Wednesday 5 July 2023 03:00 , Andrea Blanco
Online gamblers raked in thousands on bets against the Titanic sub crew’s survival
Wednesday 5 July 2023 02:00 , josh Marcus
Online gamblers bet hundreds of thousands of dollars on the fate of the submarine that went missing on a recent expedition to the Titanic, in what online critics called a “dystopian” use of digital finance.
During the first week after the tragedy, people wagered at least $300,000 on the fate of the vehicle using the crypto platform Polymarket, Mother Jones reports.
On the site, betters buy and sell shares on the outcomes of events using cryptocurrency, and can redeem their shares for $1 each if their guesses are correct.
“For the purposes of this market, the vessel need not have been rescued or physically recovered to be considered ‘found,’” reads the description page for the submarine bets. “If pieces are located, but not the cabin which contains the vessel’s passengers, that will not suffice for this market to resolve to ‘Yes.’”
One user, asking only to be identified by his first name, Rich, told Mother Jones he made around $3,250 betting.
Whistleblowers warned OceanGate safety issues could prove ‘catastrophic’. Then its Titanic sub imploded
Wednesday 5 July 2023 01:00 , Josh Marcus
In 2018, the company fired David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations. They claimed he breached his contract and shared confidential information about its designs with two individuals as well as with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
However, Mr Lochridge alleged in a wrongful termination suit obtained by The New Republic that he was fired for blowing the whistle about concerning safety issues.
According to the suit, Mr Lochridge delivered highly critical updates regarding the ship’s quality control to senior management and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, pointing to alleged issues such as “visible flaws” in the ship’s carbon fibre hull, “prevalent flaws” in a scale model, flammable materials onboard, a viewing window not rated for the Titanic’s depth, and key safety documents that were not shared with him.
“Now is the time to properly address items that may pose a safety risk to personnel,” he allegedly said at one point. “Verbal communication of the key items I have addressed in my attached document have been dismissed on several occasions, so I feel now I must make this report so there is an official record in place.”
The official allegedly pushed for further testing and for outside evaluators like the American Bureau of Shipping to inspect and certify the submarine.
He claimed, according to filings obtained by the magazine, that he was fired when he said he wouldn’t authorise manned testing of the sub without scans of the craft’s hull.
The Independent has contacted OceanGate for comment.
Titan’s hull ‘subjected to repeated stress over time’
Wednesday 5 July 2023 00:00 , Andrea Blanco
The 22-foot long, 23,000-pound Titan’s larger internal volume — while still cramped with a maximum of five seated people — meant it was subjected to more external pressure.
Elongating the cabin space in a submersible increases pressure loads in the midsections, which increases fatigue and delamination loads, said Jasper Graham-Jones, an associate professor of mechanical and marine engineering at the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom.
Fatigue, he said, is like bending a wire back and forth until it breaks. Delamination, he said, is like splitting wood down the grain, which is easier than chopping across the grain.
Furthermore, the Titan’s hull had been subjected to repeated stress over the course of about two dozen previous dives, Graham-Jones said.
Each trip would put tiny cracks in the structure, he said.
“This might be small and undetectable to start but would soon become critical and produce rapid and uncontrollable growth,” he said.
CEO of doomed Titan sub hoped to land billion dollar deals with oil and gas companies
Tuesday 4 July 2023 23:00 , Holly Evans
The co-founder of Oceangate, the company at the centre of the submersible tragedy, had hopes to contract deals with oil and gas companies after developing a reputation from its dives to see the Titanic wreckage.
Stockton Rush, who was killed aboard the Titan sub after it suffered a “catastrophic implosion”, had spent years developing submarine technology to advance deep sea exploration.
He was one of five passengers on board the 21ft-long vessel which embarked on Sunday for the 2.4mile descent to the ocean-bed. A four-day international search and rescue mission was launched after it lost communications and failed to return to its mother ship, the Polar Prince.
OceanGate launched its Titanic tours in 2021, with customers expected to pay $250,000 to see the infamous wreck, which lies nearly 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
US Coast Guard to lead investigation into doomed Titanic tourist sub
Tuesday 4 July 2023 22:23 , Andrea Blanco
The US Coast Guard and Transportation Safety Board of Canada are leading investigations into the Titan submersible implosion this past week.
The five-man crew on board the OceanGate Expeditions’ vessel died on the trip to the oceanfloor to view the wreckage of the Titanic, officials confirmed.
An ex-OceanGate employee, former passengers and submersible industry experts have said that there were warning signs over the sub’s safety.
The US Coast Guard declared the incident a “major marine casualty” and will lead an investigation assisted by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), according to a statement.
Subway store under fire for distasteful billboard
Tuesday 4 July 2023 21:22 , Andrea Blanco
@SUBWAY this is at your store in Rincon, GA. Not only is it distasteful, it’s just sad. Do better. #subway pic.twitter.com/PfgABPU8ML
— Amanda Butler (@Amanda72118560) July 2, 2023
Widow who lost husband and son to Titanic sub implosion pays tribute to ‘best friends’ at memorial
Tuesday 4 July 2023 20:24 , Andrea Blanco
The widow of a Pakistani tycoon who lost both her husband and son after their submersible imploded in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean has opened up about her grief.
More than a week after all five passengers on an expedition aboard the Titan sub were killed, their families continue to reel from the tragedy as international marine authorities have launched multi-agency probes to determine what caused the catastrophic implosion.
Speaking at a televised memorial last week, Christine Dawood, whose husband Shahzada Dawood and 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood were among the victims, said the expedition to the Titanic meant the world for father and son, who she described as true explorers who bonded over their love for adventure.
“These two best friends embarked upon this last voyage, their final journey together,” Ms Dawood told Sky News through tears. “These past few days have been incredibly challenging as a family ... Emotions from excitement to shock to hope and finally despair and grief.”
Sitting next to her father-in-law Hussain Dawood and her husband’s close friend Inam ur Rahman, Ms Dawood shared a heartwarming story about the day her son was born. The grieving widow recounted her husband’s excitement as he held in his arms who would become his best friend for life.
“...for the first time, I just knew these two belonged together. His expression was like finding a long-lost companion for adventures to come,” Ms Dawood said.
What photos of the Titanic sub debris tell us about its implosion
Tuesday 4 July 2023 19:50 , Andrea Blanco
Images of the wreckage recovered from the Titan submersible at the bottom of the North Atlantic appear to confirm the theory that the vessel suffered a massive implosion under the pressure of the ocean.
Earlier this week, the US Coast Guard brought the debris left by the sub on the ocean floor onto dry land.
Jonas Mureika, a professor of physics at Loyola Marymount University, tells The Independent that calling the implosion “catastrophic” is referring to the intensity and speed of what took place.
“The pressure at that depth (3.8 km) is incredibly high, about 400 times atmospheric pressure. That’s 6,000 pounds per square inch acting on the submarine – atmospheric pressure is roughly 15 pounds per square inch,” he noted in an email.
“If the hull integrity was compromised or weakened in one spot, the inward pressure would quickly cause it to buckle asymmetrically, and the structure would implode because of the inward force. And at those pressures, the inward collapse would have occurred in milliseconds,” he adds. But this doesn’t mean the debris itself would be crushed in size, just that the pressure was inward.”
Dr Joerg Reinhold, a professor at the Department of Physics at Florida International University, added that “it seems the pressure vessel of the submersible consisted of a cylindrical hull capped off by two at least somewhat spherical endcaps or domes. One of these includes a viewport. In pictures, it seems the other dome is covered by another shell in the shape of a fin or so”.
Titanic sub debris and human remains have been recovered. But we still don’t have answers to these 9 questions
Tuesday 4 July 2023 19:20 , Andrea Blanco
The desperate search for the missing Titanic submersible came to a tragic end when debris was discovered deep in the ocean. But, we still don’t know many crucial aspects of the doomed voyage.
The Independent’s Rachel Sharp, Io Dodds, Bevan Hurley and Andrea Blanco report:
These nine questions remain unanswered in the Titanic sub catastrophe
OceanGate employee feared CEO could ‘kill himself and others in quest to boost his ego’ with Titanic sub
Tuesday 4 July 2023 18:50 , Andrea Blanco
A former OceanGate employee warned safety concerns with the company’s Titanic submersible could have deadly consequences in an ominous ego calling out CEO Stockton Rush’s “ego”.
Read more:
OceanGate employee feared deadly consequences in CEO’s ‘quest to boost his ego’
