2023 Titan submersible incident

On 18 June 2023, Titan, a submersible operated by OceanGate, went missing in international waters in the North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The submersible with five persons on board was on a tourist expedition to view the wreck of the Titanic. Communication was lost with the submersible 1 hour and 45 minutes into its dive to the wreck site; authorities were notified when it did not resurface at its scheduled time later that day.

On 22 June, after nearly 80 hours of searching, a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) discovered a debris field containing parts of the Titan approximately 488 m (1,600 ft) from the bow of the Titanic. The pressure vessel is believed to have imploded only hours after Titan began descent, killing all on board instantly.

Concerns about the safety of the vessel had previously been raised. Search and rescue efforts were carried out by an international team led by the United States Coast Guard, United States Navy, and Canadian Coast Guard. Aircraft from the Royal Canadian Air Force and United States Air National Guard, a Royal Canadian Navy ship, and several commercial and research ships and ROVs also assisted in the search.

Background

OceanGate

OceanGate is a private company founded by Stockton Rush and Guillermo Söhnlein 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

RMS 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

Main article: OceanGate § Titan

File:Cyclops 1 Submersible.jpg

OceanGate's Cyclops 1, the predecessor of the Titan. The Titan had a 380 mm (15 inch) window.

Titan was a five-person submersible vessel operated by OceanGate, Inc. The 6.7-metre-long (22 ft), vessel was constructed from carbon fibre and titanium. The entire pressure vessel consisted 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 was 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 Titan was rebuilt.

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

OceanGate claimed on its website as of 2023 that Titan was "designed and engineered by OceanGate Inc. in collaboration [with] experts from NASA, Boeing, and the University of Washington" (UW). A ​¹⁄₃-scale model of the Cyclops 2 pressure vessel was built and tested at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) at UW; the model was able to sustain a pressure of 4,285 psi (29.54 MPa; 291.6 atm), corresponding to a depth of approximately 3,000 m (9,800 ft). After the disappearance of the Titan in 2023, UW claimed the APL had no involvement in "design, engineering, or testing of the Titan submersible." A Boeing spokesperson also claimed Boeing "was not a partner on the Titan and did not design or build it." A NASA spokesperson said that NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center had a Space Act Agreement with OceanGate, but "did not conduct testing and manufacturing via its workforce or facilities".

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

According to OceanGate, the Titan had seven backup systems intended to return the vessel to surface in case of emergency, including ballasts that could be dropped, a balloon, and thrusters. Some of the backup systems were designed to work even if all aboard the submersible were unconscious; there were sandbags held by hooks that dissolved after a certain number of hours in the water to release the sandbags, ideally letting the vessel float to the surface. An OceanGate investor explained that if the vessel did not automatically ascend after the elapsed time, those inside the vessel could help release the ballast either by tilting the ship back and forth to dislodge it or by utilizing a pneumatic pump to loosen the weights.

Expeditions to the Titanic

The Titan made its first dive to the Titanic in July 2021. It made additional dives in 2022 and 2023.

Each dive typically had a pilot, three paying passengers, and a guide on board. Once these people were inside the submersible, the hatch would be bolted shut and could only be reopened from the outside. The descent from the surface to the Titanic typically took three hours, with the full dive taking approximately eight hours. Throughout the journey, the submersible was expected to emit a safety ping every 15 minutes to be monitored by the above-water crew. The vessel and surface crew were also able to communicate via short text messages.

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

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

Safety and concerns

Safety

File:Logitech F710.jpg

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

Because the Titan operated in international waters, it was not subject to any safety regulations. The vessel was not certified as seaworthy by any regulatory agency or third-party organization. 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."

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."

Prior concerns

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 m (4,300 ft), 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.

Earlier incidents

The Titan had made three previous 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 Titan became lost and could not locate the Titanic during a dive. Pogue's December 2022 report for CBS News Sunday Morning, which questioned Titan's safety, went viral on social media after the submersible 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

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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.

File:Lunenburg Fishing Boat Yards 1 (cropped).jpg

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 would have expired on the morning of 22 June 2023 if the submersible had been intact.

A U.S. Navy acoustic detection system designed to locate military submarines detected a sound consistent with an implosion hours after Titan submerged.

People aboard

• Shahzada Dawood was a Pakistani-British businessman (of the Dawood Hercules Corporation), and trustee at the SETI Institute. He was one of the wealthiest people in Pakistan.
• Suleman Dawood, the 19-year-old son of Shahzada Dawood, was a student at the University of Strathclyde.
• Hamish Harding was a British businessman, aviator, and space tourist. He had previously descended into the Mariana Trench, broken the Guinness World Record for a circumnavigation of the Earth, and flown into space.
• Paul-Henri Nargeolet was a 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 led more than 35 expeditions to the wreck, supervised the recovery of thousands of artifacts, and was "widely considered the leading authority on the wreck site" according to The Guardian.
• Stockton Rush was an American submersible pilot and businessman. He was the chief executive and founding member of OceanGate.

Search and rescue operations

The United States Coast Guard, United States Navy, and Canadian Coast Guard led the search and rescue efforts. Aircraft from the Royal Canadian Air Force and United States Air National Guard, a Royal Canadian Navy ship, and several commercial and research ships and remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROVs) also assisted in the search. The search involved both a surface search and an underwater sonar search. As of 22 June, the agencies are continuing efforts to map debris and understand what happened.

Timeline of operations

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

19 June

File:Coast Guard holds press briefing for missing submersible 900 miles east of Cape Cod.webm

Rear Admiral John Mauger delivers a press briefing in Boston on 19 June 2023

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 9:43 p.m. (00:13 UTC). The search on 19 June 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 sonobuoys. Search and rescue was hampered by low visibility weather conditions, which cleared the next day.

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

Neither the U.S. nor Canada has underwater vessels capable of easily assisting in the search and rescue missions. The U.S. Navy has one deep-submergence rescue vehicle, although the vessel cannot reach the depths at the search site. The Navy also has ROVs, but these vessels would take days to reach the disaster site.

20 June

File:Deep Energy, IMO 9481154 at the Tweede Werkhaven, Port of Rotterdam pic2.JPG

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 a.m. (13:15 UTC), 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.

According to an internal American government memo, a Canadian CP-140 Aurora's sonar picked up underwater noises 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. The noises were later described by the U.S. Coast Guard as being apparently unrelated to the missing vessel.

21 June

File:Coast Guard HC-130 and L’Atalante searching for Titan.jpg

U.S. Coast Guard HC-130 flying over L'Atalante on 21 June

CCGS John Cabot arrived in the morning of 21 June, bringing additional sonar capabilities to the search effort. Commercial vessels Skandi Vinland and Atlantic Merlin also arrived that day, as did a Coast Guard C-130 crew. As of approximately 3:00 p.m. (17:30 UTC), five air and water vehicles were actively searching for the Titan, and another five were expected to arrive in the next 24–48 hours. Search and rescue assets included two ROVs, one CP-140 Aurora aircraft, and the 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.

Despite rising concerns about depletion of air supplies on the Titan if it were intact, a U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson stated at a press conference that "This is a search and rescue mission 100%", rather than a wreckage recovery mission.

22 June

An Odysseus 6k ROV from Canadian-flagged offshore tug MV Horizon Arctic reached the sea floor and began its search for the missing submersible. The French RV L'Atalante also deployed its ROV Victor 6000, which can reach depths of up to 6,000 m (20,000 ft) and transmit images to the surface.

At 1:18 p.m. NDT (15:48 UTC) the U.S. Coast Guard's Northeast Sector announced that a debris field had been found near the wreck of the Titanic. The debris, located by the Horizon Arctic's Odysseus 6k remotely operated vehicle five hours into its search, was later confirmed to be part of the submersible. At an afternoon press conference, the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed the loss of the submersible due to the pressure chamber imploding, and stated that pieces of the Titan had been found on the sea floor approximately from the bow of the Titanic. The Coast Guard stated that they suspect the implosion of the pressure vessel to have likely occurred while the craft was traversing the water column, and that the implosion likely occurred prior to any rescue operations commencing, because the highly sensitive sonar buoys did not pick up any acoustic signal indicative of an implosion throughout their deployment. Rear Admiral Mauger said, however, he did not have an answer on whether the bodies of the five men on board were likely to be recovered. OceanGate issued a statement regarding the deaths of the people aboard.

Debris

The debris that has been located and confirmed as belonging to the Titan submersible consists of the nose cone (not part of the pressure vessel) as well as the forward and aft end bell — both part of the pressure vessel that protects the crew from the ocean environment. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the debris field is concentrated in two areas, with the aft end bell lying separate from the front end bell and the nose cone. The debris is around 500 meters from the bow of the Titanic.

Assets involved

Assets involved, sorted by arrival date and country

Country	Asset	Status	Arrival date	Ref.
Canada	MV Polar Prince (research vessel that brought the Titan to the Titanic wreck location)	Arrived	17 June
Canada	CP-140 Aurora (Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft)	Arrived	19 June
Canada	C-130 Hercules (Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft)	Arrived	19 June
Canada	Kopit Hopson 1752 (Canadian Coast Guard ship)	Arrived	19 June
United States	P-8 Poseidon (U.S. Navy aircraft with undersea search capabilities)	Arrived	19 June
United States	C-130 Hercules (United States Coast Guard aircraft)	Arrived	19 June
United Kingdom	MV Deep Energy (pipe-laying ship with two ROVs and other deepsea equipment, operated by TechnipFMC)	Arrived	20 June
United States	C-130 Hercules (three Air National Guard aircraft)	Arrived	20 June
Canada	Atlantic Merlin (commercial vessel)	Arrived	21 June
Canada	John Cabot (Canadian Coast Guard ship with sonar capabilities)	Arrived	21 June
Canada	Skandi Vinland (commercial vessel with ROV)	Arrived	21 June
United States	C-130 Hercules (United States Coast Guard aircraft)	Arrived	21 June
United States	Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System (FADOSS) (United States Navy ship lift system)	Arrived in St. John's	21 June
Canada	Horizon Arctic (ship with Odysseus 6k ROV capable of reaching Titanic depths)	Arrived	22 June
France	L'Atalante (research vessel with Victor 6000, a ROV that can reach depths of up to 6,000 m (20,000 ft) and transmit images to the surface, operated by Ifremer)	Arrived	22 June
Canada	Ann Harvey (Canadian Coast Guard ship)	En route
Canada	HMCS Glace Bay (Royal Canadian Navy patrol ship carrying medical personnel and a mobile decompression chamber)	En route
Canada	Terry Fox (Canadian Coast Guard ship)	En route
United Kingdom	Magellan ROV	En route
United States	C-130 Hercules (Air National Guard aircraft)	En route

Reactions

Discussing the scale of 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."

The scale of the search and rescue efforts and media coverage compared to the 2023 Messenia migrant boat disaster on 14 June has sparked criticism. Ishaan Tharoor of the Washington Post noted that Pakistani internet users compared and contrasted the Pakistani victims in both incidents. The search likely cost millions of dollars of public funds. The Messenia disaster involved a fishing boat carrying an estimated 400 to 750 migrants, with nearly 100 people confirmed dead, another 100 rescued, and several hundred more still missing. Search and rescue efforts for the Messenia disaster were conducted by the Hellenic Coast Guard and military.

According to David Scott-Beddard, CEO of the Titanic exhibition company White Star Memories Ltd, the possibility of conducting future research at the Titanic wreck has decreased due to the disappearance of the Titan submersible.

Parks Stephenson, director of the USS Kidd Veterans Museum and Titanic researcher, commented early on about the disappearance of the Titan: "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".

See also

• List of submarine incidents since 2000
• Rescue of Roger Mallinson and Roger Chapman, the deepest such rescue in history

External links

• Media related to at Wikimedia Commons