Inspenet, July 3, 2023.
It was believed that the power of the Titan ‘s implosion had instantly disintegrated it before the five passengers on board realized something was wrong.
Nearly two weeks after the remains of the submarine that disappeared June 18 carrying five people searching for the remains of the Titanic in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean were found, the United States Coast Guard had no doubt that human remains were among them. the recovered debris.
The crew members on board were Stockton Rush, 61, CEO of OceanGate, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, a French Titanic expert, English explorer Hamish Harding, 58, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman. .
Titan Implosion: Battery failures and other problems
The submersible Titan carried out three expeditions to the Titanic wreck site, the first of which was in July 2021 . During another dive in 2022, CBS News journalist David Pogue was aboard the surface ship when communication with the Titan was lost. His report for CBS Sunday Morning, questioning the safety of the sub, went viral on social media after the sub lost contact again in June 2023.
Pogue noted that various parts of the sub seemed improvised , noting the use of a $30 video game controller to pilot the ship (the Logitech F710).
Likewise, the journalist declared to the news portal La Razón his hypothesis about what happened with the submersible:
“The Titan imploded, not because it was made of carbon fiber, but because it was made of carbon fiber, titanium, and plexiglass.” “And going down and up and down 20 times, gradually, those three materials expand and contract by different amounts under pressure. So I think, over time, something weakened and there was a seal coming loose. That’s that’s my belief. And the only way to avoid that would have been to not design it at all.”
During the expedition to the wreckage of the Titanic in 2022, an error occurred in the installation of one of the Titan’s thrusters , which caused the ship to start circling near the seabed.
According to the BBC documentary Take Me to Titanic, turning the game controller sideways has resolved the issue. In November of the same year, legal documents revealed that during another dive, the sub experienced battery difficulties and had to be manually attached to a lifting platform, causing damage to external components .
It is now confirmed that the US Navy recorded the sound of an implosion: exactly five days later. The remains of the submarine were found at the bottom of the sea, 1,600 feet from the wreck of the Titanic.
“The immersion would take place in the dark,” Mrs. Dawood told the New York Times, revealing an unprecedented detail. ” The headlights would turn off to save battery power for when they reached the bottom of the sea. Before the dive, they explained to my husband and son that they would probably see bioluminescent creatures.”
Shahzada was passionate about the Titanic and had read the stories written by the explorer Nargeolet, one of the world’s leading experts on the shipwreck, who also died on the Titan. Ms Dawood also said she was impressed by the professionalism of everyone on board the Polar Prince: “It seemed like a seamless operation and you could see it had been done many times before.”
Ms Dawood also told the American newspaper that when she heard communication with the Titan had been lost, she went to the ship’s bridge where many reassured her: “Communications can be unreliable,” they told her. “If there had been a problem, the mission would have been halted and the submarine would have dropped the onboard weights and returned to the surface.” “I watched the ocean for hours hoping to see them surface,” he revealed. But the only thing that emerged, days later, was the remains of the imploded submarine.
At what point did the Titan implode?
According to the first reconstructions, the Titan would have imploded shortly after the dive, so it will be crucial to analyze the communications before the ship lost contact, especially in light of the fact that there is no black box.
There will be an analysis of the remains found at the bottom of the sea at a depth of more than 3,000 meters. Meanwhile, investigators are working to determine the causes and role of the material used in the construction of the submarine, low-quality and “recycled” carbon fiber, according to what Rush would have confessed to a journalist who was due to leave on a mission in June. .
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