A five-person crew on the submersible, “Titan,” submerged on a dive to the Titanic wreckage site on Sunday, June 18, 2023. An hour and 45 minutes later the crew on the research ship monitoring Titan lost all communication with the vessel.
OceanGate Expeditions, the company that owns the lost submersible, stated they were, “exploring and mobilizing all options to bring the crew back to safety.”
The crew aboard the Titan consisted of Stockton Rush, 61, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, Hamish Harding, 58, Paul-Henri Nargeolot, 73, Shahzada Dawood, 48 and his son, Suleman Dawood, 19.
The sub was lost around 900 miles east of Cape Cod and both United States and Canadian Coast Guards assisted the search.
Many news stations have criticized Rush, citing his repeated failure to acknowledge several safety concerns with the submersible.
In 2018, OceanGate sued a former employee, David Lochridge, who was fired after he expressed concern over the safety of the vessel’s hull. OceanGate’s lawsuit claimed Lochridge had breached his employment contract by disclosing confidential information with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Lochridge alleged in the lawsuit that he had been wrongfully terminated, and had only raised his concerns due to a fear of the overall safety and noted his objections to OceanGate’s decision to perform dives without “non-destructive testing to prove its integrity.”
Lochridge went on to state in his own legal filing that the passengers, all of whom would have had to pay at least $250,000 per seat, would not be made aware of the experimental design on the vessel, the lack of non-destructive testing of the hull or the hazardous, flammable materials that were being used within the submersible. The document concluded by asserting Lochridge’s beliefs that the company could “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible.”
More information has additionally come out about OceanGate’s failure to follow the safety procedures needed for underwater exploration. In an interview with Smithsonian Magazine in 2019, Rush stated that he believed the commercial sub industry had become “obscenely safe,” and “it also hasn’t innovated or grown – because they have all these regulations.”
Remains of the vessel had been found on Thursday, June 22, 2023. Rear Adm. John Mauger, commander of the First Coast Guard District stated in a news conference the same day, “The debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel.” Mauger continued by saying that the debris was found about 1,600 feet from the Titanic’s bow on the sea floor.
The Coast Guard has been transporting large pieces of debris of the Titan to land. They announced that medical professionals will formally analyze what they presume to be human remains found in the debris in the upcoming weeks.
