During an open hearing of the U.S. Coast Guard, new horrific details of the «Titan» submarine disaster that occurred last June became known.
Fifteen months ago a small bathyscaphe plunged into the water Atlantic to visit the Titanic shipwreck at a depth of almost 4 km below the surface. During the journey, the submersible «Titan» crashed, killing all five people on board.
More than a year later, the Coast Guard revealed the first image of the sunken bathyscaphe in the form of a screenshot of a video taken by a remotely operated deep-sea unmanned aerial vehicle. The drone spotted the tail cone of the «Titan» and other wreckage on June 22, four days after his disappearance and the day before the official announcement of the loss of the device.
The image is a chilling reminder of the danger the crew faced on a similar journey. OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush ignored safety issues for years and used legal threats against critics of the project — which led to his own death aboard the «Titan».
The hearings were the first time officials provided details of the disaster. Earlier, the US Coast Guard found an exceptional number of problems with the ship: 70 of them in 2021 and 48 additional ones in 2022. Experts pointed to several design flaws, some of which were the result of OceanGate’s cost savings — including its pill shape, which does not meet the industry standard for a sphere.
Stockton Rush also once boasted of using expired carbon fiber that was purchased from the now-troubled aerospace contractor Boeing. Since then, experts have criticized this material as a poor choice for a deep-sea vessel because carbon fiber weakens over time.
Less than a month before the accident, the «Titan» was found «partially submerged» a few days after launching as part of a test. A few days before the fatal accident, passengers on a different mission were struck by the hull walls.
It is still not known exactly what caused the destruction of the «Titan». But the last hearing, which took place on Monday, September 16, was only the beginning of a two-week public review of the case, which promises more details.
Sources: The New York Times, The Byte