The Coast Guard said the discovery of a debris field on the North Atlantic seabed near the wreck of the Titanic indicates OceanGate submersible suffered a “catastrophic implosion” that killed all five passengers instantly shortly after losing contact with the surface on Sunday.
Summary
The Coast Guard said the discovery of a debris field on the North Atlantic seabed near the wreck of the Titanic indicates OceanGate submersible suffered a “catastrophic implosion” that killed all five passengers instantly shortly after losing contact with the surface on Sunday.
- The dead include the pilot, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who founded the company in 2009 and was on his third trip to the wreck of the Titanic.
- Two British billionaires, Action Aviation CEO Hamish Harding and Pakistani-born agriculture, petrochemicals, and infrastructure baron Shahzada Dawood, were killed along with Dawood’s 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood.
- The fifth passenger was Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a Titanic expert who completed 37 dives to the sunken ocean liners before his final, fatal voyage.
- The hull of the Titan is believed to have imploded on Sunday, compressed under tens of thousands of pounds of water pressure. A submarine hull implosion can happen in approximately one millisecond, and in a collapse the air inside ignites, leading to an explosion that would incinerate human bodies instantly.
- Given the human brain needs about 25 milliseconds to respond to stimuli it’s probable the passengers were killed before they even realized an implosion was happening. The exact cause of the catastrophic failure is unclear.
- Using a highly classified underwater sound detection system, the US Navy heard what it now suspects was the Titan implosion hours after it began its journey into the depths, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Navy reported the findings to the Coast Guard but as they could not definitively conclude that the sound was the Titan, rescuers continued to search until the discovery of the debris field on Thursday.
- Investigators are already searching for the cause of the implosion and will continue to investigate the debris field on the sea floor. The Titan was not registered with national or international regulatory bodies and did not comply with industry standards as Rush, OceanGate’s late CEO, did not want to be held up by regulations.
- NBC News reported that the youngest victim, 19-year-old Suleman Dawood, was “terrified” ahead of the fatal voyage but went on the trip to please his Titanic-obsessed father, according to his aunt Azmeh Dawood. Dawood said her late nephew “wasn’t very up for it,” adding, “I feel like I’ve been caught in a really bad film, with a countdown, but you didn’t know what you’re counting down to.”
- “The search for the Titan drew an international response, as French, British and Canadian ships struck out for the final resting place of the Titanic, ferrying high-tech search-and-rescue equipment,” reported the New York Times. “There was a robot capable of searching 13,000 feet below the ocean’s surface, and a hyperbaric recompression chamber used to treat diving-related illnesses.”
- The Washington Post covered the numerous safety concerns from marine regulators, mariners, and engineers who had expressed concerns about the Titan’s safety standards long before the disaster. Pressure on the hull from previous expeditions could have contributed to the catastrophe.
- The investigation into the Titan implosion will be international in scope, although governments are still negotiating how exactly it will take place and under whose jurisdiction any legal proceedings will occur, according to the Wall Street Journal.
- “There is reason that, from Richard III (“Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks”) to Julius Caesar (“There is a tide in the affairs of men”) to Hamlet (“to take arms against a sea of trouble”), Shakespeare so often cast the ocean as the author of human destiny, and even of conscience, and that reason is that the place is truly terrifying. From time to time, we forget that. And then, all of a sudden, we know.” (Charles C.W. Cooke for National Review)
- The New York Post reported Las Vegas real estate billionaire Jay Bloom revealed that Rush tried to sell him and his son cut-rate tickets for the doomed Titan at a “last-minute price” of $150,000 – a discount of $100,000. Bloom and his son declined out of concerns about safety that Rush dismissed as “very stupid” and despite the late CEO’s insistence that traveling on the Titan was “safer than crossing the street.”
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© Dominic Moore, 2023
