Titanic sub implosion: OceanGate CEO’s chilling words about Titan revealed as company shutters after disaster

Debris from the imploded Titan submersible was recovered from the ocean floor last week

Titan submersible wreckage brought ashore after fatal implosion

OceanGate Expeditions, the company that launched the doomed Titan submersible trip to the wreckage of the Titanic, has ceased operations.

A small message in the top-left corner of OceanGate’s website reads: “OceanGate has suspended all exploration and commercial operations.”

The announcement comes a full two weeks after the submersible imploded while carrying five people, sparking an international search, rescue and recovery operation.

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son Suleman Dawood all died in the implosion.

The company has come under scrutiny in the weeks following the tragic accident as former employees, former passengers and experts in the industry have criticised OceanGate for embarking on a potentially dangerous trip in the questionably designed submersible.

OceanGate’s decision to cease operations comes just after the company’s former finance director claimed she quit after CEO Stockton Rush asked her to captain the Titan once he fired the craft’s original chief pilot David Lochridge.

Key points

• Titanic sub victim’s wife reveals how crew spent their final moments
• US Coast Guard recovers ‘presumed human remains’ from sea floor near Titanic sub debris
• Hamish Harding’s friend reveals race to get ROV to site of doomed sub
• Why we are obsessed with the missing Titan submarine, according to experts

[7 July 2023 09:00 · Megan Sheets]

What photos of the Titanic sub debris tell us about its implosion

Images of the wreckage recovered from the Titan submersible at the bottom of the North Atlantic appear to confirm the theory that the vessel suffered a massive implosion under the pressure of the ocean.

Earlier this week, the US Coast Guard brought the debris left by the sub on the ocean floor onto dry land.

Jonas Mureika, a professor of physics at Loyola Marymount University, tells The Independent that calling the implosion “catastrophic” is referring to the intensity and speed of what took place.

“The pressure at that depth (3.8 km) is incredibly high, about 400 times atmospheric pressure. That’s 6,000 pounds per square inch acting on the submarine – atmospheric pressure is roughly 15 pounds per square inch,” he noted in an email.

The Independent reports:

[7 July 2023 11:00 · Megan Sheets]

Subway shop slammed for mocking Titanic sub implosion on billboard

Sandwich chain Subway has come under fire after making mocking reference to the Titan submersible disaster in its advertising.

A billboard outside one Subway restaurant in Georgia featured the slogan: “Our subs don’t implode”.

But the pun didn’t go down well with customers, with one describing the move as “distasteful” and “sad”, and another adding: “talk about poor taste”.

The Independent reports:

[7 July 2023 14:30 · Ariana Baio]

Head of key Titanic sub recovery team dodges question about OceanGate

Since the Titan submersible imploded, killing five people aboard, the subject of extreme tourism has been highly debated online and by professionals.

But when the CEO of Pelagic Research Services, the company that helped oversee the recovery mission of the submersible, was asked what his thoughts were on the trips OceanGate took to the Titanic, he claimed he did not have a strong opinion.

“I don’t necessarily have an opinion on that, it’s a strong investigation going on right now,” Edward Cassano said in a press conference on Friday.

Mr Cassano helped lead the team of people from Pelagic Research Services who used their remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to find the debris from the submersible last week.

During the press conference, he became visibly emotional when speaking about the five people who died while on a trip to view the Titanic wreckage and asked people to remain respectful about the tragedy.

[7 July 2023 17:00 · Ariana Baio]

Titanic submarine: What happened?

[7 July 2023 20:00 · Ariana Baio]

OceanGate CEO's chilling comments about outcome if Titan sub lost contact revealed

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush made “very strange” comments regarding the potential fate of passengers aboard the Titan submersible, according to a cameraman on a test dive with Rush.

Brian Weed, an adventure-documentary cameraman working on Discovery Channel’s “Expedition Unknown” show, told Insider that he joined Rush on a “precursor” to the Titanic mission.

After moments on board, Mr Weed asked Rush what would happen if the Titan experienced an emergency, and was far from the mothership.

Mr Weed told the publication about his conversation with the vessel’s creator: “‘Well, there’s four or five days of oxygen on board, and I said, ‘What if they don’t find you?’ And he said, ‘Well, you’re dead anyway.’”

“It felt like a very strange thing to think, and it seemed to almost be a nihilistic attitude toward life or death out in the middle of the ocean,” Mr Weed reflected.

[7 July 2023 22:30 · Ariana Baio]

Final photo shows smiles of father and son moments before doomed Titanic sub trip

Shahzada Dawood, 58, and 19-year-old son Suleman share a tender hug before their doomed deep sea trip on the Titan submersible (Sourced)

[8 July 2023 01:00 · Ariana Baio]

Why did the Titanic sub implode?

In the days after OceanGate chief executive Stockton Rush and his four-paying crew members went missing on their dive to the wreck of the Titanic, experts had several theories as to their fate.

At that depth, any object – including a human body – is subject to water pressure more than 300 times stronger than the pressure Earth’s atmosphere exerts on us every day. On the surface, we only need to withstand 14.7 lbs per square inch (Psi) of pressure, whereas the Titan had to withstand 5,500 Psi.

The Titan was designed to survive this level of pressure, with two strong titanium domes at either end of the hull linked by a five-inch-thick cylinder of carbon fibre. According to reports, it was subjected to rigorous safety checks before every dive to make sure there were no defects or faults in the hull.

Io Dodds reports: