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

[6 July 2023 08:00 · Andrea Blanco]

Voice recordings under scrutiny in Titanic sub implosion investigation

Voice recordings and other data will be reviewed as part of a US Coast Guard-appointed expert board’s probe into the catastrophic implosion of the Titan submersible last week.

American and Canadian marine authorities have announced investigations into the circumstances that led to the vessel’s malfunction after its chambers were found in a sea of debris 1,600ft from the wreck of the Titanic.

US Coast Guard Captain Jason Neubauer, who is chairing the investigation, said that he has summoned a Marine Board of Investigation, the highest level of investigation conducted by the Coast Guard. The board’s role is to determine the cause of the tragedy in order to pursue civil or criminal sanctions as necessary.

Voice recordings between the Titan and its mothership Polar Prince will be reviewed by investigators. The mothership’s crew is also being interviewed by different agencies.

Investigators with the Coast Guard have mapped the accident site and salvage operations are expected to continue, Cpt Jason Neubauer said. Once the investigation is wrapped — a timeline has not been laid out — a report with evidence, conclusions and recommendations will be released.

[6 July 2023 09:00 · Andrea Blanco]

WATCH: OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush reveals Titanic submersible built ‘with camping parts’

[6 July 2023 11:00 · Andrea Blanco]

WATCH: Resurfaced documentary footage shows Titan spinning out of control

[6 July 2023 12:00 · Joe Sommerlad]

OceanGate’s ex-finance director claims she quit after being asked to captain doomed vessel

OceanGate Expeditions’ former finance director has claimed she quit the company after CEO Stockton Rush asked her to captain the doomed Titan submersible after firing the craft’s original chief pilot David Lochridge.

The employee, who spoke to The New Yorker on condition of anonymity, said: “It freaked me out that he would want me to be head pilot, since my background is in accounting, I could not work for Stockton. I did not trust him.”

She added that several of the engineers working for the company were in their late teens and early 20s and were at one point being paid $15 an hour.

[6 July 2023 13:00 · Andrea Blanco]

OceanGate touted ‘very safe’ Titanic sub in promo video weeks before doomed trip

OceanGate Expeditions released a promo video boasting about its “very safe” submersible two months before the vessel catastrophically imploded in the depths of the Atlantic while on a dive to the wreck of the Titanic.

The company’s CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, renowned French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman were killed in the ill-fated expedition after the sub lost contact with its mothership on 18 June.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, past passengers who previously went on the 12,000-foot dive aboard the Titan have shared several concerns they had with OceanGate’s safety measures. However, a promotional video posted 10 weeks before the implosion on OceanGate’s Youtube channel advertised the $250,000-a-ticket trip as extremely safe.

Read more.

[6 July 2023 14:00 · Andrea Blanco]

Titanic sub passenger recalls brutal implosion warning

A former passenger of the Titan submersible that imploded last month, killing all five people on board, has spoken out about a brutal implosion warning.

Retired California businessman Bill Price, who went on a Titan dive in 2021, recalled discussing the effects of an implosion before the deep ocean expedition started.

Mr Price recalled some of the analogies of what it would be like to be crushed by extreme pressure in the ocean. He said it would be like a Coke can smashed with a sledgehammer. Or like “an elephant standing on one foot with 100 more elephants on top of it”.

The Independent’s Maroosha Muzzafar has more:

[6 July 2023 15:00 · Ariana Baio]

OceanGate suspends all expeditions

The company has announced on its website that all expeditions are suspended following the tragedy that killed its CEO and four other passengers aboard OceanGate’s Titan submersible.

(OceanGate Expeditions)

[6 July 2023 16:00 · Joe Sommerlad]

OceanGate CEO said glue holding Titanic sub together was ‘like peanut butter’

Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions whose submarine imploded during a trip to see the wreckage of the Titanic, once described the glue holding the vessel together as similar to “peanut butter.”

The Independent’s Graig Graziosi reports.

[6 July 2023 17:00 · Joe Sommerlad]

Titanic sub debris and human remains have been recovered. But we still don’t have answers to these 9 questions

The desperate search for the missing Titanic submersible came to a tragic end when debris was discovered deep in the ocean. But, we still don’t know many crucial aspects of the doomed voyage.

The Independent’s Rachel Sharp, Io Dodds, Bevan Hurley and Andrea Blanco report.

[6 July 2023 18:00 · Joe Sommerlad]

Friend of late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush warned Titan needed more testing after 2019 dive

A friend of late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush warned him against taking customers aboard the company’s Titan submersible four years before it tragically imploded in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

Karl Stanley, the owner of a diving expedition company in Honduras and a close friend of Mr Rush, went on a tour aboard the Titan off the coast of the Bahamas in 2019, The New York Times first reported. In emails obtained by Insider of an alleged exchange between the two deep-sea enthusiasts, Mr Stanley told Mr Rush that he had heard a large cracking sound while on the 12,000-foot-deep dive.

“I think that hull has a defect near that flange, that will only get worse. The only question in my mind is will it fail catastrophically or not,” Mr Stanley wrote in a premonitory email, years before the Titan’s catastrophic implosion that killed all five of its passengers.