Titan implosion: NTSB’s final report on wreck of OceanGate submersible headed to Titanic wreckage

Portland, Maine — Faulty engineering led to an experimental submarine exploding, killing five people en route to the Titanic wreck, the National Transportation Safety Board announced. I concluded the report Wednesday.

The NTSB made this statement in its final report on the submarine Titan’s hull failure and implosion in June 2023. Everyone on board the submarine died instantly in the North Atlantic Ocean when Titan suffered a catastrophic internal collapse while descending to the wreck.

Related | Final report on Titan submersible explosion criticizes inadequate CEO oversight

The NTSB report notes that Titan’s faulty engineering “resulted in the construction of a carbon fiber composite pressure vessel that had numerous anomalies and failed to meet necessary strength and durability requirements.” It also stated that Titan’s owner, OceanGate, failed to adequately test Titan and was unaware of its true durability.

The report also said the Titan’s wreckage would likely have been found sooner if OceanGate had followed standard emergency response guidelines, and that could have saved “time and resources even though salvage would not have been possible in this case.”

The NTSB report is consistent with a Coast Guard report issued in August that described Titan’s explosion as preventable. The Coast Guard determined that safety procedures at OceanGate, a private company based in Washington state, were “seriously deficient” and found “flagrant disparities” between safety protocols and actual practices.

Read more | Engineer says OceanGate CEO ignored warnings against using carbon fiber in submarines

OceanGate suspended operations in July 2023 and ceased operations. A company spokesman declined to comment on Wednesday.

In August, after the Coast Guard report was released, a company spokesman offered his condolences to the families of those who died.

Titan’s explosion killed Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate, and led to lawsuits and calls for tighter oversight of private deep-sea expeditions. The internal explosion also killed French submarine explorer Paul-Henri Nargiolet, known as “Mr. Titanic.” British adventurer Hamish Harding; Two members of a prominent Pakistani family are Shehzada Dawood and his son Suleiman Dawood.

The NTSB report recommends that the Coast Guard convene a panel of experts to study submarines and other pressure craft intended for human occupancy. It also recommends that the Coast Guard implement regulations for vehicles informed by this study. The report notes that current regulations for small passenger ships “enabled OceanGate to operate Titan in an unsafe manner.”

See also | OceanGate whistleblower says he has ‘no confidence’ in development of Titan submarine

The report also called on the Coast Guard to “disseminate the results of the study to the industry,” which has grown in recent years with the growth of privately funded exploration.

The company was aware of the possibility of Coast Guard regulations prior to the implosion. In describing OceanGate’s corporate culture, the report cites an operations technician who resigned from the company after expressing concern about paying passengers being described as “mission specialists.” The company’s CEO responded, saying, “If the Coast Guard becomes a problem…he will buy himself a congressman and make it disappear,” according to the report.

The ship has been making trips to the Titanic site since 2021. Its final dive came on the morning of June 18, 2023. The submarine lost contact with its support vessel after about two hours and was reported overdue that afternoon. Ships, aircraft and equipment were transported to the scene about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland.

A multi-day search for survivors off Canada has made international headlines. It quickly became clear that there would be no survivors, and the Coast Guard and other authorities began lengthy investigations into what had happened.