The first haunting photo of the Titan submersible wreck has been released to the public, showing the vessel, that claimed the lives of its five passengers, resting in its graveyard thousands of feet below the waves.
The image shows a large portion of the upright hull, partially buried in the sand at the bottom of the chilly Atlantic Ocean. That, along with communications and other evidence, was released September 16 by the U.S. Coast Guard during a lengthy hearing that examines the cause of the Titan’s June 2023 implosion.
In the first day of what’s expected to be a two-week hearing, the U.S. Coast Guard recreated the ill-fated journey of the Titan submersible, that at 9:17 a.m. started its dive into the chilly waters of the Atlantic Ocean to view the wreckage of the Titanic.
Investigators shared some of the last communications shared between the doomed Titan and its support staff on board the Polar Prince. The Polar Prince was chartered by OceanGate, the company that engineered and operated the Titan vessel, which was carrying five passengers.
Onboard was the pilot Stockton Rush, co-founder of OceanGate, co-pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a Titanic expert, and three tourists, Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood, both members of a wealthy Pakistani business family, and Hamish Harding, a British businessman and adventurer.
Final messages
During its expedition, the Titan communicated with its mother ship via text messaging.
After about 40 minutes into its dive, support staff said they “needed better comms” from the sub, which had temporarily “lost system (and) chat settings.”
Then at 10:15 a.m., the Polar Prince asked about the vessel’s depth and weight, as well as texts asking if the Titan could still see the Polar Prince on its onboard display.
“All good here,” reads one of the last messages sent by the Titan’s crew, a text sent at 10:15 a.m. that investigators say likely came from Nargeolet.
As the sub descended deeper into the Atlantic Ocean communication became increasingly spotty.
The final message from the Titan to its mother ship was delivered at 10:47 a.m., notifying support that it had “dropped two wts,” referring to the vessel’s weights.
About two minutes later, The Polar Prince lost tracking of the sub.
Desperately searching the chilly waters southeast of Newfoundland, Canada, crews hoped to rescue the passengers of the Titan before it collapsed in itself.
But the rescue efforts turned into recovery operations and human remains were found, matching the DNA of the five men on board.
Not ‘surprised it failed’
At the hearing, Tony Nissen, the former engineering director of OceanGate, revealed that the Titan had been struck by lightning in 2018 and it might have had a compromised hull.
Offering his testimony, Nissen said that he wasn’t “surprised that it failed where it did,” and that he “100%” felt pressure from higher-ups to get the Titan into the water.
Nissen explained that in 2019, he stopped the sub from going to the Titanic, telling Rush that it was “not working like we thought it would.” He was fired that year.
“I stopped the 2019 Titanic dive because of the data, and I was fired for it,” he said.
Meanwhile, coast guard officials said the Titan was left exposed to weather and elements while in storage for seven months in 2022 and 2023. The hull was also never reviewed by any third parties as is standard procedure, investigators said.
‘Conclusive evidence’
More than 12,000 feet beneath the waves, and about 1000 feet from the bow of the Titanic, the severed tail cone of the Titan can be seen buried in the sand at the bottom of the icy cold Atlantic Ocean. Fragments from the vessel, that after the intense pressures of the deep waters caused its implosion, are also visible.
The U.S. Coast Guard released photos for the first time, showing the public the dark gravesite of the Titan, an image captured June 22, 2023, four days after the Titan started its descent.
CNN writes that The Marine Board of Investigation said the images – captured by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) – offers “conclusive evidence” that the vessel experienced a “catastrophic implosion.”
The hearing is expected to last two weeks and aims to “uncover the facts surrounding” the Titan’s fatal implosion, said the Marine Board of Investigation.
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