Shocking footage shows eerie personal items that miraculously remained intact during Titan sub implosion

Footage taken from a new documentary on the doomed Titan submersible has revealed the surprising items that survived the deadly implosion.

On 18 June 2023, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush set off on a journey on the submersible he helped engineer, named Titan, to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean alongside five paying customers eager to see the ruins of the Titanic.

However, the group would never make it, with the sub suffering a 'catastrophic implosion' just 90 minutes into its journey.

Nearly two years on from the incident and the BBC has aired a new documentary revealing what led up to the sub's fatal journey and subsequent US Coast Guard investigation in Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster.

The documentary revealed the moment in which Stockton's wife, Wendy Rush, unknowingly heard the sub implode, the final words spoken to the crew and concerns raised by OceanGate contractor Antonella Wilby.

(OceanGate)

In one clip shown in the documentary, a member of the US Coast Guard detailed how investigators searched through items recovered from the wreckage – which included clothing remnants, human remains and personal items.

One surprising item recovered included an 'intact' pen belonging to Rush, which was found inside a piece of clothing believed to be the 61-year-old's sleeve.

"We were all just kind of getting all-hands-in and separating what needed to be considered as human remains and what was just other wreckage pieces," she explained.

"As we were pulling it apart that is how we realised it was Mr. Rush's clothing."

Alongside the pen the team also recovered several OceanGate business cards and Titanic stickers, which had also managed to survive the implosion.

She continued: "It was a piece of his sleeve that survived, not the whole suit, just that. Inside of the sleeve of it was the ink pen, business cards and stickers for the Titanic and there was nothing else but that.

"Each one of those pieces, even the pen, was still intact. It hadn't been broken. All of this debris, all of these things shattered but his pen was still intact."

Elsewhere in the documentary, Antonella Wilby recalled her reaction to hearing reports of the sub 'cracking' and sounding like 'the ship breaking apart' during a test dive down to the wreckage – a noise which Rush said ‘almost every’ deep diving sub would make at some point.

“My initial reaction was ‘hold on’, if you heard your car make that noise you’d probably go ‘wait a second we need to see what happened here'," she said of the revelation.

Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster is available to watch on BBC iPlayer now.