The chilling moment the wife of OceanGate's CEO heard the doomed submersible implode has been revealed.
In June 2023, deep sea tourism company OceanGate took a group of paying customers down to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean to see the wreckage of the Titanic in its premier Titan submersible.
However the sub would devastatingly implode just 90 minutes into its journey down to the seafloor, killing everyone onboard.
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The five people died in the accident were: the company's CEO Stockton Rush, British nationals Hamish Harding, British-Pakistani Shahzada Dawood, Dawood's 19-year-old son Suleman, and French submariner Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
The BBC has now released footage shared by the US Coast Guard (USCG), which captured the moment the submersible could be heard exploding.
In the clip, Rush's wife Wendy can be seen monitoring the sub from a support ship when a loud sound, similar to a door slamming, came through on the radio. After hearing the noise, Wendy turns to other crew members and asks a simple four-word question, unaware that her husband and four others had just lost their lives.
"What was that bang?", she can be heard saying.
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According to the USCG, the noise was followed by the group receiving a text message from the sub, saying it had 'dropped two weights', which led the crew to believe the excursion was proceeding as planned.
In reality, the message had taken longer to reach the support ship, meaning that everybody onboard was already deceased at this point.
This would be the final message the crew received.
The clip was released by the broadcaster ahead of their upcoming documentary Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster which is set to air next week (27 May).
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It would be a further four days for rescuers to locate the Titan sub after communication was lost, with investigators locating the debris field around 500 meters (1,600 ft) away from the Titanic wreckage.
Subsequent investigations would reveal the submersible had actually malfunctioned days before the doomed dive.
OceanGate director Steven Ross revealed the information during an inquiry into the sub's fatal trip, with the vessel crashing into the bulkhead after a malfunction, causing the passengers onboard to 'tumble about'.
"One passenger was hanging upside down. The other two managed to wedge themselves into the bow end cap," he said, adding that he was unaware if there had been any assessment of the sub's hull after the accident.
Former marine operations director David Lochridge also testified during the hearing, revealing that he'd previously made multiple attempts to raise concerns about the sub's safety during his time at the company.
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"I don’t want to be seen as a tattletale but I’m so worried he kills himself and others in the quest to boost his ego," Lochridge reportedly wrote in an email (via The New Yorker).
Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster airs on Tuesday 27th May on BBC Two at 9pm. It will also be available on BBC iPlayer.
Topics: Titan Submersible, Titanic, World News
Brenna Cooper