Featured Image Credit: US Coast Guard / OceanGate Expeditions / PA Wire
Topics: Titan Submersible, Titanic, World News, US News, UK News
Tom Earnshaw
Topics: Titan Submersible, Titanic, World News, US News, UK News
Experts have revealed exactly what happened to the Titan submersible when its hull came apart when imploding on a deep-sea expedition to see the wreck of the RMS Titanic.
Built by American company OceanGate, the Titan was the company's premiere vessel when it came to taking paying customers to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean.
But tragedy struck in June 2023, when the pressurised hull of the Titan vessel imploded during one expedition to visit the Titanic wreck.
Five people died, including OceanGate boss Stockton Rush. Brits were among the other victims, with British businessman Hamish Harding, and Pakistani-British businessman, Shahzada Dawood, dying in the incident. Dawood's 19-year-old son, Suleman, was also on board and died.
The US Coast guard is currently holding a public inquiry as part of its investigation in to what happened to Titan.
Advert
During evidence heard this week, evidence was heard that revealed what happened to the Titan vessel before the fatal implosion.
Don Kramer, an engineer at the National Transportation Safety Board, told the inquiry that carbon fibre layering on the hull of the ship had started to come away.
Known as delamination, this is where thin layers break down and the strength of the material fades dramatically.
Pieces of the carbon fibre hull have since been found on the floor of the North Atlantic, with layers of the carbon fibre that had once been bound together found across the bottom of the ocean.
Advert
Kramer revealed that in some areas of the Titan vessel, the carbon fibre had full on cracked. It was not stated if the damage was as a result of the implosion itself.
The engineer said: "I'm not offering any analysis at this point as to whether the damage occurred before or after the implosion."
Kramer also revealed that the imperfections to Titan dated back to when it was built, with the vessel behaving differently after a loud bang was heard on one of the dives the year before the tragedy.
The coast guard was told that the loud bang could have damaged the structure of the Titan hull.
Advert
Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, had believed the bang to be the submersible moving inside the carbon fibre frame that surrounded it.
But analysis from the National Transportation Safety Board said the noise was likely an alteration to the fabric of the Titan hull, potentially changing how the sub was able to cope in the pressures of deep-sea exploration.
William Kohnen, a long-time submersibles expert and key member of the Marine Technology Society, emerged as a critic of OceanGate in the aftermath of the implosion and has described the disaster as preventable.
On Wednesday, he pushed back at the idea the Titan could not have been thoroughly tested before use because of its experimental nature.
“We do have these test procedures. They are enshrined in law,” Mr Kohnen said.
Advert
The Coast Guard opened a public hearing earlier this month that is part of a high-level investigation into the cause of the implosion.
Some of the testimony has focused on the submersible’s carbon fibre construction, which was unusual. Other testimony focused on the troubled nature of the company.
Coast Guard officials noted at the start of the hearing that the submersible had not been independently reviewed, as is standard practice.
That and Titan’s unusual design subjected it to scrutiny in the undersea exploration community.