The first picture of the Titan submersible following its deadly June 2023 implosion was revealed on Monday by the US Coast Guard as authorities opened a public hearing into the deaths of five people onboard.
The accident’s victims were killed when intense ocean pressure caused the Titan to collapse in on itself off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. They were the British explorer Hamish Harding; the British Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman; Stockton Rush, the chief executive officer of OceanGate, the American company that owned the Titan; and the French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
Monday’s hearing revealed new details about the implosion of the Titan and its parent company.
The newly released image provided most of the public its first glimpse of the Titan’s broken tail cone on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Fragments of the vessel are also visible on the ocean floor – debris that recovery crews found in the wake of the implosion.
The Marine Board of Investigation said the Titan’s detached tail cone and other debris provided “conclusive evidence” that the vessel experienced a “catastrophic implosion”, CNN reported.
Text messages sent from the Titan’s crew to the Polar Prince, a nearby support ship, also gave new insight into the accident.
At one point during its ill-fated trip, the Titan was asked by the Polar Prince if the former could still see the latter on its informational display. The crew responded “all good here” as the vessel descended further.
In a final message, Titan’s crew texted “dropped two wts”, CNN reported, meaning that the submersible had shed two measures of weight in hopes of returning to the ocean’s surface.
OceanGate, the company that developed the Titan, has faced endured scrutiny as witnesses have come forward saying they had concerns about the vessel’s construction before its doomed final trip.
Tony Nissen, the former engineering director for OceanGate, said that he felt rushed to get the Titan into the water, testifying that he “100%” experienced pressure from higher-ups to do so.
Tym Catterson, who worked as a contractor for OceanGate, testified on Monday that he was not comfortable traveling in the Titan because of his questions regarding the vessel’s carbon fiber and titanium construction, ABC News reported.
“I don’t believe that the composites are the correct material for a pressure vessel that’s experiencing external compression,” he said, adding that he had “doubts”.
Catterson also said that he relayed his worries to several OceanGate employees.
The hearing began on Monday and is expected to continue for two weeks. It is meant to “uncover the facts surrounding” the Titan’s fatal implosion, said Jason Neubauer, the chair of the Marine Board of Investigation. It will also investigate any potential “misconduct or negligence by … mariners” credentialed to navigate by the US.
Those traveling on the Titan were killed after descending into the deep north Atlantic to view the Titanic, the British passenger liner that was once described as “practically unsinkable” but sank in 1912 after striking an iceberg, killing more than 1,500 people.