Five people lost their lives in the Titan submersible implosion on June 22nd. Among them was the co-founder of OceanGate Stockton Rush and father and son, Shahzada Dawood and Suleman.
The submersible itself has become very controversial as the news of the implosion became known to the public. OceanGate claimed that everything was up to regulation when it concerns the Titan, but others have mentioned that the submersibles were not following regulation and safety precautions.
“Years before OceanGate’s submersible craft went missing in the Atlantic Ocean with five people onboard, the company faced several warnings as it prepared for its hallmark mission of taking wealthy passengers to tour the Titanic’s wreckage,” Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Jenny Gross and Anna Betts said.
By News18
History of the Titan
OceanGate was founded by Stockton Rush and Guillermo Söhnlein in 2009. The company is built on oceanic research and tourist tours of the ocean in submersibles. They started with Antipodes and Cyclops 1, eventually OceanGate debuted the Cyclops 2. In 2018, Cyclops 2 was changed to Titan. According to OceanGate, the purpose of the Titan is to give tourists an immersive experience by surveying the site, inspections, data collection, film and media, and deep sea testing of hardware and software.
The difference between the Antipodes and the Titan is that the Titan can travel 4,000 meters deep. It was the first of the submersibles to travel with five people and built with carbon fiber and titanium. In 2018, the Titan was taken to the Bahamas to do some very required deep dive testing. The team ran into some problems with the weather and the electronics of the submarine, but eventually the Titan passed the tests. Later on, Rush completed a 4,000 meter validation solo dive to confirm the tests.
“Titan's is sure to usher in a new era of exploration by providing access to 50% of the ocean for direct human observation,” OceanGate said.
By CBS News
Titan isn’t classed
According to OceanGate, the submersible did not need to be classed because the innovations of the Titan “fall outside of industry paradigm.” The Titan is the only submersible to use real-time hull health monitoring (RTM). While every submersible needs deep validation every three years the RTM system undergoes the validation each dive. The RTM system is not covered by any classing agency.
“Classing is not sufficient to ensure safety. In part this is because classing does not properly assess the operational factors are vital for ensuring a safe dive, and because classing assessments are done annually (at best) and do not ensure that the operator follows procedures or processes that are the key to conducting safe dive operations,” OceanGate said.
By The Seattle Times
Lawsuits against OceanGate
Over the years OceanGate has gone through lawsuits because of the submersible. In 2018, David Lochridge was sued by OceanGate for breaching a contract. Lochridge filed a counterclaim for firing him after inspecting the Titan and signing a letter along with other experts. The letter was sent to CEO Rush about the “experimental approach” the company is using in the Titan. It said that the submersible could have negative outcomes if not tested or classed. Experts said the best way to test the Titan is to undergo a performance based testing program for design verification. The suit closed in “undisclosed” terms, but this suit brought to light the flaw in the RTM system.
“This was problematic because this type of acoustic analysis would only show when a component is about to fail — often milliseconds before an implosion — and would not detect any existing flaws prior to putting pressure onto the hull,” Lochridge said.
By The Sydney Morning Herald
With the implosion of the Titan and the death of the five men, another lawsuit comes to light. Marc and Sharon Hagle sued Rush for not refunding their dive trip to the Titanic site. To go on the Titanic expedition people have to pay $250,000 each, which is what the billionaires paid to go on the Titan in 2023. In 2016, the Florida couple paid $10,000 to OceanGate for a trip to the Titanic sight, the rest of the money would be paid after the dives. Rush kept postponing the trip for much needed testing of the Titan or Cyclops 2. After Rush’s death, the couple dropped the lawsuit against him.
“Money is a driving force in our economy, but honor, respect, and dignity are more important to the human soul,” the Hagles said to the Associated Press, “We wish the entire OceanGate family and the families of those aboard the Titan the very best as they grieve the loss of their loved ones.”
At this point in time, there is no lawsuit against OceanGate for the implosion and the death of the five men, but they have closed their Everett office. These five men lost their lives because of the negligence of OceanGate to test their experimental submersible and ignoring the pleas of experts to follow through with the testing.
*Originally posted on Standpoint News, Summer 2023
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