Titan is a five-person vessel operated by OceanGate, Inc. and is designed to dive as deep as 4,000 m (13,000 ft) "for site survey and inspection, research and data collection, film and media production, and deep sea testing of hardware and software".[4]
The vessel is constructed of carbon fiber and titanium.[4] Its steering controls consists of a LogitechG F710 (a wirelessPCgame controller) with modified joysticks.[5][6][7] According to OceanGate, it contains "proprietary Real Time Hull Health Monitoring (RTM) systems ... that [assess] the integrity of the hull throughout every dive".[4] The vessel has life support to support five crew members for 96 hours.[4] Internet access from SpaceX's satellite system, Starlink, was used to support the exploration in some form.[8][9][10]
Expeditions
Typically, each dive has "a pilot, three paying guests, and what the company calls a content expert" on board.[1] Once these people are inside the submarine, the hatch is bolted shut and must be reopened from the outside.[11] The descent from the surface to the Titanic typically takes three hours,[12] with the full dive taking approximately eight hours.[1] Throughout the journey, the submersible is expected to communicate with the above-water crew every 15 minutes.[3]
Customers who travel to the Titanic with OceanGate, referred to as "mission specialists" by the company,[13] spend US$250,000 to be involved in the eight-day expedition.[1][14]
Technology writer/reporter David Pogue, who completed the expedition in 2022 as part of a CBS News Sunday Morning feature[15], stated that all passengers who enter the Titan sign a waiver confirming their knowledge that it is an "experimental" vessel "that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death".[16]Mike Reiss, who has also completed the expedition, noted that the waiver "mention[s] death three times on page one".[17]
OceanGate intended to conduct multiple expeditions to the Titanic in 2023, but because of poor weather in Newfoundland, the company has only launched a single expedition so far in 2023.[1][12]
Prior concern
In 2018, the Marine Technology Society wrote a letter to OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush expressing "unanimous concern regarding the development of 'TITAN' and the planned Titanic Expedition", indicating that the "current experimental approach ... could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry".[18]
Also in 2018, a former OceanGate submersible pilot and its director of marine operations filed a lawsuit claiming he had been wrongfully terminated for bringing up concerns about the Titan's ability to safely operate at extreme depths, specifically stating the vessel was only certified to reach a depth of 1,300 meters, a third of the depth required to reach the Titanic.[19] OceanGate, which was suing him for allegedly disclosing confidential information, settled the lawsuit a few months later.[19]
The following year, an article published in Smithsonian referred to OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush as a "daredevil inventor."[20] In the article, Rush is described as having said the Passenger Vessel Safety Act of 1993 "needlessly prioritized passenger safety over commercial innovation."[20]
In 2022, during an expedition to the Titanic, the Titan lost communication with the above-water ship, as reported by David Pogue, who was onboard the mission.[21] Pogue's report for CBS Sunday Morning, which questioned Titan's safety, later went viral on social media.[22] It included allegations that the steering for the submarine was controlled by a $30 Logitech F710 game controller.[23]
Incident
Timeline of events
The MV Polar Prince transported Titan and the expedition's crew to the dive site above the wreck of Titanic.
On 16 June, the expedition to Titanic departed from St John's, Newfoundland, aboard the research and expedition ship MV Polar Prince. The ship arrived at the dive site on 17 June and the dive operation began the following day on 18 June at 9:00 ADT.[13] For the first hour and a half of the descent, the Titan communicated with the Polar Prince every 15 minutes, but communication stopped after a recorded communication at 11:47 ADT.[13] The vessel was expected to resurface at 18:10 ADT.[13] Authorities were notified about the incident at 18:35 ADT.[13] According to the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre Halifax, the Titan was reported overdue at about 22:43.[citation needed]
A number of errors could have occurred. One possibility is that the Titan's communication equipment may have failed, meaning they are unable to communicate with above-water crew but able to freely navigate. It's also possible there is a problem with the ballast system, which is responsible for managing the vessel's buoyancy. Another scenario is that the Titan became snared, or fouled, on a piece of debris, preventing ascent.[24] It may also have suffered damage or a mechanical failure that caused the submersible to implode or to leak and sink, or end up on the ocean floor in an immobile state.
Paul-Henri Nargeolet, former French Navy commander, diver, submersible pilot, member of the French Institute for Research and Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER),[12][14] and director of underwater research for E/M Group and RMS Titanic, Inc.,[26] which owns salvage rights to the wreckage site.[27] Nargeolet has led several expeditions to the wreck, supervised the recovery of thousands of artifacts, and is "widely considered the leading authority on the wreck site" according to The Guardian.[26]
The Coast Guard has indicated that the search-and-rescue mission is difficult because of the remote location, but Rear Admiral John Mauger has stated that the Coast Guard are "deploying all available assets".[14] Beyond the difficulty to reach the location, all search-and-rescue operations are impacted by "weather conditions, the lack of light at night, the state of the sea and water temperature".[24] While many submersibles are equipped "with an acoustic device, often called a pinger, which emits sounds that can be detected underwater by rescuers", it is unclear whether the Titan has such a device.[24]
The search currently has two facets: an above-water surface search and an underwater sonar search.[16] This involves utilizing three C-130 Hercules aircraft, two from the United States and one from Canada,[16][26]: 4 a P-8 aircraft from Canada and sonar buoys.[32] Neither country has underwater vessels capable of easily assisting in the search-and-rescue missions.[24] The U.S. Navy has one submarine rescue vehicle, although the vessel cannot reach the Titan's potential depth. The Navy also has remote-operated vehicles, but these vessels may not arrive at the site in time.[24] Search and rescue was also impacted by low visibility weather conditions, which cleared on Tuesday.[33]
Tuesday 20 June
The pipe-laying shipDeep Energy, operated by TechnipFMC, arrived on site on 20 June 2023 with two ROVs and other equipment suited to the seabed depths in the area.[34]CCGS Kopit Hopson and Polar Prince are also on the scene.[35] As of 12:30 NDT on 20 June, the Coast Guard had searched 10,000 square miles (26,000 km2).[36] Later in the day, the US Navy stated they were "sending subject matter experts and a 'Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System (FADOSS)' ... 'a “motion compensated lift system designed to provide reliable deep ocean lifting capacity for the recovery of large, bulky, and heavy undersea objects such as aircraft or small vessel.'"[37] Navy support is expected to arrive Tuesday evening.[37] An Air National GuardC-130 has also joined in the search and rescue mission, with plans for two more to join by the end of Tuesday.[38]
Reactions
Parks Stephenson, director of the USS Kidd Veterans Museum and Titanic researcher, commented on the disappearance of the Titan via Facebook: "No matter what you may read in the coming hours, all that is truly known at this time is that communications with the submersible have been lost and that is unusual enough to warrant the most serious consideration", at the time adding "I am most concerned about the souls aboard, whose identities have not yet been made public".[39] Stephenson is experienced in deep-sea explorations such as the Titan's schedule, having previously dived to view the Titanic on five occasions.[39][40] Stephenson later added that the divers "wouldn’t be out there if it wasn’t for the public demand for information regarding this wreck".[41]
Netflix's Twitter account for the UK and Ireland was criticized for announcing a limited-time streaming of the deep-sea exploration documentary The Deepest Breath, with the announcement being found insensitive regarding the ongoing rescue efforts.[42]
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