Video views from the search for OceanGate’s Titan submersible show mangled components from the craft — and tell the tale of last year’s dramatic implosion, which led to the loss of the sub and its five-person crew.
The U.S. Coast Guard released two videos this week in support of technical testimony that’s expected to be given during this month’s hearings into the cause of the incident, taking place in North Charleston, S.C.
The hearings began on Monday and will continue on Thursday with testimony from Renata Rojas, who was a mission specialist on an earlier Titan dive to the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic; and from Steven Ross, a marine biologist who served as OceanGate’s scientific adviser. Technical testimony is likely to come later.
Both videos were captured on June 22, 2023, by a camera mounted on a remotely operated vehicle that took part in the search for the sub. The ROV came upon the scene three days after Titan went missing, and provided the conclusive evidence confirming that the sub had come apart amid the deep ocean’s crushing pressure.
One video shows Titan’s aft titanium dome and ring, plus remnants of the hull and carbon-fiber debris. The forward titanium dome and its viewport can also be seen, not far away. The other video shows Titan’s tail cone, emblazoned with the OceanGate logo.
No human remains are identifiable in the videos — but the Coast Guard said that such remains were “carefully” brought to the surface during a weeks-long debris recovery effort. DNA testing helped to confirm the identities of the victims.
The five crew members were pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO and co-founder of Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate; veteran Titanic explorer P.H. Nargeolet; aviation executive and citizen explorer Hamish Harding; and Pakistani-born business executive Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman.
The arrangement and condition of the debris seen in the videos are likely to provide significant clues for determining the cause of the implosion.
OceanGate began sending Titan on 12,500-foot-deep dives to the site of the Titanic wreck in 2021. One leading theory proposes that the stresses weathered during all those trips, plus exposure to the elements between trips, weakened the sub’s carbon-fiber hull or the glue seals that bound the hull to the titanium end caps.
One of the witnesses testifying at the hearings earlier this week, submersible consultant Tym Catterson, speculated that the crew died almost instantaneously. “This had to happen extraordinarily fast, which means the people in there, they had no idea this was coming,” he told the investigative board.
Thursday’s hearing begins at 8:30 a.m. ET (5:30 a.m. PT) and will be streamed:
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