The world watched the heartbreaking saga of the OceanGate submersible Titan with bated
breath. Now, a new documentary has chronicled the Titan disaster in excruciating detail.
The Titan submersible was already in a compromised state before it even began its intended descent to
view the remains of the Titanic in June 2023. By that time, OceanGate CEO and
Titan builder Stockton Rush, a not particularly well-trained but experienced submersible pilot,
had reportedly taken paying guests on more than a dozen Titanic dives into the Atlantic Ocean.
That put a lot of wear and tear on the vessel from the ocean in terms of water pressure.
Even worse, Rush utilized a sub design he thought would be innovative and less expensive,
fusing two titanium ends to a central core of carbon fiber. Generally, submersibles
use more titanium for that section rather than carbon, because it's stronger and more durable.
Not only was Titan built from experimental materials that had been weathered by the ocean,
but on the day of what would be its final descent in 2023,
operators at OceanGate transported it to the dive site by towing it behind a rented ship,
the Polar Prince. In the documentary "The Titan Sub Disaster: Minute by Minute," marine engineer
Bart Kemper said that in order to eliminate unnecessary damage through "vibration, impact,
and exposure," the team should've moved the submersible by hauling it out on the deck of
the ship. The Polar Prince simply didn't have the deck space to make such an accommodation.
The first instance of tragic foreshadowing occurred well before the submersible's final
voyage to the bottom of the sea on June 18, 2023. In its previous Titanic viewing trips,
Titan departed Newfoundland in July and August — the heart of the summer,
when the Atlantic Ocean is reasonably calm and warm, or at least more so than it is in
June. Hamish Harding, a billionaire who was aboard Titan, was aware that their weather
conditions at launch were an aberration. He announced on Facebook on June 17:
"Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years,
this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic
in 2023. A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow."
Stockton Rush knew that the weather wasn't completely summer-like, however,
which is why he decided to risk a Titanic mission so early. He admitted to associates that he wanted
to see large chunks of ice, or even an iceberg, just like the one that destroyed the Titanic,
to heighten his customers' experience of traveling to see that famously downed ship.
"The Titan Sub Disaster: Minute by Minute" provides plenty of context to the compressed
timeline of the events involving the Titan. Viewers are able to comprehend the situation a
bit more thanks to footage and first-hand accounts of what happened with the submersible and its ship
escort, the Polar Prince, in the hours leading up to its ill-fated voyage to the Titanic site.
They intended to launch the Titan at 4 a.m. on Sunday June 18, 2023. But despite the previous
day's forecast of good launch-day weather, it was an uncharacteristically foggy day off
the coast of Newfoundland that morning, and the Polar Prince and Titan personnel had to
wait until the fog lifted or dissipated to make for as safe a start as possible.
But, as "The Titan Sub Disaster" depicts, OceanGate CEO and submersible leader Stockton
Rush became increasingly agitated and annoyed the longer he had to wait. Finally, with Rush pushing
for the voyage to begin as soon as possible, the submersible began its descent at 8 a.m.
Producers of "The Titan Sub Disaster" used amateur video footage of Stockton Rush briefing passengers
before a previous Titanic viewing voyage. While people who knew and worked with Rush characterized
the entrepreneur as an optimistic maverick, Rush soberly informs prior Titan adventurers
of the full risks of the dive, chiefly that his vessel, however impressive he finds it,
is experimental and thus unreliable. He assures any nervous paying passengers
that they will have an "out" if they want to back out before the descent begins in earnest.
"This is an experimental sub. People are informed that it's very dangerous down there."
"The Titan Sub Disaster" goes on to detail the legalities and paperwork Titan passengers,
including those on the fatal 2023 trip, faced. For example, each was required to sign a multi-page
waiver that mentions the possibility of death several times on page one. However,
an opt-out may not have been so easy. Immediately after signing the waiver,
passengers were loaded into the tiny submersible. A crew then closed a
hatch and bolted it shut behind them from the outside — before the vessel's safety check. At
that point, and even before the sub was underwater, there was no turning back.
"This is the point of no return. If there was any point to freak now,
now would be the point to freak out."
The submersible encountered trouble at 9:45 a.m., less than two hours after it began its
descent into the Atlantic Ocean. At that moment, the sub lost all communication with the surface.
Marine engineers and sub experts interviewed in the documentary, including "Titanic" film director
James Cameron, theorize that onboard Titan, a system alert warning of a hull failure sounded,
and the crew likely dropped its ascent weights in an attempt to head back to the surface.
"They probably had warning that their hull was starting to delaminate."
It's unknown what exactly happened, or what happened next,
due to the communications outage. Judging by the usual speed of Titan's descent,
it's unlikely that the vessel was far enough along to view the Titanic crash site.
Later in the documentary, it's definitively revealed that Titan passengers indeed never
got to see the Titanic at any point in their journey. The sub never fully
descended because the moment it lost communications, it suffered a virtually
simultaneous violent episode that led to instant and complete destruction.
"The Titan Sub Disaster: Minute By Minute" spends a significant amount of time speculating on life
inside that sub, and what awful possibilities the people involved may have faced. For example,
before it became clear that Titan had violently come apart underwater,
rescuers entertained the possibility that the sub had resurfaced and drifted far away from
the initial dive site. Concerted rescue efforts included Canadian
military planes scanning an area as wide as 7,500 square miles, looking for life.
This wouldn't necessarily have resulted in a happy ending. A total of 15 bolts locked the vessel into
an air-tight state, from the outside. Had the vessel reemerged, and if it were not spotted by
rescuers by the time oxygen stores were depleted, the passengers could have frozen to death or
asphyxiated while viewing the outside world, and its breathable air, through porthole windows.
Just a few hours into the Titan rescue drive,
equipment operated by both the U.S. and Canadian navies detected a sound that emanated from near
the known final resting place of the Titanic wreckage. As that's where Titan was heading,
it seemed likely that the submersible was responsible for the sound. Analysis by the U.S.
Navy determined that the sound was "an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion."
Essentially, and as explained by "The Titan Sub Disaster:
Minute by Minute," high-ranking members of the search and rescue squad knew that Titan
had imploded before the sub had even been reported missing. The five days of hopeful
searching for an intact ship with a live crew was ultimately all for naught, and
the U.S. Navy didn't reveal this until after the Odysseus 6K submersible discovered Titan rubble.
The eeriest part of the Titan story reached the public for the first time via "The Titan
Sub Disaster: Minute by Minute." On June 20, 2023, about two days after Titan disappeared,
Canadian military plane-based sonar devices detected a rhythmic banging sound,
delivered in a "tap-tap, tap-tap" sequence, which repeated around every half hour.
[tapping]
"The Titan Sub Disaster: Minute by Minute" plays a recording of the sounds several times,
demonstrating how such a discovery charged and inspired the rescue teams. Individuals
associated with the rescue effort thought it could be the sound of someone inside
Titan banging on a wall, attempting to call for help with the only method available.
It's more likely that the ominous or hopeful banging had nothing to do with Titan. Those
sounds could have come from another surface-level ship nearby, or been generated by metallic objects
in the ever-shifting sunken debris of the Titanic. It likely wasn't a distress call,
because there's a certain protocol of sounds sub crews are supposed to engage when their
vessel sinks and communication systems fail. Additionally, it was later determined that
Titan had already imploded well before the transmission of the metal banging sounds.
"The Titan Sub Disaster: Minute by Minute" includes an extensive firsthand account
of the submersible rescue efforts from Ed Cassano, CEO of Pelagic Research Services,
owner and operator of a remote-operated, highly sophisticated submersible capable
of withstanding depths even greater than that of Titan.
Government agencies contacted Pelagic, which, thanks to a U.S. Air Force transport of its
vessel, arrived at the dive site and made its descent just past 4 a.m. on Thursday, June 22
— four days after Titan failed to materialize and with an estimated five hours of oxygen remaining
in the ship, if it were still stranded and whole. Pelagic workers plunged the Odysseus 6K at a
faster rate than usual because time was of the essence — 35 meters per minute, versus 25 meters.
At 6:15 a.m., with two hours of theoretical oxygen left on Titan, the ROV encountered a technical
issue. Its thrusters failed, rendering it entirely useless. Workers had few options besides turning
off the system and turning it back on again. That method worked, and Odysseus 6K continued
its briefly delayed descent. When it landed on the ocean floor, Titan would likely have had little
to no breathable air left, making the Odysseus 6K's efforts at this stage all the more critical.
When the moment that Titan was predicted to run out of oxygen came and went,
rescuers continued to work, even though the possibility that the
passengers were still alive diminished with every moment.
Four hours into the revamped mission, the Odysseus 6K's cameras made a grisly and haunting discovery
in Titan's debris field: a large piece of metal, unmistakably the tail cone of Titan.
"And by 12 o'clock, sadly, our rescue turned into a recovery."
The remote-controlled sub found this remnant on the ocean floor just 1,600 feet from the
bow of the Titanic, Titan's intended destination. Experts observed that the state of the cone bore
signs of implosion. Over the next four days, the Pelagic team led the debris collection effort,
which continued without pause and involved six dives of the Odysseus 6K. On June 28th,
a ship hauled back what the ROV could locate of Titan. When the fragments were returned to
the docks in Newfoundland, reporters noted how the pieces were immediately recognizable as submarine
parts, like an intact nose cone, strands of the hull, and portholes with the glass blown out.
"The debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber."
Millions closely followed the events surrounding the hunt for the Titan submersible, transfixed by
the dramatic and unpredictable situation. While many held out hope that the five people inside
the deep-sea vessel were still alive several days after the sub failed to resurface, marine
vehicle experts found it tough to stay optimistic — they'd ominously and fearfully predicted Titan's
ultimate fate. Marine engineer Bart Kemper said in "The Titan Sub Disaster: Minute by Minute."
"There are those that have said it's just a question
of not if but when something would go wrong."
He was also a signatory on a letter sent to Rush in March 2018. Fearing a "Hindenburg event," the
Marine Technology Society's letter urged Rush to pull back with his submersible, to carefully think
out every aspect of its construction and use. According to footage of Rush in the documentary,
the CEO bragged about cutting corners and breaking rules, proudly proclaiming
himself to be an innovator and a rogue. Rush was particularly pleased with himself for
building Titan out of two titanium capsules and imperfectly bonding carbon fiber. That lack of
stability helped lead to the deadly implosion that would destroy Titan and kill everyone on board.