In a dangerous window of just a few hours, a tourist submersible that set out for its first voyage in years, on June 18, 2023 in the morning, lost contact with the mainland. Now, nearly a week later, the search for the ship is over.
Wednesday, June 28, 2023, after searching as much of the ocean floor around the Titanic as possible, parts of the submersible were discovered along with presumed human remains. Upon the retrieval of the twisted chunks of the machine, U.S. Coast Guard describes in a statement:
The evidence will provide investigators from several international jurisdictions with critical insights into the cause of this tragedy. There is still a substantial amount of work to be done to understand the factors that led to the catastrophic loss of the TITAN and help ensure a similar tragedy does not occur again.
The debris from the Titan sunk approximately 1,600 feet from the Titanic.
What Is the Titan?
The submersible, a one of its kind 5-person capacity machine built to surpass a crushing depth of 12,500 ft, is created by OceanGate. The private company regularly organizes expeditions that last up to nine days exploring underwater caves and wrecks. This includes expensive commercial and scientific expeditions.
Initially, at the submersible’s disappearance, questions arose on the cause. Many family members and U.S. Coast guards were hopeful that the riders were still alive and raced to retrieve the ship before the air reserves ran out Now officials can confirm that the submersible suffered an implosion at the same time the submersible lost contact with the mother ship only a few hours into its descent.
Stockton Rush, previous founder of OceanGate and one of the victims, is guilty of ignoring numerous safety warnings. This incident was not his first dive. In fact, Rush conducted several ones beforehand in the same submersible.
However, each time, the passages returned safely after several malfunctions and setbacks. Rush also did not have the Titan legally verified for any extreme type of diving. Now rescuers still struggle to recover the full submersible and its passengers from beside the “unsinkable” ship.
Written by Brielle R. Buford
Sources:
Oregon Live: ‘Presumed human remains’ found in wreckage of Titanic sub, U.S. Coast Guard says
New York Times: OceanGate Was Warned of Potential for ‘Catastrophic’ Problems With Titanic Mission
Featured and Top Image Courtesy of Hector R. Melendez‘s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Inset Image Courtesy of Johnathan Moreau‘s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
