The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has concluded that the catastrophic implosion of the Titan submersible in June 2023 was caused by faulty engineering. The final report, released on Wednesday, found that OceanGate, the private company that owned the vessel, failed to adequately test the experimental submersible before its voyage to the wreck of the Titanic.
The implosion killed all five people on board, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British adventurer Hamish Harding, and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman. The NTSB stated that the Titan's carbon fibre composite pressure vessel contained multiple anomalies and did not meet necessary strength and durability requirements.
The report also criticised OceanGate's emergency response protocols, noting that the submersible could have been found sooner if standard guidance had been followed. However, it acknowledged that rescue was not possible given the nature of the implosion. The NTSB highlighted a culture of disregard for safety, citing a former technician who raised concerns about regulatory compliance. According to the report, Rush allegedly threatened to use political influence to bypass Coast Guard oversight.
The findings align with a Coast Guard report from August, which described the implosion as preventable and identified critically flawed safety procedures. The NTSB recommended that the Coast Guard establish an expert panel to study submersibles and implement updated regulations, as current rules for small passenger vessels were deemed inadequate.
The Titan had been making voyages to the Titanic site since 2021. Its final dive on 18 June 2023 lost contact with its support vessel after about two hours, triggering a high-profile search that ended with the discovery of debris. The disaster has prompted lawsuits and renewed calls for tighter regulation of private deep-sea expeditions.
