Haunting new footage of Titan sub shows extent of catastrophe, as safety experts explains how vessel came apart
25 September 2024, 17:45 | Updated: 25 September 2024, 17:46
New footage shows wreck of Titan submersible
Haunting new video has shown how the extent of the damage to the submersible in the catastrophe that left five people dead.
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The Titan submersible imploded in June 2023, on the way to the Titanic shipwreck, killing all passengers on board.
That included Stockton Rush, the CEO of Oceangate, the company that made and owned the sub.
The inquiry into the disaster released new footage of the destroyed submersible on Wednesday.
The wreckage, at 3,776 metres below the waves, lies in ruins on the seabed.
The inquiry heard concerns about the structural integrity and design of the sub on Wednesday.
Problems included that the sub was cylindrical, when a spherical shape would have been better at withstanding the pressure of deep-sea dives.
In addition, the sole window in the Titan was rated to a depth of 1,300 metres by its manufacturer, but the sub was going down almost three times deeper.
Another problem was that the Titan was made of carbon fibre consisting of layers of resin, which the inquiry heard was unusual for a vessel of this kind.
An expert told the inquiry how there were irregularities in the hull which would have made it less structurally secure on deep-sea dives.
Dr Don Kramer, an engineer at the National Transportation Safety Board, said that a bang heard as the sub was coming back up from a 2022 dive.
Another issue, according to Dr Kramer, was the places where carbon fibre parts met rings of titanium within the structure, which were particularly weak points.
The inquiry also heard from a man who had gone on a dive in a previous prototype of the Titan, which had left him feeling shaken after he heard a cracking noise.
Stockton Rush said at the time that it was the vessel shifting in its metal frame, but Dr Kramer said that a change was taking place in the structure of the hull.
Karl Stanley said: "We got down there and it’s making noises - the sound of a carbon fibre bond breaking... We were all clearly a little disnerved.”
He went on: "Then there was kind of like a grand finale of cracking sounds as we were getting close to the surface."
The five crew members onboard the sub were British explorer Hamish Harding, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, Mr Rush and French deep-sea explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet (known as “Mr Titanic”).
