Listen to eerie recording revealing Titan submersible's last moments
12 February 2025, 09:50
Listen to the eerie recording of the last moments of the Titan submersible.
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Audio released of Titan sub implosion
Listen to the eerie recording of the last moments of the Titan submersible, as it imploded in 2023, killing all five passengers.
It is believed that the noise is the 'acoustic signature' of the sub imploding on 18th June 2023.
It was recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration device about 900 miles from where the sub was last seen on radar, south of Newfoundland, Canada, US Coast Guard officials announced
The five crew members who died onboard the sub were British explorer sub were Hamish Harding, 58, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood , 48, and his son Suleman, 19, French deep-sea explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet (known as “Mr Titanic”), 77, and and co-founder of the submarines owner's company OceanGate, Stockton Rushton, 61.
The audio is the latest piece of evidence in what happened to the sub, which disappeared off radars, sparking an international investigation to determine the cause of the implosion.
The sub lost contact with its support boat, Polar Prince, about an hour and 45 minutes into the two and a half hour dive.
The vessel was descending 12,400ft, twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, in the North Atlantic Ocean.
After the manhunt began, the US Coast Guard announced that the passengers had 70-96 hours left before they ran out of oxygen.
The wreckage, at 3,776 metres below the waves, was found laying in the seabed.
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An inquiry into the disaster, in September 2024, released new footage of the destroyed sub.
The inquiry heard concerns about the structural integrity and design of the sub.
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."