Titanic submersible search as it happened: Titan debris found, shows ‘catastrophic loss of pressure’, US Coast Guard says

And that’s where we leave our live coverage of the Titan submersible. Thank you for joining us almost every day this week on this developing story, which has ended in the tragic loss of five lives.

Titan passengers (from left): Stockton Rush, Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Suleman Dawood and Shazada Dawood.

Recapping today’s developments:

• The US Coast Guard confirmed that an underwater robot found the debris of the Titan submersible that went missing on Sunday, showing that the Titan suffered a “catastrophic loss of pressure” killing all instantly.

• The US Navy detected the implosion on top secret underwater sound monitoring devices on Sunday - mere hours after the Titan entered the water. It did not make it to the Titanic wreck.

• Officials have warned they may never be able to recover the bodies of the five people killed on the Titan expedition. They are: OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet and British Pakistani businessman and son Shazada and Suleman Dawood.

• Banging noises picked up by sonar earlier this week were captured after the apparent implosion and therefore unrelated to the missing Titan.
• Investigators will now attempt to retrieve and analyse as many parts of the submersible’s debris as possible to determine the cause of the implosion.
• Liability waivers signed by passengers may not shield the vessel’s owner OceanGate from potential lawsuits by the victims’ families, legal experts said.
• There are now calls for governments and private enterprise to shut down all undersea expeditions to the historic Titanic wreck until authorities determine what caused the catastrophic implosion of the submersible.

Thank you for sticking with us and, as always, for your comments and contributions.

This is Lucy Cormack, signing off.

Some interesting insights coming in just now from a former OceanGate subcontractor, who said that though the Titan had initially passed deepwater pressure testing, the longevity of the vessel could be called into question.

Dough Virnig, while praising the innovation of OceanGate and its founder Stockton Rush, conceded the company’s approach to its technology did not necessarily reflect “tried and true methods.”

OceanGate Expeditions submersible, the Titan, in the North Atlantic.Credit: Instagram

Here’s some of what he told CNN earlier:

“They created a pressure hold and took it to Woods Hole [Oceanographic] Institute, and subjected it to the pressures that you would find at depth where Titanic is, and it passed. But then the question is, if you do that repeatedly, then what happens? So, these are the sorts of questions that if you have a long research and development program, you start answering. But if you really are pushing the envelope, there’s no time...you’re answering those questions in real time.”

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is an independent non-profit organisation dedicated to ocean research, exploration, and education.

Here’s a must-read from North America correspondent Farrah Tomazin, taking you inside the Titan tragedy and explaining how, much like the fated 1912 Titanic, the captain of the submersible ignored the warning signs.

“Perhaps therein lies part of the tragedy. Just as the Titanic disaster of 1912 involved repeatedly ignoring telegrams about icebergs ahead, the Titan disaster of 2023 involved a company pushing to achieve its ambitions despite the warnings of others,” Farrah writes.

Examine the week that was, the company behind the Titan submersible and the lucrative industry of “risk tourism” supporting expeditions of its kind in her piece.

Let’s return to revelations the US Navy detected the implosion of the Titan submersible on underwater sound monitoring devices as far back as Sunday - mere hours after it entered the water.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that the sound was recorded by a secret acoustic monitoring system designed to detect submarines.

Experts in aeronautical and marine engineering have told this masthead a catastrophic implosion like this would sound “like a bomb going off.”

OceanGate CEO and co-founder Stockton Rush; the Titan submersible; and the wreck of the Titanic.

After the submersible was reported missing on Sunday, the US Navy re-analysed its acoustic data and found an anomaly that was consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost.

Steffan Watkins, an aircraft and naval research consultant, told The Telegraph the US Navy had spent a huge sum on building a new, deep-sea sensor network in the past five years “that they don’t talk about”.

“They’re deploying underwater detection tech that’s supposed to detect the most advanced, quietest subs, so I’d expect narco ‘subs’ and sketchy submersibles that implode must be child’s play for them,” he said.

The Telegraph

In this comment piece, Margot Saville explores the “ghoulish” nature of the world’s fascination with the failed Titan undersea expedition and its catastrophic implosion.

She writes: “The five people onboard the Titan have been declared dead. For the past three days, the world’s been glued to the story of these men inside the tiny submersible, awaiting their fate. It reminded me of when the world held its breath as the early astronauts endured radio silence on the dark side of the moon or re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. What would become of them?

“Some news outlets had an oxygen countdown in their stories, just so you could feel the march to oblivion in real time – is that close enough for you? In any event, it turns out they were all wrong and the sub had imploded almost two hours into the descent.”

You can read her piece here.

Why is the pressure so extreme in the deep sea? What could have caused the implosion? How does atmospheric pressure changes as you go further underwater? And what does extreme pressure do to a can of soft drink?

These questions and more are answered in this helpful explainer from the Herald’s science reporter Angus Dalton and national science reporter Liam Mannix.

They write: “A catastrophic implosion of the kind that destroyed the Titan is ‘a phenomenon where, basically, you are crushing a pressure vessel from the outside. It results in the instantaneous implosion of that vessel, killing everyone within 20 milliseconds’.”

So, what comes next in the salvage mission?

I spoke with University of Sydney Professor Stefan Williams at the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering just now about what investigators will be looking for as they try to piece together the catastrophic failure of the submersible.

Professor Williams said authorities will conduct a visual inspection of the debris and the Titan’s pressure vessel, which he expects will have a big hole in some part of it.

“When that pressure vessel failed, it would have been like a small bomb going off,” he said.

“To really understand what’s happened, they probably need to recover some of the submersible, but you can imagine trying to lift a minivan off the seafloor from four kilometres is not going to be terribly easy.”

At least five major components or pieces of the Titan have been identified by robots so far, like the front of the sub and the rear tail comb, all of which investigators will hope to examine.

Professor Williams said he had seen a pressure vessel undergo destruction testing, in which they are housed in a chamber of water or oil and placed under extreme pressure akin to that under the sea.

“The thing doesn’t just scrunch up into a little ball, you tend to have an enormous hole in some part of the end cap or the body,” he said.

He added that extracting parts of the submersible off the sea floor, almost four kilometres below sea level would be possible, but would come at an immense cost.

“Some of those vessels that are attending to the site will be $50,000 a day to run. So, how you finance that, and then there’s seven or eight of those vessels around. You can imagine the resources that are being brought to bear on this.”

Officials have warned they may never be able to recover the bodies of the five people killed on the Titan expedition.

The pilot and four passengers of the missing Titan submersible are confirmed dead after the tail cone of the vessel was found almost 500 metres from the bow of the Titanic wreckage on Thursday.

Titan passengers (from left): Stockton Rush, Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Suleman Dawood and Shazada Dawood.

A spokesman for the US Coast Guard said he could not say what the prospects were of finding the remains of Stockton Rush, Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

“This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” Rear Admiral John Mauger said.

“And so we’ll continue to work and continue to search the area down there, but I don’t have an answer for prospects at this time.”

Telegraph, London

Hello, I’m Lucy Cormack, thank you for staying with our ongoing coverage of the Titan submersible, which we now know succumbed to a catastrophic implosion early in its descent to the Titanic wreckage 3800 metres below sea level.

A quick check-in of today’s developments so far:

• The vessel suffered a catastrophic implosion, killing all five aboard, sometime this week after it submerged on Sunday. A senior military official said a US Navy acoustic system detected an “anomaly” on Sunday that was likely the fatal implosion.
• The US Coast Guard will continue searching near the Titanic for more clues about what happened to the Titan. There is no timeframe for when they will call off the massive international search.
• The company behind the Titan, OceanGate, said the deceased were “true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans”.
• OceanGate may face lawsuits even if passengers signed liability waivers. It is not uncommon for judges to reject them if there is evidence of gross negligence or hazards that were not fully disclosed, Reuters said.
• Director James Cameron has spoken to American television network ABC, saying he was “struck” by the similarity of the Titan to the Titanic.

I hope you can stay with us.

For a little more analysis on what could have caused the implosion, here’s retired US Navy captain and former commander of the US nuclear submarine Santa Fe, David Marquet, talking about the mix of different materials used in the Titan frame.

Retired US Navy captain David Marquet said he would not have gone down on the Titan.Credit: CNN

A little of what Marquet told CNN just now:

“One of the things that happens when we take a submarine deep is that it’s compressed very tightly, and then when we take it back up to the surface, it relaxes. And so, there’s this repeated compression, relaxation. We know from our submarines, which are made out of a relatively common carbon steel ... that it creates little tiny hairline cracks ... we can inspect them, we measure for them.

“[On the Titan] we have carbon steel ... there’s titanium end bells bolted on to carbon steel, with a viewing window. That’s three different materials. Those are all going to react differently, they might expand and contract differently. And so, I worry that maybe the submarine was fine once, two, three, four or five times, but without really analysing what happens with these repeated stressors, problems can happen.”

Marquet said he would not have gone down on the Titan because he felt there was significant personal risk and little personal gain.