Deep in the Atlantic Ocean, a ‘Catastrophic Implosion’ and five lives lost

A major multi-national search for five people who had descended to view the wreckage of the sunken RMS Titanic ended Thursday after pieces of the private submarine that carried them were found on the ocean floor, evidence of a “catastrophic implosion” with no survivors, according to the US Coast Guard.

The dramatic search, in a remote area of ​​the North Atlantic Ocean 900 miles off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, had people around the world mesmerized for days after the 22-foot watercraft called Titan lost contact with its mothership in less than two hours after his departure. travel on Sunday. The grim discovery, by a remote-controlled vehicle that scanned the seabed, also drew attention to high-risk, high-cost adventure tourism, raising questions about the safety protocols followed by companies conducting such expeditions.

“Our thoughts are with the families and we are making sure they understand as best we can what happened,” Vice Admiral John Mauger, commander of the First Coast Guard District, said at a news conference in Boston. “It’s a complex matter to work through, but I’m confident those questions will be answered.”

Stockton Rush, 61, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, the company that owned Titan, piloted the submarine and was among the presumed dead. Others on board were Hamish Harding, 58, a British explorer; Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, a French maritime expert who had made more than 35 dives on the Titanic; Shahzada Dawood, 48, a British businessman; and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood, a college student.

The search for the missing ship was seen as a race against time at the start, as rescuers hoping the Titan might still be intact rushed to reach the area it had descended into before its oxygen supply ran out. Hopes rose Wednesday night, when popping noises were detected underwater by maritime surveillance aircraft; US Navy experts analyzed the sounds for signs that they may have been attempts by the Titan’s passengers to indicate their location.

But on Thursday afternoon, four days after the ship went missing, those hopes were dashed by evidence discovered more than two miles below the ocean’s surface: the Titan’s tail cone adrift on the seafloor a third of a mile from the bow of the ship. Titanic, along with the two broken ends of the pressure hull. The debris, Admiral Mauger said, was “consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.”

On Thursday night, a U.S. Navy official said underwater sensors recorded readings “consistent with an explosion or implosion” shortly after the loss of contact. That information was sent to the incident commander to narrow the search area, the official said.

Without conclusive evidence of a catastrophic failure, it would have been “irresponsible” to assume the five people were dead, the Navy official said, so the mission was treated as an ongoing search and rescue, even though the outcome seemed grim.

When asked about the prospect of recovering the victims’ bodies, Admiral Mauger said he had no answer. “This is an incredibly brutal environment down there on the sea floor,” he said.

The search for the Titan provoked an international response, as French, British and Canadian ships headed for the Titanic’s final resting place, carrying high-tech search and rescue equipment. There was a robot that could search 4,000 feet below the ocean surface, and a hyperbaric recompression chamber used to treat diving-related illnesses. But the effort was slowed by the enormous distance they had to travel to reach the site, a journey of several days for some.

Some observers questioned the effects of a reported delay of several hours between the Titan’s last contact on Sunday with its support ship, the Canadian research vessel MV Polar Prince — which helped with the deployment — and the base ship’s initial outreach to the Coast Guard for assistance. The Coast Guard said on Thursday that acoustic buoys placed in the water on Monday had not picked up the sound of the implosion, suggesting the ship had already been destroyed by the time the search began in earnest and the passengers were very likely killed. before rescue crews arrived.

The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the possible discovery of the implosion by the Navy.

There is no evidence that the ship imploded as a result of colliding with the Titanic’s wreckage; the Titan’s debris was found in a nearby area where the seafloor is slippery, said Carl Hartsfield, an underwater vehicle designer at Massachusetts’ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who helped the Coast Guard search.

Nine ships remained in the area as the search for Titan’s remains and mapping of the debris field continued Thursday afternoon, but Admiral Mauger said they would begin to disperse within 24 hours.

“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” OceanGate Expeditions said in a statement. “Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their family at this tragic time.”

With his freight forwarding company, founded in 2009 in Everett, Washington, Mr. Rush attempted to increase access to deep-sea exploration. As of 2021, the company is offering tourists, travelers and Titanic enthusiasts who could afford the $250,000 price tag a first look at the remains of the infamous shipwreck that killed more than 1,500 people on its maiden voyage in April 1912 after the luxury liner collapsed. hit an iceberg.

But the company of Mr. Rush also raised concern and criticism from industry peers who feared inadequate safety testing and lax precautions would put passengers at risk.

James Cameron, the Oscar-winning filmmaker and expert diver whose 1997 Titanic blockbuster sparked a new wave of fascination for him, criticized OceanGate in an interview on Thursday for betraying the trust of its paying passengers by refraining from safety certifications.

Along with other experts, Mr Cameron said the carbon fiber composites used in Titan’s construction posed a risk because the material was not designed to withstand the crushing pressures that press on ships deep under the ocean.

Concerns about the company’s practices were not new. In 2018, three dozen people – industry leaders, deep-sea explorers and oceanographers – sent a letter against mr. Rush, warning that the company’s “experimental” approach could lead to potentially “catastrophic” problems.

The Titan’s last dive was almost canceled due to uncooperative weather conditions. When a window suddenly opened, Mr. Harding, an experienced explorer, saw it as a stroke of luck. “Due to Newfoundland’s worst winter in 40 years,” he wrote in a social media post last Saturday, “this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to Titanic in 2023.”

His last dive was far from his deepest. In 2021, Mr. Harding set a record-breaking voyage to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, in the Western Pacific. A four-hour, fifteen-minute drop from 36,000 feet, the trip took it nearly three times deeper than the Titanic’s site. According to a media report at the time only 18 people had once traveled to the area known as the Challenger Deep. For comparison, 24 astronauts have orbited or landed on the moon.

Mr. Harding knew the risks. “If something goes wrong, you’re not coming back,” he said in an interview after the 2021 dive.

Conditions in the submarine were not luxurious. Images from the company’s website showed a ship with a metal tube interior, where passengers sat on the floor with their backs to the curved walls. There were no seats, little room to move or stand upright, and a single viewing window 21 inches in diameter.

But for some with money and a passion for adventure, the promise of a rare experience was worth the risk of death — a risk repeatedly spelled out in the legal waivers signed by passengers, according to some who had taken the journey.

The excitement of the outer limits had called Mr. Rush since childhood. In an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” in 2022, OceanGate’s founder said he grew up wanting to be an astronaut and later a fighter pilot.

“It was about exploring,” Mr. Rush said. “It was about finding new life forms. I wanted to be like Captain Kirk. I didn’t want to be the passenger in the back. And I realized that the ocean is the universe.”

Reporting contributed by William J. Broad, Eric Schmitt, Mike Ives, Jesus Jimenez, Daniel Victor, Anushka Patil, Emma Bubola, Jacey Fortin, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Keith Collins, Jenny Gross, Anna Bets And Ben Shpigel.