Titan Submersible its Everett warehouse. Photo Courtesy OceanGate
Recovery efforts continue in the North Atlantic for the wreckage of that Titan Submersible; but we’re learning there were widespread concerns about the safety of the experimental vessel going back years.
“An implosion is instant under those pressures” Titan has been under scrutiny even before it was built it 2018; and just this week the owner of a dive company says he heard a large cracking sound during a 2-hour dive aboard the experimental vessel.
“I was very apprehensive since day one” apprehensive because Titan was built with carbon fiber; a strong, but lightweight material.
“There’s not much comparison one of them is way more capable of (surviving) those depths” Underwater Cinematographer Al Giddings made 17-trips to the wreckage of the Titanic, more than 12,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, onboard a Russian Submersible made from Titanium, with walls that were more than 4-inches thick “It would show fatigue in time through this compression and decompression process” from the depths of the ocean, Giddings says “I think those people in the know would say unfortunately, it was a disaster waiting to happen.”
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush was warned repeatedly but remained committed to his formula for the Titan as he noted in this 2021 interview “I’ve broken some rules to make this” he told a Mexican filmmaker “I think I’ve broken them with logic and good engineering. The carbon fiber and titanium, there’s a rule you don’t do that! Well, I did!”
Titan was never certified, yet veteran French diver Paul Nargolet, who found the Titanic, was also onboard the doomed submersible “He would have known the shortcomings of that design” Giddings says.
As recovery efforts continue there are new reports human remains have been found.
But, experts say death would have been violent and quick “It was very forgiving considering the other possibilities of how they might have died, it was sort of a blessing.”
