The world is still in awe over the Titan sub’s ever-evolving tale and how the tiny, deep-sea vehicle was a disaster waiting to happen.
The OceanGate-operated submersible, which was headed on an expedition to see the Titanic debris,
reportedly met a tragic end last month when it exploded after losing contact with its mother ship, the Polar Prince.
The voyage also claimed the lives of four other individuals in addition to OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush:
the British businessman Hamish Harding, the French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, the Pakistani-British billionaire Shahzada Dawood, and his teenage son Suleman.
The US Coast Guard said that the Titan submersible was destroyed by a ‘catastrophic implosion’ brought on by intense pressure just four days after the ship was first reported missing.
The engineer and submarine expert José Luis Martn recently presented his view on what the five crew would have encountered in their final minutes alive.
A number of experts have come out to share their perspectives on what was probably to have happened on the Titan’s tragic mission.
Martn, whose theories are based on calculations that take into account the sub’s weight, speed, mass, and thrust,
said in an interview with the Spanish news outlet Marca that he believes the passengers on the sub would
have been aware of what was happening between 48 and 71 seconds before the fatal implosion.
Even more upsettingly, the expert claimed that the sub likely dropped ‘vertically’ for about 2,900 feet in an
uncontrolled way, and that during this final plunge the guys may have lost their balance and fallen on top of one another.
The submarine is initially dropping horizontally and without any inclination until it reaches a height of roughly 1,700 meters (5,500 feet), according to Martn.
There is an electrical malfunction at that time. It is left without a propulsion system and an engine. It stops communicating with the Polar Prince at that point.
The weight of all five soldiers, he continues, would have caused the Titan to fall vertically at this moment.
‘They all rush and crowd on top of each other,’ he said. Imagine the terror, fear, and suffering. It had to be terrifying, as in a horror film.
The New Yorker published a critical article on the deadly ship earlier this week after speaking with experts and former crew members about its inadequate safety procedures.
According to a series of emails the source was able to get, a former employee of OceanGate revealed in
one of his coworkers that he had severe reservations about Stockton Rush, the CEO of the business.
The former employee, David Lochridge, expressed his concern in one of those emails, writing: ‘I don’t
want to be seen as a Tattle tale but I’m so worried he kills himself and others in the quest to boost his ego.’
I would consider myself quite ballsy when it comes to doing things that are risky, but that sub is a
disaster waiting to happen,’ he allegedly stated. You could not possibly have offered to pay me to dive the object.
Lochridge, who served as OceanGate’s head of marine operations from 2013 to 2018, acknowledged that he
had thoroughly examined the Titan sub and found a number of mistakes and problems that raised red flags.
In one particular case, Lochridge claimed that he had discovered adhesive that was peeled away at the seams of
the sub’s ballast bags and that carelessly positioned mounting bolts might potentially lead to a rupture. The case was later settled.