By Nurul Nabihah
NEWFOUNDLAND, 23 June 2023: An exciting trip to the Titanic wreckage turned into the final trip for the passengers and a navigator of Titan, a submersible by the company OceanGate that was found in pieces at a depth of 12,500 feet on the bed of the ocean on the 22nd of June 2023.
The victims on board were the CEO of OceanGate, Stockton Rush; Hamish Harding, a British billionaire; Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French deep sea explorer; Shahzada Dawood, a businessman of British-Pakistani descent; and his son Suleman.
OceanGate is a company that offers a dive into the ocean to witness the Titanic wreckage up close in a newly designed submersible that comes with its own precautions. Along with a payment of USD 250 000 per person, the passengers have to sign waivers agreeing to the risk of the dive, which may incur trauma, fainting, and even death.
Alarms were raised when Polar Prince's crew, who launched the craft, lost connection to the submersible one hour and 45 minutes after diving into the North Atlantic Ocean. An international search-and-rescue operation commenced against the clock as the submersible's oxygen source could only be sustained for 96 hours maximum.
The search proved challenging as the submersible lacked any system to recover it in the case of cutoff communication between the submersible and the Polar Prince’s crew. Adding to that, Polar Prince’s crew took eight hours to alert the authorities, leaving the people on the submersible with 63 hours of oxygen to survive.
A search that lasted for a week came to an end when an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) detected debris in the deep ocean. The distinct nose cone, a notable feature of the submersible, further confirmed its connection to Titan.
The U.S. Coast Guard believed the submersible imploded, in which case the craft collapsed inward and killed the passengers. Due to the experimental carbon-fibre design of the pressure hull, which did not follow the industry standard for marine equipment, it could not withstand immense pressure at the bottom of the ocean multiple times.
Although measures are taken to notify the people on board of the hull failing, it can only be detected with moments to spare before an implosion occurs, claimed David Lochridge, ex-director of OceanGate, who was fired after raising concern about the Titan's design in 2018.
The U.S. Coast Guard informed the public that although the retrieval of the Titan debris is ongoing, recovering the victims bodies would be challenging due to the nature of the deep ocean. ***
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