On 18 June 2023, Titan, a submersible operated by an American Company Ocean Gate catastrophically imploded into the depth of the Atlantic Ocean due to the intense water pressure. The 5 passengers of the submersible, Stockton Rush (CEO Ocean Gate), Paul Henri Nargeolet (French Deep Sea Explorer and Titanic Expert), Hamish Harding (A British Business man), a Pakistani-born business magnate Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son, Suleman, both British citizens were instantly killed. After about one hour forty-five minutes of travel, the adventure suddenly became a disaster. What really happened, what was the cause of this catastrophic implosion: Well let’s break it down step by step.
Ocean Gate, A private company, initiated in 2009 by Stockton Rush and Guillermo Shonlein, had a goal to provide tours to rich people to ship wreckages and underwater location, mostly focusing on travels and exploration. Before the Titan Submersible, Ocean Gate had two other submersibles, Antipodes and Cyclops. The maximum depth both submersibles could reach was 300m (1000 ft) and 500m (1640 ft) respectively. On the other had Titan can reach depth of 14,000 ft, making it the only vehicle for Titanic expedition. Rush believed that visiting ship wrecks and other deep sea places will catch the attention of people and they will like to visit there too. Therefore, Ocean Gate conducted tours to ship wrecks and and other places including its dive to Andrea Doria and Bahamas. But Rush wanted to go even further. He wanted to visit the most famous ship wreck in the world, Titanic.
In 2019, Rush told Smithsonian Magazine, “There is only one wreck everyone knows, if you ask anyone name something underwater, its either going to be Sharks, Fishes or Titanic. This deep curiosity of Rush wanting to visit Titanic, began the production of the Titan Submersible. During the production of the Titan Submersible, Rush ignored some of the rules to build submersibles. One of which was the use of Carbon Fiber. Rush one told in an interview, “I’ve broken some rules, I think I’ve broken them with logic and good engineering behind me ”. Rush believed that safety is going to resist humanity to explore more and discover more. He once said, “If you want to safe, then don’t get out of bed, don’t get into your car!”. Rush was told by several people that make sure to check your submersible if it is a safe vehicle. Rush ignored and carried on with the development of the Titan Submersible.
Lets talk about the design and structure of the Titan submersible first. The Titan Submersible was constructed using Titanium alloy for the hemispherical domes at each end of the vessel and Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) for the Hull meaning it had to be combined with plastic to make a strong light weight structure. Titan was small, about 6.7 m Long and weighed about 23,000 Lb or 10,432 kg.
Titan was operated and communicated through another ship “Polar Prince” which was on the ocean bed the whole time. Titan started its descent at 8 AM EST and the descent was going to be about 2 Hours. At every 15 minute interval Titan send a text message to the operating ship. But suddenly after 1 hour and 45 minutes into the ocean, the communication was lost between both the Ship and the submersible. The crew members tried continuously to contact the submersible but couldn’t do it. Therefore they waited till 4:30 PM, the time Titan was supposed to resurface. At 4:30 PM the submersible was nowhere to be found. At 7:10 the US Coast Guard was notified by the problem and then started the search for the submersible. The Rescue team had 4 Days to find lost submersible as there was 4 day’s worth of Oxygen in the vessel. Many planes and ships came to the search. Planes deployed SONAR to search for the vessel. Three days were gone, both Canadian and American Coast Guard were on duty. The deepest ever rescue was about was 480 meters or 1575 feet. This was almost 8 times deeper. Suddenly after 3 days a blowing sound was heard by Plane Flying over the sea. Later it was also heard by the US Coast Guard. But later this was debunked as there was no clue that this was related to the event. After few time, a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) detected some debris around the Titanic about 1600ft away. This confirmed that the submersible imploded into pieces. Later, some of the debris was recovered and sent to the research team.
Many People criticized Ocean Gate, to not follow safety standards. Famous Director James Cameroon behind the infamous movies Titanic also criticized
Ocean Gate on what they were doing. The reason behind this implosion was the use of carbon fiber. Before this there was no actual conclusion of what carbon fiber acts like under the intense pressure of water. Rush also told that this was an experimental tour. But the carbon fiber vessel was not strong enough to bear the tense pressure and imploded instantly. Upon research, it was known that the implosion was so quick that it took 20 milliseconds. For comparison it takes 100 milliseconds to process the pain and 14 milliseconds to process visuals. Therefore the passenger didn’t even feel the pain as their bodies were crushed instantly.
This whole event tells us that no matter how confident you are, you still need to care about the safety. This event was similar to Titanic one as the people said, “She is Unsinkable”, only to know that Titanic will sink just by a hit to the iceberg. Titanic after a little more than a century, took 5 more people with it again. This is a reminder that whatever you do, or how much you are confident, don’t break rules and follow safety as if there was no safety, there would be disasters that are much worse than these disasters.
About the Author: Shayan Shahid is a student having keen interest research, historical events & computer science.He can be reached at [email protected]
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