The Coast Guard announced at a press conference on Thursday that debris from the submersible Titan was found on the seafloor near the Titanic, confirming the deaths of the five crew members onboard.
While searching an area of flat seabed approximately 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, a remotely operated vehicle discovered “five major pieces of debris that told us it was the remains of the Titan,” said undersea expert Paul Hanken, including the front end of the pressure hull. “That was the first indication that it was a catastrophic event.”
Gary Lang, a television and film director who worked with James Cameron on his documentary film about the wreck of the Titanic and dove in a submersible to the wreckage as part of that project, says everyone onboard was made to understand that if anything went wrong, death would be instantaneous. “A pinprick would turn into a gaping wound in less than a second.” Given the tremendous pressure, he says, “at that point, you’re not even mush.”
Given the nature of the sub’s demise, it now seems likely that the “banging” sounds rescuers heard over the past two days did not actually come from the occupants of the submersible, who would have been long dead by then. The ocean, though it can often seem placid from the surface, is full of noises both natural and man-made, and these can often mislead underwater searchers. During the search for MH370, crews spent weeks trying to track down pings that were believed to come from the downed plane’s black boxes but that turned out to be nothing.
Asked if the bodies could be recovered, Rear Admiral John Mauger, the leader of the search, said, “This is an incredibly unforgiving environment,” and reiterated that the vessel had suffered a “catastrophic implosion,” implying that there might not be much left to recover.
In an interview on ABC News, ocean explorer Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, suggested that Titan’s innovative carbon-fiber pressure hull might have been to blame for the vessel’s loss. “We’ve made thousands and thousands of dives with different vehicles” since 1960, Ballard said, “and we’ve never, ever, in the history of these extreme-deep-diving programs, ever lost a vehicle. So this is a first. So you naturally go to, How does this vehicle differ from the vehicles we’ve been using for many years? And it did have a very experimental hull, and obviously that hull imploded.”
This article originally ran in New York magazine on June 22, 2023.
I figured you’d be publishing some content about this, thanks for posting Jeff. They pulled up some of the wreckage today, no word if the Playstation joystick made it. It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. How those experienced, smart, wealthy people couldn’t see those warning signs is just mind boggling.
This was an interesting read by CBS reporter David Pogue. I disagree with him about OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush not being a con man though, of course he was. He seems to have lied a lot.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/06/what-i-learned-on-a-titanic-submarine-expedition.html
Anyway MH370 was mentioned many times during the OceanGate news coverage. But what I thought was interesting was that the journalists would mention MH370 and give no explanation about what MH370 was, as though it just happened yesterday and everyone still remembers the story. Hopefully something good comes of it.
@Billy, There seem to be an awful lot of charismatic snakeoil salesmen these days who are very good at putting one over on hapless billionaires. The media unfortunately tends to play along until it all comes acropper.
Great point about how MH370 doesn’t need explanation. It’s one-name famous, like Beyoncé and Madonna.
Hi Jeff,
I wonder if you had any thoughts on the “rescue” mission and the use of resources in this case. It seemed to me, quite early on, that there was only a very small chance of finding the passengers/crew alive and even smaller of being able to perform a rescue (if they hadn’t surfaced).
Evidence that subsequently came to light suggests the authorities knew an implosion had occurred from very early on (the simultaneous loss of all systems and the “noise” of an implosion detected by the US military at the same time).
Even without that evidence I’d have thought only a search of the surface was warranted given how difficult it would be to go down to the ocean floor and get the passengers/crew out or bring the vessel to the surface.
I get that finding the wreckage brings closure to the families and helps to work out exactly what went wrong, and a delay reduces the chances of doing so. But even knowing what actually went wrong in this case seems fairly academic given the experimental nature of the vessel and what seems to be an almost unending list of corner cutting and safety failures. Even if it is shown the porthole failed on this occasion, it would likely have been the carbon fibre hull the next time.
I wonder what role the 24 hour news cycle and social media plays in such seemingly futile rescue attempts. The optics don’t look great if the coastguard say, “nah, we’re not bothering. They’re already dead.”
There’s also the fact that these people knew what they were doing and, I hope, were fully aware of the risks. Huge rescue operations aren’t launched for people who get into trouble climbing Everest, for example.
I don’t know and I’m not saying they were wrong to use the resources (and I don’t, in truth, know what resources were used nor their cost), but it’s an interesting question I think and would be interested to hear your take. If it were my family I would probably want all efforts made to rescue them, even if the chances of success were overwhelmingly small.
(Apologies. I had put the above into paragraphs, but the preview suggests it’s coming through as a block of text.)
@Craig, At the time a lot of questions were being raised about the propriety of using so many resources to save a small number of wealthy (and frankly reckless) white adventurers, at a time when literally hundreds of migrants were being left to die at sea. The fact that they were almost certainly already dead just makes the whole situation even more absurd. I think that the whole topic should have been looked at with a lot more skepticism, but I sensed that a lot of editors didn’t want to seem disrespectful. Some things deserve disrespect!
My feelings exactly Jeff. Thank you.
I’m still heart broken about this