With the advantage of 21st century technology, U.S. Navy experts heard the fate of the privately owned submersible Titan before its rescue operation ever began. Titan, with five people onboard, began its dive on Sunday, June 18, losing contact with a surface support ship monitoring its progress one hour and 45 minutes later. It was diving to the ocean bottom 12,500 feet below to tour the wreckage of the passenger ship Titanic – the victim of a nighttime collision with an iceberg in April 1912.
Due to a global deep-water listening system, the Navy was able to hear a distinct "catastrophic implosion" hours after Titan began its voyage. A search was initiated anyway as some sources deemed the Navy report as not definitive. Later discovery of Titan's debris field – 1,600 feet from Titanic – confirmed what the Navy knew Sunday.
A catastrophic implosion was the worst possible outcome for Titan, meaning death for all onboard came in milliseconds due to the intense pressure of the North Atlantic's deep waters. Mercifully, those onboard were spared the slower, more agonizing death of suffocation from air running out. Implosion left them unaware of what was happening. But, with Titan's fate now resolved, remotely operated vehicles remain there to continue gathering information from the debris field as to what may have caused the implosion.
Learning about the experiences of other Titan passengers previously venturing to the seafloor to tour Titanic leaves one questioning the submersible's deep diving survivability. This was evident too from the tone of the liability waiver every passenger signed beforehand, relieving the owner, OceanGate, for any loss of life. It forewarned passengers the voyage could cause physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death and that Titan was an experimental vessel, "constructed of materials that have not been widely used for manned submersibles." The word "death" appeared three times on the first page of the waiver. Thus, passengers well understood fatal risks were involved.
Whether the waiver will work, however, depends on the cause of Titan's implosion as such waivers have limitations. Lawyer Patrick Luff explains, "You generally can't waive claims for gross negligence, extreme risk of harm, reckless disregard for safety."
To his credit, Titan's CEO and designer, Stockton Rush, 61, demonstrated his confidence in his submersible, piloting it during its ill-fated trip. The four paying passengers included British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, two members of one of Pakistan's wealthiest families, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and son Suleman, 19, as well as former French frequent Titanic diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 77. (Dawood's wife had surrendered her seat so Suleman could join his father.)
In an ironic twist, Wendy Rush – Stockton's wife – is also the great-great granddaughter of Titanic victims Isidor and Ida Straus. Both Strauses were offered lifeboat seats as Titanic was sinking but courageously declined them, deferring to others. They chose to die together and were last seen on Titanic's deck as she went under. Two weeks later the body of Isidor was found, but Ida's never was.
Finding Titan passenger remains is doubtful. As one maritime expert shared, due to the way Titan imploded, bodies inside were most likely crushed, making recovery of distinguishable body parts highly unlikely.
One of the Titan's previous passengers was Mike Reiss – a writer for "The Simpsons" – who, along with his wife, toured the Titanic last year. However, they had little time on site due to an approaching hurricane where they were to resurface. Although they safely did so, it was an inadvisable call to make. Had Titan suffered a mishap then, an approaching hurricane would have delayed any rescue attempt.
Additionally, Reiss – who had taken several earlier dives although not to the Titanic – reported communication lapses were typical along with other problems. He said of Rush, "It's his company and he designed it, but it's … (like) we are all part of this ongoing experiment."
Another previous Titan passenger, CBS reporter David Pogue, described the submersible as "MacGyvery," relying upon "less sophisticated and jerry-rigged" components to run it. It operated off a PlayStation video recorder. He observed "some of the ballasts are old, rusty construction pipes. There were certain things that looked like cut corners." He reported Titan got lost for a few hours and was unable to find Titanic during one dive.
Chris Brown, a friend of billionaire Harding, was among the first to sign up for the ill-fated Titanic tour, only to back out later. Drawn to see Titanic's wreckage firsthand, his excitement gave way to concerns for personal safety.
Another father/son combination who bugged out on the deadly voyage was Las Vegas financier Jay Bloom and son Sean, 20. Jay fortunately listened to Sean who, doing sufficient research, determined there were just too many "red flags."
Previous passenger Oison Fanning was not detered by safety concerns from making two deep-sea dives on Titan last summer. After the sub's loss, he said the prospect of seeing Titanic up close compensated for Titan's lack of proper certification. Unaware Titan had imploded days earlier, Fanning suggested the ability of the five passengers to stay calm and avoid panicked breathing would impact their survival.
Submersible expert Karl Stanley participated in a 2019 Titan dive off the Bahamas. He reportedly warned Rush about safety concerns he had. He had heard loud noises, linking them to a "flaw/defect in one area being acted upon by the tremendous pressures being crushed/damaged."
Experienced underwater cinematographer Al Giddings, who worked on the film "Titanic," described Titan's voyage to the bottom of the sea as a "disaster waiting to happen." Despite this, it is clear those able to pay the required $250,000 fee for the Titanic site dive saw this as a rare opportunity to witness firsthand the graveyard of the most iconic maritime disaster in history. Unfortunately, they anticipated the cost of their ticket was for a round trip.
In 2022, Rush was quoted saying, "There's a limit. At some point, safety just is pure waste. If you just want to be safe, don't get out of bed, don't get into your car, don't do anything. At some point, you're gonna take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question. … I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules."
But one can only wonder why, knowing what they did about Titan, they still chose to go. One report described passengers as "true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure." Could that sense have dulled intuitive minds that had served these financial risk-takers well in making their fortunes when reality mandated weighing the question of risk over reward involved life?
Choosing to risk life over adventure is senseless if maximized safety is simply viewed as "pure waste." Rush had less than a millisecond to contemplate that thought.
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