The US Coast Guard released an eerie audio recording believed to capture the exact moment of the Titan submersible implosion, which killed all five people on board in June 2023.
The loud bang, captured from a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recorder, is the “suspected acoustic signature” of the inward collapse.
It was captured approximately 900 miles (approx. 1,440 km) from the implosion site, the US Coast Guard said on Tuesday (February 11).
Highlights
- An audio of what is believed to be the Titan submersible implosion that killed 5 people has been released.
- The US Coast Guard released the recording as part of an investigation into OceanGate, the company that operated the vessel.
- The loud noise was captured 900 miles (approx. 1,440 km) from the implosion site.
The Titan had set on an expedition to the Titanic shipwreck. An hour and 45 minutes into its descent, it lost contact with its mother ship, Polar Prince.
Image credits: OceanGate Expeditions
Image credits: OceanGate Expeditions
The passengers were businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood, businessman Hamish Harding, French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and Stockton Rush, the founder and CEO of OceanGate, the tourism and expedition company that operated the vessel.
The audio recording is part of an ongoing investigation into OceanGate and the Titan implosion.
When the vessel failed to resurface, a dramatic international search and rescue mission unfolded in the North Atlantic Ocean.
What was initially described as "presumed human remains" recovered from the seafloor was later matched to the five men on board through DNA testing and analysis, according to the Marine Board of Investigation.
The recording is part of an ongoing investigation into OceanGate, the company that operated the vessel, and the Titan tragedy
Image credits: maritimecommons
The Titan had been making expeditions to the Titanic wreckage site since 2021. Rush charged passengers about $250,000 per dive.
During the September Coast Guard hearings, David Lochridge, a former director of marine operations for OceanGate, said the company was centered on “making money” and offered “very little in the way of science.”
He described a 2018 report in which he had expressed safety concerns over OceanGate operations and said, “There was no way I was signing off on this” because he had “no confidence whatsoever” in the submersible.
Image credits: maritimecommons
“It was all smoke and mirrors,” he said of OceanGate. “All the social media that you see about all these past expeditions. They always had issues with their expeditions.”
Lochridge testified that he had been fired after insisting that the vessel was unsafe.
He further shared that the manufacturer of the Titan’s viewport—an acrylic window on the submersible—had built and certified it for a depth of 3,280 feet (approx. 1,000 meters), but OceanGate insisted on taking the submersible to 13,123 feet (approx. 4,000 meters) “with passengers who are unaware of this.”
When the manufacturer refused to accept Rush’s request, the CEO allegedly had the viewport manufactured by a third party.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush was one of the five passengers killed in June 2023
Image credits: Grunge
“They wanted to be able to qualify a pilot in a day, someone who had never sat in a submersible. They wanted people to basically come in, get checked out as pilots, and be able to take passengers down in the sub.”
During the September hearing, a former OceanGate worker said the company centered on "making money" and offered "very little in the way of science"
“The pilot crashed into the rear bulkhead, the rest of the passengers tumbled about. I ended up standing on the rear bulkhead, one passenger was hanging upside down, the other two managed to wedge themselves into the bow endcap,” he said, adding that no one was injured.
The Washington-based company suspended its operations after the tragedy.
People remain shocked that such an ambitious expedition was allowed
