The Coast Guard of the United States has published the final report on the implosion of the Titan Batiscopher owned by the Oceangate company, which on June 18, 2023 caused the death of all 5 passengers on board, including the company of the company, Stockton Rush.
According to the 335 -page report, published more than two years after the disaster, the implosion of Titan took place at 10:47:09, at about 3,350 meters deep in the Atlantic Ocean during a descent to explore the wreck of the Titanic. Just two seconds later, the control team aboard the Polar Prince (the support ship used during the diving of the Titan) recorded a noise from the ocean surface, attributed by investigators just at the time of improcious.
The report also highlighted the definitive cause of the accident, that is, the loss of the structural integrity of the Titan, made of carbon fiber. This structural loss then caused the immediate implosion of the Batiscophe: the resistance of the carbon fiber to compression, in fact, can be unpredictable especially if, as in this case, the pressure to which the material is subjected is 300 times larger than the atmospheric pressure.
The responsibilities of the disaster have therefore been attributed to the behavior of the Oceangate and its CEO Stockton Rush, which would deliberately ignore all the reports on the security bellies, not respecting the minimum international standards and even reaching threatening legal retaliation or layoffs against employees who questioned the reliability of Titan.
The final report of the US Coast Guard on the implosion of Titan
Specifically, the US Coast Guard has indicated as the main cause of the improcity of the Titan, the inability of the oceangate company to respect engineering protocols established for safety, to conduct tests and to carry out periodic maintenance of the Batiscophe.
Among other things, from the report it clearly emerges as for several years before the accident, the company has leveraged intimidating tactics, permits for scientific operations and favorable reputation to evade the different regulatory checks, thus managing to use the Titan Batiscopher “completely outside the protocols established for the deep depths, which historically had contributed to a solid security record for commercial summary”.
The lack of supervision by independent third parties and experts then allowed the oceangate CEO to completely circumvent the periodic inspections, without having to provide data analyzes and referring the preventive maintenance procedures: the mix of these elements therefore caused the catastrophic event.
The set of causes that caused the implosion of the Batiscoper
In summary, according to the investigation of the US Coast Guard, there are several factors that caused the implosion of Titan on June 18, 2023. Among these are:
- The design and testing processes of the Titan by oceangate, who did not adequately respected the fundamental engineering principles for the construction of a hull with the accuracy necessary to dive to that depth.
- The behavior of the Oceangate company, which has not ensured that a complete analysis was conducted to precisely define the life cycle of the hull.
- The prolonged use of Titan by oceangate despite a series of previous accidents, which therefore would compromise the integrity of the hull and other critical components.
- The failure to conduct in -depth investigations by oceangate after the accidents previous to that of 18 June 2023.
- The design of the carbon fiber hull and the construction process of the titan, with probable defects that would have weakened the overall structural integrity.
- The toxic work environment within the Oceangate, which has used threats of legal retaliation and layoffs to dissuade employees from expressing worries about safety.
- The inability of oceangate to conduct the preventive maintenance of the Batiscophe or to protect it from the weather during the prolonged period of detention out of season in view of the shipment before the 2023 expedition.
