Investigation blames OceanGate’s manufacturing of underwater vessel for fatal 2023 implosion

An official inquiry has determined that faulty engineering caused the implosion of the experimental submersible that killed five people en-route to the Titanic wreck in June 2023.

The conclusion comes from an investigation by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) into the fatal accident, according to an article by The Hill.

The NTSB report found that the flawed engineering of the Titan submersible — which had been offering high-priced tourist dives to the Titanic site in the North Atlantic — “resulted in the construction of a carbon fiber composite pressure vessel that contained multiple anomalies and failed to meet necessary strength and durability requirements.”

It further stated that OceanGate, the company that owned and operated the Titan, did not adequately test the vessel and lacked understanding of its true structural limits.

The report also noted that the Titan’s wreckage could likely have been found sooner if OceanGate had adhered to standard emergency response procedures, which would have saved “time and resources even though a rescue was not possible in this case.”

The NTSB’s findings align with a US Coast Guard report released in August, which described the implosion as preventable. The Coast Guard concluded that OceanGate’s safety procedures were “critically flawed” and that there were “glaring disparities” between the company’s documented safety protocols and its actual practices.

Industry warned OceanGate of experimental vessel

The implosion claimed the lives of OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush; French underwater explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, known as “Mr. Titanic”; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, members of a prominent British-Pakistani family. The tragedy sparked lawsuits and renewed calls for tighter regulation of private deep-sea expeditions.

Long before the incident, industry experts had voiced serious concerns about the Titan’s design and its use of materials considered unsuitable for extreme-depth dives. James Cameron, the Oscar-winning director of Titanic and an experienced deep-sea explorer, strongly criticized OceanGate following the disaster — particularly its decisions regarding the submersible’s hull.

Cameron said that if he were building a passenger-carrying vessel, he would ensure it went through certification and testing with an established organization such as the American Bureau of Shipping. “I think it was unconscionable that this group did not go through that rigorous process,” he told CNN in the aftermath of the accident.

Cameron himself has made more than 30 dives to the Titanic wreck. He also designed and piloted his own submersible to a record depth of 35,787 feet (approx. 10,908 meters) in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench — roughly three times deeper than the Titanic’s resting place.

By Nazrin Sadigova