Owing to the inherent risks involved, submarine service is generally perceived to
be unsafe. However, keeping in view the stringent safety standards and oversights at all
levels, submarining has been made very safe. That’s why, we rarely come across such
occurrences i.e. sinking of Titan. Although it was not a submarine, rather a submersible,
constructed for limited undersea application i.e. tourism exploratory missions. Owing to
its compact size, very few facilities are provided onboard. These subs are operated in
consort with a support ship (mothership) that provides launching/recovery, navigation,
communication, logistics, and on-scene assistance in distress. Prior to this Titan
mission, OceanGate Company had conducted over 200 successful missions, including
10 dives by Titan.
The unfortunate incident of Titan that claimed 5 valuable lives on June 16 had its
genesis in the inception of OceanGate Company, an American tourism company co-
founded by Stockton Rush in 2009, operated on the basis of corporate commercialism
psyche. The company initially acquired a submersible Antipodes, and later built two of
its own: Cyclops 1 and Titan. In 2021, OceanGate began taking paying tourists in the
Titan to visit the ‘Unsinkable’ Titanic’s wreck. The company had established well its
credentials in the exotic maritime tourism industry. As of 2022, the price per passenger
on an OceanGate expedition had risen to US$250,000.
The mothership MV Polar Prince sailed from St John’s Newfoundland, Canada
on June 16 with four thrill seeker tourists; Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood (a
prominent Pakistani businessman and philanthropist), his son Suleman Dawood, Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet. The company’s CEO, Stockton Rush, acted as the pilot.
The next day, the ship arrived at the wreck location of Titanic, around 400 NM
(740km) south of Newfoundland, which is lying on the seabed of the North Atlantic at
3800m (12,460ft) depth since April 15, 1912.
On June 18, Sunday morning, the ill-fated submersible Titan initiated her
descend at 08am ET (11pm PST). Dr. Rush started steering Titan with the help of
Logitech video game controller toward the Titanic wreckage. With about 07 hours of
mission duration, Titan was expected to be in visual range of the wreck in two hours.
But, communication with Mothership was lost within the initial 1:45mins. It did not raise
alarm bells since it was taken ‘a usual business’ due known fact of thrusters’
interference with communication systems. Despite repeated communication failures in
the past, no efforts were made to rectify this anomaly.
An uneasy situation started developing when Titan did not surface by 03pm ET
on completion of the scheduled 7 hours of dive time. After an unsuccessful search of
2:45mins, the mothership alerted shore authorities including US Coast Guard at Cape
Cod, located about 900NM away from the dive position. The disappearance of the
submersible triggered extensive SAR efforts.
US and Canadian maritime forces swung into action for a very complex SAR
operation with 10 ships and 4 aircraft; including 2 advanced long-range reconnaissance
P-3C Orions. Later, France also deployed ship Atalante with a deep diving Remotely
Operated Vehicle (ROV).
On Tuesday, 20 June, Canadian P-3C detected some banging sounds on its
hydrophones at 30-minutes interval. The available Canadian ROV was directed towards
area of sound signals. Meanwhile, received signals were sent to US underwater sound
experts, who later classified these as ‘non-submersible’.
By then, experts had started speculating about a major-scale accident onboard
Titan with the probability of fire, flooding, power loss, or entanglement with floating
fishing nets. As the 96 hours’ limit of Oxygen supply onboard Titan was approaching,
the panic amongst the SAR forces started setting in.
After a hectic coordinated search, the first breakthrough came around on
Thursday at 11:48am when Canadian ROV found a trace of debris near Titanic wreck.
ROV discovered 5 major pieces of the Titan including its titanium tail-cone. At 4pm, it
was officially announced that five members of Titan were instantly killed in a
‘Catastrophic Implosion’. The debris pattern was also “consistent with a catastrophic
loss of pressure chamber”. At this point, the SAR mission was called off and the focus
was shifted towards accident investigation.
Occurrences of this magnitude are usually caused by a series of unregulated
practices, inactions, errors, and omissions attributable to human, material, or violations
of SoPs. In Titan’s case, it was a combination of all three. This mystery can be
unplugged by identifying trail of errors committed at various tiers.
Titan’s cylindrical portion of the hull was made of carbon fiber material instead of
titanium alloy, which was a risky proposition as it could not withstand the successive
dives’ fatigues. Reportedly, the carbon fiber material used in Titan’s construction had
expired shelf life as well. On completion of its test dives in 2020, Titan’s hull had begun
to show signs of cyclic fatigue.
Yet another design flaw was that the Titan used to be bolted from the outside
after passengers were slipped in with no possibility of opening the hatch from the inside
contrary to the safe submarining practices. Moreover, Titan was not equipped with a
locator buoy, which is essential for localization in case of disability.
David Lochridge, the OceanGate Director of Marine Operations had shown his
concerns about the non-conduct of NDT to ascertain hull integrity. He also voiced
reservations about the design limitations of the front viewport. Unfortunately, he was
expelled by the company CEO at short notice.
Rush did not consider certification of Titan’s design from a renowned
classification society despite advice from the US-based ‘Marine Technology Society’ in
2018. Instead, he used big names like NASA, APL, and Boeing, etc. to authenticate his
design credibility.
To cut the cost, Rush used to prefer ‘off the shelf’ components instead of military
specs. He was too possessive and complacent about the design of RTMS (Real Time
Acoustic Monitoring System). He used to say if everything fails, RTMS will bring the
Titan to the surface. Therefore, he termed Titan’s design as ‘Invulnerable’, something
consistent with Titanic’s ‘Unsinkability’. Alas! Both ‘Unsinkable’ and ‘Invulnerable’ are
laying on the ocean bed, side by side at a depth of 3800 m.
With all his intellect and professional acumen in engineering, Rush had become
overconfident and complacent with regard to safety standards. He used to express his
views about the US Passenger Vessel Safety Act of 1993 as "needlessly prioritized
passenger safety over commercial innovation".
Generally, the specialized vehicles are piloted by a well-qualified crew. Likewise,
the test pilots of newly developed vehicles are the best selected so as to effectively deal
with emergencies. In this case, Rush himself used to steer and didn’t employ a qualified
operator.
Lastly, the role and responsibilities of countries and authorities to oversee Titan’s
certification and safe operation have become highly questionable. Their failure to
exercise a comprehensive regulatory system is opined to be the ‘contributory cause’ of
the accident. This trail of errors and omissions could have been disrupted by the
system.
It can be safely concluded that the ‘main cause’ of this occurrence was
complacency on the part of CEO Stockton Rush. He ventured into the unknown territory
i.e. diving depths in access of Titan’s capacity and paid the price.
With all the media hype during the past week, Titan incident has exceedingly
highlighted the importance of adherence to safety standards, protocols, and regulatory
framework at all levels. So far, only preliminary analysis has been done on the basis of
facts projected in the media. Much more is likely to come to light by technical experts on
the basis of primarily two ongoing inquiries by US and Canadian Coast Guards
respectively.
The author is a retired Vice Admiral of Pakistan Navy’s Submarine Service, currently serving as Director General National Institute of Maritime Affairs. He can be approached at pstodgima@bahria.edu.pk