The U.S. Coast Guard has released new images showing debris from the Titanthe experimental submersible that disappeared during a dive to the wreck of the Titanic in June 2023
Since Monday, the coast guard has begun to provide some elements of the investigation into its implosion.
The investigation is “aimed at identifying any evidence of material errors (in construction or design) that could have caused the accident, in order to draw appropriate recommendations and prevent similar accidents from happening again,” the Coast Guard wrote in a press kit.
They held a conference in Charleston, South Carolina, on the eve of the opening of two weeks of public hearings by their commission of inquiry in a court in the southeastern state.
These are technical hearings and not a criminal or civil trial.
On Monday, an engineer fired from OceanGate in 2019, Tony Nissen, testified that he was under pressure from the company’s boss, Stockton Rush, to lie and claim the submersible was completely safe despite worrying tests.
“It’ll be OK,” Stockton Rush reportedly told him about the hull’s strength.
In the wake of the accident, a controversy broke out over possible negligence on the part of OceanGate Expeditions, noted by engineer Nissen, particularly regarding the porthole which technically could not withstand such depths.
The small 6.5-meter-long submersible, from the American company OceanGate Expeditions, had dived on June 18, 2023 to observe the wreck of the Titanic and was due to resurface seven hours later, but contact was lost less than two hours after its departure.
A huge, highly publicized rescue operation was launched to save the five passengers of the craft, which was supposed to have oxygen reserves for about four days. But the submersible was destroyed shortly after its dive by a “catastrophic implosion” killing five people instantly, including 77-year-old French scientist Pierre-Henri Nargeolet, nicknamed “Mr. Titanic.”
The other people who died 400 miles off Canada were OceanGate Expeditions boss Stockton Rush, 61, Pakistani-British businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son Suleman, and a 68-year-old British explorer, Hamish Harding.
“Presumed human remains” were discovered a few days later among the debris of the Titanat a depth of 4000 meters and 500 meters from the Titanicaccording to the US Coast Guard, which then investigated the extraordinary accident for 15 months.