On September 17, 2024, new chilling evidence was revealed to the public about the Titan submersible as well as a court case against OceanGate, the company responsible for the Titan. The submersible, which offered low-price tourist visits to the wreck of The Titanic, was revealed to have skirted around several safety regulations, and its destruction was far more painful and devastating to those abord than previously thought.
On June 18th, 2023, the Titan (previously called the Cyclops 2) went on a journey down to the wreckage with five people aboard but imploded 500 miles on its way down. Originally, this submarine was believed to be missing as communications with the Polar Prince were cut off; its last message to the ship was “All good here,” which has horrified people.
The days that followed its disappearance, the U.S. Coast Guard put everything it could into finding this submarine, as it was believed to have lost all control and was sitting at the bottom of the ocean, running out of air. On June 22, at 11:48 am, the coast guard discovered a debris field that consisted of titan, making this expedition over. This submarine had Stockton Rush, the co-founder of OceanGate, Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Shahzada Dawood, and Superman Dawood aboard.
The Titanic was a British passenger ship that sank on April 14 on its way to New York from Southampton, England. About 1,517 people died, and the wreck of the ocean liner has sparked fascination even 112 years after its sinking. There are museums dedicated to learning about the ship’s history as well as providing artifacts that have been retrieved from the ship or survivors. The Titanic sank about 2.4 miles (12,600 feet) below the surface of the North Atlantic.
The Titan has mostly been forgotten by the public since this catastrophe event happened last year, but a court case against OceanGate as well as new evidence revealed to the public about what the debris field looked like.
The new evidence the U.S. coast guard revealed was a video or pictures containing the debris field. It showed the outer shell of the submarine as well as the front cover of it. Viewers were shocked and some horrified with what they were seeing; they were seeing what remained of the Titan and the crew—not bodies but whatever was crammed into the crevices of the Titan submersible.
This wasn’t the only thing that people were invested in; the recent court case had people heavily invested even more. The family of Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French explorer and a Titanic expert, is suing OceanGate and many other companies in Washington that were involved with the sub for fifty million dollars. They say that this disaster was because of the OceanGate sub operator’s gross avoidance with this sub.
This case says that Janicki Industries is the defendant in this case because they designed, engineered, and manufactured the Titan submersible and didn’t bother to check and review the Titan, which is the cause of this freak accident. As of right now, Janicki Industries has not commented on anything and also has no desire to move this case forward anymore.
This court case isn’t the only thing going on today; the coast guard started to hear testimonies from different people about this accident. This is a two-week hearing and is still going on right now. Some of the testimonies are from Guillermo Sohnlein, the co-founder of OceanGate; Roy Thomas, who worked at the American Bureau of Shipping and was involved with the Titan; Phil Brooks, who was the former OceanGate engineering director; and many more people that either were involved with this vessel or worked at OceanGate. If you want more information about the testimony, go to the WashingtonPost.com.
People still try to find out what went wrong with this accident, how it could have been prevented, or if something else was responsible for the incident, but regardless, it happened, and now people are trying to prevent something like this from ever happening again. The Titanic is a resting site and a graveyard, not a museum, and should be left alone and not seen ever again.
