Faulty Engineering Caused Titan Submersible Implosion That Killed 5 In 2023, Report Finds

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), an independent US government investigative agency that probes civil transportation accidents, on Wednesday released the final report on the cause of the Titan submersible's implosion that killed all five people on board in June 2023.

The Titan was owned by OceanGate, a private company based in Washington state. It disappeared while on the way to the Titanic, which led to a search that grabbed massive attention.

The latest report revealed that OceanGate's inadequate engineering process and failure to test the Titan submersible's strength and durability led to the implosion. The carbon fibre hull also showed evidence of imperfections, including wrinkles, porosity and voids, which weakened its structure.

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"We found that the Titan pressure vessel likely sustained damage after it surfaced at the end of dive 80 in the form of one or more delaminations, which weakened the pressure vessel," the report read. With delamination, the agency meant that the layers of material started to come apart inside the carbon fibre hull.

The report noted that OceanGate did not address potential issues before the fatal dive in which OceanGate's founder and CEO, Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, French maritime expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood, died.

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"We determined that the probable cause of the hull failure and implosion... was OceanGate's inadequate engineering process, which failed to establish the actual strength and durability of the Titan pressure vessel and resulted in the company operating a carbon fiber composite vessel that sustained delamination damage... resulting in a damaged internal structure that subsequently led to a local buckling failure of the pressure vessel," the report added.

The tragic incident also highlighted gaps in domestic and international regulatory frameworks for submersible operations and vessels of novel design.

The NTSB report led to 17 safety recommendations, including implementing regulations for submersible vessels and improving coordination among federal agencies.

In August, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) also released a report which found that the tragedy was preventable and that flawed experimental design and ignored safety warnings were responsible.