Debris and human remains from the Titanic have been recovered. Here are 9 questions we don’t have the answers to yet.
• Also read: Submarine implosion: Still promoting a visit to the wreck of the Titanic
• Also read: “Supposed Human Remains” found in wreckage of Titan
• Also read: IN PICTURES | Debris from the Titan was brought to the surface
The five-day search for the Titan submersible ended on June 22 when debris was discovered near the wreck of the Titanic.
Stockton Rush, CEO and founder of OceanGate, British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, famous French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman embarked on the trip of a lifetime on June 18 and traveled some 13,000 feet down the surface of the Atlantic Ocean to view the wreck of the famous ship.
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However, the five explorers met a fate similar to that of the Titanic.
On June 28, officials said debris and what is believed to be human remains had been recovered from the seabed where the deadly implosion took place.
Even though we know the fate of the submersible, some questions still remain unanswered.
What caused the submarine to implode?
Rear Admiral Mauger told reporters the discovery of the wreckage revealed the submarine and its occupants died in a “catastrophic implosion”.
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“After consultation with guidance experts, the debris is consistent with the loss of the hyperbaric chamber,” he told The Independent newspaper in an interview.
An underwater implosion means that the ship suddenly and violently contracts in on itself under intense pressure from the depths of the ocean.
The Independent reports that it’s unclear exactly where the implosion took place, but the trip to the wreck was expected to take around two hours and the ship lost contact around an hour and 45 minutes later.
The cause of the implosion is still unclear at this time, but several safety issues with the Titan submersible have been addressed and potential problems with the submarine have been detailed.
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Is the cheap design to blame?
In addition to the choice of materials, questions were also asked about the prefabricated elements used to assemble the submarine, reports The Independent.
In a November interview, OceanGate CEO Rush boasted that the submarine was operated with a video game remote and its components were purchased by Camping World.
Recall that the company’s former Director of Marine Operations, David Lochridge, accused OceanGate of ignoring its safety concerns about Titan.
Mr. Lochridge began working with OceanGate in 2015 and was tasked with conducting a final security review of Titan.
In his lawsuit, Mr. Lochridge had raised “critical safety concerns” about the submarine’s “experimental and untested design.” The man was then released.
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Why was the rubble so big?
Deep-sea robots brought debris from Titan to the surface, reports The Independent.
Although the images of the pieces recovered from the seabed prompted reactions from many, Arun Bansil, a physics professor at Northeastern University, said the debris was consistent with events.
“Titan’s initial failure would have been at its weakest points, such as hull defects,” he explained in an interview with The Independent. “However, once a crack opens, large parts of the hull are no longer subjected to large forces and remain more or less intact.”
How did authorities recover “believed human remains”?
The US Coast Guard had previously said that the depth of the debris and the nature of the passenger deaths made it unlikely that any human remains would be recovered, The Independent said.
However, on June 28, authorities announced that they had recovered “believed human remains” from the seabed. Medical professionals will now conduct a formal analysis to confirm that the remains are indeed human.
Why is OceanGate still announcing visits?
More than ten days after the tragedy and a week after its confirmation, the OceanGate website still lists available dates for two eight-day Titanic observation expeditions next year.
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The company’s future is uncertain, The Independent reports, as industry experts told the New York Post that all planned Titanic expeditions have been cancelled.
If the submarine wasn’t safe, why could it take tourists on expeditions?
Because Polar Prince and Titan operated in international waters, they were not subject to any country’s regulations, including a US law requiring passenger submersibles to be registered with the Coast Guard.
What were the knocking noises?
On June 20, buoys registered knocking noises from the search area, indicating that survivors could still be found.
“We do not know the source of this noise, but we have shared this information with naval experts,” US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger told The Independent at the time.
The noise was spotted at 2 a.m. local time by a Canadian P-3 aircraft.
Officials admitted the rumors were “inconclusive”. Some experts suspect the knocking sound was the sound of debris from Titanic or Titan at sea.
The Coast Guard admitted on June 23 that the US Navy had detected sounds suggestive of an implosion or explosion sometime after Titan disappeared on June 18 and before rescue efforts began the following day. Officials said the information had not been released at the time because it was not final.
Why was so much money and effort put into the research when the United States knew it had already imploded?
One of the biggest questions that remains is why US officials have not disclosed that US Navy equipment picked up the sound of the implosion and why so much money and effort was put into the search and rescue operation when they knew it was in vain.
Although the Navy shared the information with the US Coast Guard, which was conducting the search, the information was not released during the operation, reports The Independent.
The US Coast Guard said United Command, the US Navy and the Canadian Coast Guard decided not to release information about the acoustic anomaly because they did not want to disrupt the search and rescue mission.
Will OceanGate face legal action?
Before embarking on the underwater adventure, the five passengers had signed a liability waiver, accepting that doing so could result in death.
The waiver may not protect OceanGate from potential lawsuits from victims’ families.
“If it can be determined that the implosion was caused by failure of the sub’s mechanics or engineering, the responsible party may be held liable even if a waiver was signed,” said Timothy E Allen, attorney and former Secret Service agent at of the newspaper The Independent.