Operators unload parts salvaged from Titan on June 28 in San Juan de Newfoundland, Canada. DAVID HISCOCK (Portal)
OceanGate, the company that managed the tourist submersible Titan, whose implosion killed all five occupants during a dive into the Titanic wreck two weeks ago, has halted all exploration and commercial operations, according to its website. The Washington-based company did not provide any more details than the red banner warning of the end of its activities. OceanGate planned to conduct two “reconnaissance missions” to the wreckage of the 1912 ocean liner on its maiden voyage in June 2024, while its offer (“We invite you to join us on an adventure on the high seas, exploring 95% of the rarely seen seabed to explore.” “Through Human Eyes to Explore the Wreck of the Titanic in 2023”) is frozen in a historical present.
Under the unified direction of the US Coast Guard and with the participation of Canada’s Transportation Security Administration and observers from France and the United Kingdom – the countries of origin of four of the victims – the ongoing investigation is attempting to determine the cause of the implosion of the submersible, from which debris and others may have been lost human remains have been recovered from the seabed at a depth of 3,800 meters. The bodies of the passengers disintegrated as a result of the implosion caused by the external pressure of the cabin.
The company, which according to Stockton Rush, its CEO and pilot of the fatal dive, wanted to become a kind of underwater SpaceX – in a nod to the company Elon Musk that popularized space travel – has been the subject of criticism and repeated warnings about the lack of homologation of safety certifications and fuels the debate about the excessive risks of the new forms of extreme or adventure tourism. The Titan, a cylinder of titanium and carbon fiber just 6.5 meters long, began its dive to the wreckage of the Titanic on Sunday, June 18, in North Atlantic waters some 700 kilometers southwest of Newfoundland, Canada. where the device was transported from a mother ship to the high seas. The descent and return to the surface should take seven hours.
Less than two hours into the dive, contact with the vessel was lost, prompting a colossal rescue operation that was accompanied by intense media coverage. Four days later, the discovery of remains of material on the seabed just 500 meters from Titanic’s bow confirmed the worst forecasts, as the condition of the parts indicated an implosion or violent disintegration of the cabin. The five occupants – the aforementioned Stockton, a British explorer, a French navigator specializing in Titanic dives, and a British-Pakistani father and son – were presumed dead on the spot. The Coast Guard announced a few days later that the parts found and recovered by underwater robots may have been human remains.
While we wait to hear the conclusions of the investigation, which could take months due to the complexity of the seabed and the search itself, the most plausible hypothesis about what happened is the one the US Navy put forward on Sunday, April 18. December, has detected an anomaly consistent with the possibility of an implosion. Therefore, the Titan would have disintegrated at the beginning of her voyage, although the search operation continued for four days and resulted in a very expensive ransom, the bill for which it is still not clear who should pay.
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