He June 18, 2023the submersible Titanof the company OceangateHe impliated killing his five occupants while descending towards the remains of the Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean. This Tuesday, the Maritime Board (MBI) of the United States Coast Guard He has published a 300 -page investigation in which he analyzes everything that led to the tragedy, with two main conclusions: This could have been avoided And the main person in charge of the accident was one of the victims, Stockton RushCEO of Oceangate.
When that day contact with the Titan was lost, at 3:17 p.m. in Spain, a Rescue operation that lasted four more days, until Find the submersible remains on June 22. The four people who accompanied Rush in the thirteenth immersion made by the Titan, 6.7 meters long, until the Titanic had paid $ 250,000 for an expedition that had to last eight hours. The report gives the responses of Why the fatal outcome took place.
The main causes of the implosion of the Titan
To get to the ‘Loss of structural integrity of the submersible carbon fiber helmet’ which caused the implosion of the Titan, many took place years ofwrong decisions and Toxic behaviors. The MBI indicates as main causal factors:
- A structural design and engineering process defective.
- Absence of analysis of Helmet life.
- A real -time monitoring system (RTM) To evaluate the helmet whose data were not analyzed in detail.
- Keep using it After serious incidents and not investigating them enough.
- Defects in the design and construction of the helmet.
- Toxic security culture that threatened to say goodbye to those who put objections.
- Lack of preventive maintenance and helmet protection in periods of inactivity.
- Logistic and financial decisions that committed their integrity.
Thus, corroborating information that has transcended after the Titan disaster, the MBI reports that Oceangate used for years ‘Intimidation tactics’ To avoid regulatory supervision, it maintained a work environment ‘toxic’ And its security culture was ‘critically defective’.
The submersible itself was a vehicle ‘Not documented, not registered, without certification and without classification’ And Rush achieved ‘Ignore vital inspections, data analysis and preventive maintenance procedures’.
The result was a ‘Catastrophic event’ caused by water pressure 347 kg per cm² that broke the helmet of Carbon fiber and titanium of Titan and crushed its five occupants in a flash.
The Maritime Board notes that, Rush, had survived, would have been processed by justice. ‘This maritime sinister and the loss of five lives could be avoided’he pointed out Jason Neubauerresponsible for the investigation.
Rush, a toxic CEO that despised security and whose submersibles had had numerous problems
The report portrays the Toxic character of the CEO and collect numerous stories that reflect its Systematic contempt for security. For example, the one that took place in 2016when Cyclops ian anterior submersible from Oceangate, was off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusettsto explore the remains of Andrea Dorialocated 77 meters deep.
Rush, who was a pilot, left the cyclops and ‘Trapped under the bow of Andrea Doria’without being able to free it. According to the report, then ‘He had a nervous breakdown and refused to allow (the co -pilot) to help solve the situation.’. When a mission specialist suggested that Rush gave command to the co -pilot, he declared that the command was ‘released to him’. The command was a simple video game controller Logitech F710 slightly modified, also used in the Titan. Once he had it, the co -pilot managed to release the cyclops and from the wreck.
Something similar happened with the Titan A year before the tragedy. The submersible was being piloted ‘For the expert at Titanicwhich was not an oceangate employee or qualified pilot ‘. Upon reaching the wreck, he approached too much and one of his legs was ‘Physically tangled in the Titanic’. He managed to free himself, but the report highlights the ‘absence of a Risk Mitigation Plan before a tangle at that depth ‘, as well as the’ lack of a Support or second submersible rov that could help free the Titan if the situation had been more serious. ‘
In 2021in another descent to Titanic, ‘several critical team failures occurred, including one in the ballast system engineswhich forced to release the tray with pesos to start the ascent ‘. But Rush did not want to release the entire tray because that could affect future missions, since ‘There were no spare trays’. His plan was that the submarine ‘descended back to the bottom of the ocean and stay there up to 24 hoursuntil the sacrifice anodes deteriorate and release the emergency weights’.
This is a decision that corresponded to the director of Mission, to whom Rush had no problem disallowing. His’ negative to comply with the orders of the Mission Director put the titan crew In a dangerous situation at an extreme depth of approximately 3,800 meters’explains the report. In the end, the submarine managed to release part of the ballast without losing the entire tray and ascended safely, but the incident demonstrated ‘a dangerous contempt for the authority of the director of Mission and a disposition to operate the in -depth titan with multiple technical failures’.
On another occasion, Rush ordered that they be used ‘Only four bolts’ to hold the titan of titanio dome, of 1,600 kgalthough it was designed to use 18. He did it because ‘I took less time’. Its engineering director expressed concern, but ignored him. This decision led to An accident in 2021: While the titan was raised to the deck of a ship, The bolts broke and the huge dome fell on the submersible launch platform.
Rush had financial difficultieswhich probably influenced their decisions. Another way in which Oceangate wanted to save money was storing the outdoor titan during winter, in Canada, which ‘He presented the helmet to extreme thermal fluctuations that committed their integrity’.
MBI determines that Probable failure point of the helmet was The adhesive union between the front dome of the titan and the ring, also of titanium, which linked it to the central body of carbon fiberor the latter, near the front end of the Titan. When the helmet yielded, the death of the five crew was ‘immediate’.
At that time, the ‘Communications and Monitoring Team of the Titan aboard the Polar Prince’ heard a ‘bang’ from the surface of the ocean, which the investigation later correlated with the Implosion of the Titan.