Titan submarine: learn what are the next steps of the investigation

The search for the Titan submersible that captivated the world came to an abrupt and grim end this week after fragments of the vessel were detected on the ocean floor near the Titanic. The discovery prompted the US Coast Guard to announce that the vessel likely imploded, killing all five passengers on board.

But questions remain about what exactly happened to the submersible, whether recovery of the bodies or equipment is possible and what consequences the disaster could have for OceanGate, the company that runs the tour to observe the Titanic off the coast of Canada.

Here’s what you need to know about next steps for Titan and the investigation into what happened.

What’s next in the quest?

The multinational rescue effort has now turned into a recovery mission, with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) scouring the ocean floor for debris from the deadly implosion.

Only one remotely operated vehicle has managed to reach the immense depths where the remnants of the Titanic and the submersible’s debris field lie: the Odysseus 6, operated by Pelagic Research Services.

The equipment discovered debris from the submersible Titan about 485 meters from the wreckage of the Titanic on Thursday (22), according to the US Coast Guard. The wreckage was consistent with the disastrous loss of the 20-foot-long vessel’s pressure chamber, the Coast Guard said. The loss would have resulted in an almost instantaneous internal collapse of the vessel, which was under immense pressure in the depths of the ocean.

The rover encountered a total of “five different large pieces of debris” from the Titan, according to Paul Hankins, director of salvage operations and ocean engineering for the US Navy. Authorities located the submersible’s nose cone and one end of its pressure hulls in a large debris field. The other end of the pressure hull was found in a second, smaller debris field. Authorities are working to map the area.

“What they would do now is go back to that location and, like cracker crumbs, try to find a trail of where that would lead,” said Tom Maddox, CEO of Underwater Forensic Investigators, who participated in an expedition to the Titanic in 2005.

He added that the pieces of debris could still be “slightly buoyant” and could be carried away by ocean currents. “So the big project now is going to be trying to collect those pieces,” he said. “They will mark them, indicate where they were and make a map of where these pieces were found.”

Odysseus 6 began a second mission to the site on Friday (23), according to Pelagic Research Services. A company spokesperson told CNN that the rover will continue to search for parts of the submersible and map the wreck locations. The remains of the sub are likely too heavy for the Pelagic ROV to lift alone, so any recovery missions will be done alongside Deep Energy, another company, which will use rigged cables to pull out any pieces of the wrecked vessel.

The crew of search and rescue vessels gathered in the Atlantic begins to disperse. The Navy is removing a deep-ocean salvage system that landed in St. John’s on Wednesday, a defense official told the CNN on Friday. And the Polar Prince, Titan’s support vessel, departed the Titanic wreck area on Friday.

Can the bodies of passengers be recovered?

Five passengers were aboard the Titan when it imploded: the Pakistani businessman and his son, Shahzada and Suleman Dawood; British businessman Hamish Harding; French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet; and Stockton Rush, the vessel’s pilot and CEO of the vessel’s operator, OceanGate Expeditions.

All five are presumed dead after the submersible’s “catastrophic implosion,” according to the US Coast Guard. But it’s not clear if any remains can be recovered.

On Friday, Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger said, “I don’t have an answer for the outlook at this point” when asked about recovering remains. He noted the “incredibly unforgiving environment” in the ocean depths near the Titanic wreck and the intense pressure down there.

A medical expert said the implosion was unlikely to leave any salvageable remnants.

“There would be virtually nothing,” Aileen Marty, a disaster medicine specialist at Florida International University, told CNN. “It’s very unlikely that they would find anything human tissue there.”

Tributes for the five crew arrived after the Coast Guard announced they were presumed dead. All five shared “a distinct spirit of adventure,” OceanGate said in a statement.

When exactly did the Titan implode?

It’s not clear when or where exactly the submersible imploded. Mauger said on Thursday it would take time to establish a specific timeline of events in the “incredibly complex” disaster.

The expedition departed Newfoundland, Canada, on June 16 on Polar Prince, Titan’s support ship. The ship took participants to the site of the sinking of the Titanic, about 560 km off the coast of Newfoundland. On Sunday, June 18, the five passengers began their descent to the Titanic in the submersible, launched from the support vessel, which remained on the surface.

They started the dive around 9 am and were due to return at 6:10 pm, according to Miawpukek Maritime Horizon Services, co-owner of Polar Prince. But the group last communicated with the surface at 11:47 am. Authorities were notified at 6:35 pm and rescue operations began, according to the Maritime Horizon.

The Navy detected a sound “consistent” with an implosion on Sunday, but it was determined to be “not definitive”. Authorities searched for the submersible in hopes that the vessel was still intact and its occupants alive.

On Tuesday (20), authorities detected “crashing noises” underwater, raising hope that the submersible, equipped with 96 hours of oxygen, could still be intact and its passengers alive.

But by Thursday afternoon, authorities determined the sub had imploded and said there didn’t appear to be a connection between the noises and the wreckage.

Who will investigate the incident?

US and Canadian authorities have announced investigations into the incident.

The US Coast Guard and Transportation Safety Board of Canada announced the start of investigations on Friday, although it’s unclear whether the agencies are conducting separate examinations or working together on a single case.

“The Transport Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is initiating an investigation into the fatal occurrence involving the Canadian-flagged ship Polar Prince and the privately operated submersible Titan,” the agency said in a statement.

The agency is traveling with a team to St. John’s and Labrador to conduct the investigation.

The US Coast Guard would also investigate the incident, according to a Twitter post from the National Transportation Safety Board.

A Coast Guard official said on Thursday that authorities were discussing how an investigation would play out since the implosion took place in international waters.

Experts suggested that any investigation would take into account the submersible’s design, the materials used to build it, and Rush and OceanGate’s role in the deadly disaster.

What’s next for OceanGate?

The disaster cast a scrutiny on OceanGate, the Titan’s operator. The company, which sold its Titanic voyages for $250,000 per passenger, is no stranger to criticism.

In recent years, at least two OceanGate employees have expressed concern about the submersible’s carbon fiber hull. One employee, OceanGate’s former director of marine operations David Lochridge, claimed in a court filing that he was wrongfully fired in 2018 for raising concerns about Titan’s safety and testing. The case was settled out of court.

And William Kohnen, chairman of the Marine Technology Society’s manned underwater vehicles committee, told CNN on Friday that it had raised its own concerns with CEO Rush and said the vessel’s unique carbon fiber hull deserved “extra special attention”. He said a community of submersible experts issued a letter to Rush suggesting he might be moving too fast and ignoring safety regulations.

It is unclear whether OceanGate will continue operations after the catastrophe. In a statement about the deaths, the company said: “This is an extremely sad time for our dedicated employees who are exhausted and grieving deeply over this loss.”

OceanGate has faced a series of mechanical problems and adverse weather conditions that have forced it to cancel or postpone trips in recent years, according to court filings.

In a 2019 blog post, the company defended its choice not to have its vessel “rated” or certified by any safety organization. The blog said that most maritime operations “require chartered vessels to be ‘classified’ by an independent group such as the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), DNV/GL, Lloyd’s Register or one of many others”.

But Titan is not ranked by any independent groups, according to the blog post, in part because ranking innovative projects often requires a multi-year approval process, which interferes with rapid innovation. Furthermore, “classification is not sufficient to guarantee security” by itself, the company’s blog post said.

In addition, the vessel operated in international waters, which allowed it to circumvent national regulations.

Rush, the company’s founder and CEO and one of the passengers who died in the implosion, has previously commented on breaking rules in pursuit of innovation.

“At some point, security is pure waste,” Rush told journalist David Pogue in an interview last year. “I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed. Don’t get in your car. Do not do anything.”

(With information from Jessie Yeung, Celina Tebor and Paul P. Murphy of CNN)