A year after an experimental submersible exploded en route to the Titanic, questions remain with no immediate answers.
Tuesday marks one year since Titan disappeared en route to the historic crash site. After a five-day search that attracted worldwide attention, officials said the ship was destroyed and all five people on board were killed.
US Coast Guard quickly convened a high-level investigation into what happened. Concerns leading to the investigation included the Titan’s unconventional design and its creator’s decision to forego standard independent testing.
A look at the anniversary of the Titan tragedy:
The investigation is taking longer than expected
Coast Guard officials said in a statement last week that they would not be ready to release the results of the investigation by the anniversary. According to them, public hearings to discuss the results will take place no earlier than in two months.
Investigators are “working closely with our domestic and international partners to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the incident,” said Maritime Investigation Board Chairman Jason Neubauer, describing the investigation as a “complex and ongoing effort.”
Titan was owned by OceanGate, which suspended operations in July last year shortly after the tragedy. OceanGate declined to comment.
Titan made its last dive on June 18, 2023, Sunday morning, and lost contact with its support vessel about two hours later. When the delay was reported later that day, rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to the area, about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said Monday there are other submersibles operating in Canadian waters, some of which are not registered in any country.
In addition to OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush, the blast killed two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Narjolet.
Remembering those who died
David Concannon, a former OceanGate adviser, said he will mark the anniversary privately with a group of people who have been involved with the company or the submersible’s expeditions over the years, including scientists, volunteers and mission specialists.
Harding and Nargeolet were members of the Explorers Club, a professional society dedicated to research, exploration and resource conservation.
“Then, as now, it affected us very deeply on a personal level,” group president Richard Garriott said in an interview last week.
Garriott said a commemoration of Titan’s victims would be held this week in Portugal at the annual Global Exploration Summit.
Tragedy won’t stop deep sea exploration
The Georgia company that owns the rights to salvage the Titanic plans to visit the sunken ocean liner in July using remotely operated vehicles, and an Ohio real estate billionaire said he is planning a trip to the wreck in a two-person submersible in the United States. 2026.
Several deep-sea explorers told The Associated Press that the Titan disaster has shaken the global research community, but it remains committed to continuing its mission to expand scientific understanding of the ocean.
Garriott believes the world is experiencing a new golden age of undersea exploration thanks to technological advances that have opened up boundaries and provided new tools to more closely study places already visited. The tragedy on Titan hasn’t tarnished that, he said.
“Progress continues,” he said. “I actually feel very comfortable and confident that we can continue now.”
Veteran deep sea explorer Kathy Croff Bell said the Titan explosion reinforced the importance of following industry standards and conducting rigorous testing. But in the industry as a whole, “the safety reputation in this area has been very good for several decades,” said Bell, president of the nonprofit Ocean Discovery League.