"Disastrous Risk Feared"... Titanic Tourist Submarine Missing, Was It Human Error?

Former Senior Official Warned of "Risk" 5 Years Ago

A submersible that went missing while descending into the deep sea to view the wreckage of the passenger ship Titanic, which sank in 1912, has been found to have had safety issues raised since the past.

According to CNBC on the 20th (local time), a senior employee of OceanGate Expeditions (OceanGate), the operator of the missing deep-sea submersible Titan, warned in a 2018 lawsuit with the company that failing to properly test the submersible could "put passengers in serious danger."

David Lochridge, former Director of Marine Operations at OceanGate, stated in documents submitted to the U.S. District Court in Seattle, "I do not agree with the company's position of sending this submersible (to the deep sea) without conducting non-destructive testing." Non-destructive testing refers to inspecting a product externally without dismantling or damaging it to check for internal defects.

Experts Warned Since the Past: "OceanGate Submersible Could Face Catastrophic Problems"

Titanic exploration submersible 'Titan'.
[Image source=OceanGate Expeditions]

Industry and academic experts have also been raising safety concerns about OceanGate’s submersible for some time. The New York Times (NYT) obtained and reported on a letter sent in 2018 to OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush by over 30 marine scientists and executives from other submersible companies.

They sent the letter under the name of the Marine Technology Society (MTS) Manned Submersible Committee, warning that OceanGate’s submersible "could face catastrophic problems." They also explicitly stated that they "unanimously express concern" about OceanGate’s submersible development.

The company portrayed the Titan submersible as meeting safety standards of risk assessment agencies. However, experts pointed out that since there was no actual plan to request evaluation from those agencies, such claims were "misleading."

The Titanic ship as revealed in 2019. [Image source=EPA Yonhap News]

Will Cohen, Chair of the MTS Manned Submersible Committee, told the NYT in an interview, "The submersible industry had serious concerns about building submersibles for deep-sea exploration without following safety guidelines," adding, "After sending the letter, I spoke with CEO Rush, who responded that 'regulations stifle innovation.'"

Additionally, David Concannon, OceanGate’s legal and operations advisor, revealed in written materials submitted last year to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia that "there was a battery issue with the submersible during the first dive to the Titanic."

U.S. Coast Guard: "Mobilizing All Available Resources for Search"

Meanwhile, the Titan disappeared on the 18th while heading to view the Titanic wreckage located about 4,000 meters below the Atlantic Ocean. U.S. authorities stated that the missing location is approximately 1,450 km east of Cape Cod, a beach near Boston, Massachusetts. It is understood that five people were aboard the submersible, including British businessman and adventurer Hamish Harding.

OceanGate has been selling a tourism package to view the Titanic wreckage, and the cost of this eight-day package is reportedly $250,000 (about 340 million KRW) per person.

The U.S. Coast Guard stated that they are doing their best in the search for the Titan. John Mauger, the Coast Guard officer in charge of the search mission, told ABC’s Good Morning America, "We are mobilizing all available resources together with the U.S. Navy, Canadian Navy, Canadian Coast Guard, and private companies."