The Titan submersible imploded on June 18, 2023. The sub was ninety minutes into its journey down to tour the wreckage of HMS Titanic. All aboard were killed instantly, including the CEO of Oceangate, Stockton Rush, who was piloting.
In a disturbing new clip from the upcoming BBC documentary Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster, footage from the support ship monitoring Titan from above shows the team reacting to a loud noise. Rush's wife, part of the support crew, says calmly, "What was that bang?" Any concerns she might have had were immediately allayed when they received a text message, Titan's only method of communication, indicating that the crew had dropped weights.
Unfortunately, according to the United States Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation, the sound was of the Titan imploding — the message just took longer to arrive than the sound. An underwater audio recording by NOAA that was believed to be the Titan had previously been released, but this clip is chilling.
The Coast Guard investigation also pinpointed when the sub began operating on borrowed time. A loud bang was heard on the craft's 80th dive in 2022, which Stockton Rush insisted was nothing. The sound was the ill-conceived carbon fiber composite hull starting to delaminate. The layers were coming apart, and "this was the beginning of the end and everyone that stepped on board the Titan after dive eighty was risking their life," according to Coast Guard Lieutenant Katie Williams.
Previously:
• OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush in 2022: 'I don't think it's very dangerous'
• James Cameron explains why the entire submersible search was a 'prolonged nightmarish charade'
• One of the many terrible things about the Titan submersible is the bizarre seating arrangement
