titan trip duration

Patents, lawsuits, safety concerns — then tragedy. A timeline of OceanGate's Titan sub.

A mission to explore the remains of the Titanic went horribly awry on June 18, riveting the world as search crews raced against time to find a submersible that vanished during an attempted dive to the ocean floor, where paying passengers and Stockton Rush III, founder of the submersible company OceanGate, could view the Titanic wreckage.

On Thursday the U.S. Coast Guard announced pieces of the submersible were found scattered across a debris field a third of a mile from the Titanic . OceanGate issued a statement saying, "We grieve the loss of life" of those aboard.

Also aboard the vessel were French explorer Paul-Henry Nargeolet, British explorer and jet dealer Hamish Harding and Shahzada Dawood of a prominent Pakistani family and his son Suleman.

Records show the tragedy was preceded by a long path toward developing a craft that would reach the ocean depths where the Titanic rests. They also show a history of safety concerns .

Retrace the development of OceanGate, a Bahamian-registered corporation, and its submersibles, and the search for the missing Titan, with this timeline.

2009: OceanGate is founded

A provider of manned deep-sea submersibles, OceanGate starts operations on the West Coast, the company has stated in news releases. Its founder is Stockton Rush III, who graduated from Princeton University with a BSE in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical engineering in 1984 and obtained an MBA at the University of California Berkeley's Haas School of Business in 1989, according to his biography on OceanGate’s website.

February 2012: OceanGate expands to Florida and the Caribbean

It's registered as a corporation in Miami, with Guillermo Sohnlein as president and Rush as secretary. Documents state the company incorporated in Washington State in Dec. 2011.

May 2013: Collaboration announced with University of Washington

OceanGate says it will collaborate with the school's Applied Physics Lab on Project Cyclops I, a new 3000-meter 5-person submersible. (The University clarified on June 23 that they only completed about $650,000 worth of work on a $5 million research collaborative agreement before parting ways. The collaboration resulted in a steel-hulled vessel that can only travel to a depth of 500 meters, the University stated.)

June 2013: Studies invasive fish

OceanGate teams up with Nova Southeastern University to study invasive lionfish in Florida.

August 2013: Submersible feasibility study concludes

OceanGate announces University of Washington completes design feasibility study for hull design for Cyclops I submersible.

June 2015: Report published on submersible

Rush and science and technology director Erika Montague, publish a report on Cyclops I with Peter Brodsky, an engineer at the University of Washington. 

November 2015: Some of the earliest paying customers sign up for trip

Marc and Sharon Hagle sign a contract and pay $10,000 deposits to OceanGate to participate in an expedition to the Titanic. 

June 2016: OceanGate submersible dives to wreck

One of the company's submersibles dives over the wreck of the Andrea Doria off Nantucket.

March 2017: OceanGate announces Titanic dive

Company announces it will conduct the first manned submersible dives to Titanic since 2005, and that private citizens may join the expedition as mission specialists for $105,129 each.

Mid-2017: Refund or not?

The Hagles begin pondering whether to ask OceanGate for a refund of their deposit. Rush visits their home to reassure them.

August 2017: One step completed

OceanGate completes assembly of core pressure vessel, bonding two titanium rings to the ends of a 56-inch wide, 100-inch-long carbon-fiber cylinder.

January 2018: Launch and recovery testing

OceanGate tweets it successfully tested the launch and recovery platform of Cyclops 2.

February 2018: Cyclops 2 becomes Titan

Engineering team hands over Cyclops 2 to operations team, renames submersible vessel.

The Hagles wire OceanGate an additional $190,258 to pay for their planned Titan expedition. 

March 2018: Safety concerns raised

A trade group, the Marine Technology Society, sends a letter to OceanGate — Reported by the New York Times in June 2023 — to express unanimous concern regarding development of the Titan submersible and its planned Titanic Expedition.

April 2018: Expedition canceled

Hagles say OceanGate cancels June 2-9, 2018 expedition and reschedules it to July 2019.

July 2018: Lawsuit emerges

OceanGate sues former director of marine operations David Lochridge and his wife, Carole Reid Lochridge in Washington state .

August 2018: Safety concerns

Lochridges file a counterclaim in the lawsuit, alleging a series of safety concerns about the Titan submersible .

November 2018: Case dismissed

Parties settle in the OceanGate v. Lochridge case.

December 2018: Another milestone

CBS This Morning publishes a story saying Rush reached a depth of 13,000 feet during a dive in the Titan in the Bahamas, a key milestone in his plan to dive to the Titanic in 2019.

April 2019: A new patent

U.S. Patent Office assigns OceanGate a patent for systems to recover objects in aquatic environments.

June 2019: Expedition delay

OceanGate delays 2019 Titanic expedition, says it will take place in June 2020.

October 2019: Expedition canceled

Hagles receive email saying OceanGate cancels 2020 expedition.

January 2020: Raising money

OceanGate announces it has raised $18 million in equity financing, which it will use to expand its fleet of deep-sea submersibles to set the stage for 2021 dives to the Titanic.

February 2020: NASA to partner

NASA announces it will partner with OceanGate to develop and manufacture new carbon fiber pressure vessels. (NASA told USA TODAY on June 23 that it "consulted on materials and manufacturing processes for the submersible." Lance Davis, acting news chief for the Marshall Space Flight Center, said the agency "did not conduct testing and manufacturing via its workforce or facilities, which were done elsewhere by OceanGate.")

November 2020: Tourist dives to start

Dozens of international news stories say OceanGate will start its first tourist dives to the Titanic in 2021.

March 2021: Astronaut joins expedition

OceanGate and NASA astronaut and physician Dr. Scott Parazynski announce he will join the Titanic expedition. 

May 2021: OceanGate provides plans to federal overseer

The U.S. District Court oversees legal issues involving the Titanic under an open 1993 court case. In May 2021, David Concannon, a legal and operations consultant to OceanGate, sent a letter to the court outlining its expedition plans, saying it will be "the first of many" and will be conducted under NOAA guidelines.

"The exploration team will conduct annual surveys of the wreck in collaboration with scientific and imaging experts from multiple organizations as part of an on-going long-term study to document the current conditionof the Titanic maritime heritage site."

The letter assured the court the vessel would not move or retrieve any artifacts and would deposit any ballast "well clear of the wreck and debris field." It ended with an invitation to the judge to join the expedition as a guest of OceanGate.

June 2021: Another patent

U.S. patent issued to OceanGate for systems and methods for launching and recovering objects in aquatic environments.

July 2021: Titanic success

OceanGate completes its first submersible dive to the Titanic, with a team that includes Rush, Scott Griffith and PH Nargeolet, a former French Naval commander and submersible pilot. The company says a series of yearly expeditions will help record the Titanic’s rate of decay and map the artifacts found on the site.

September 2021: A patent for monitoring integrity

OceanGate receives patent for systems for curing, testing, validating, rating and monitoring the integrity of composite structures.

November 2021: Tickets for sale for next expedition

OceanGate announces 2022 expedition to Titanic , price to ride rises to $250,000. 

May 2022: OceanGate updates court on expedition plans

OceanGate sends a letter notifying the District Court that it plans five photographic and scientific survey "missions" to the wreck site of the Titanic during the summer of 2022 and includes a copy of its draft science plan.

"Every effort will be made to avoid contact with the wreck itself, and no artifacts or scientific samples will be collected from the wreck itself. However, this year the expedition does plan to take free floating water samples throughout the water column and on the bottom, as part of  OceanGate’s scientific efforts to collect environmental DNA in conjunction with its partners at the University of North Carolina and University of Edinburgh."

July 2022: Expedition encounters difficulties

CBS correspondent David Pogue goes on a Titanic expedition with OceanGate . On one dive, the submersible never finds the Titanic .

August 2022: Video shows submersible dive

OceanGate releases high definition video from its 2022 trip to the Titanic.

January 2023: A tally of dives so far

A Guardian story reports OceanGate Expeditions has taken about 60 customers and 15-20 researchers down to the Titanic in its submersible. 

February 2023: Couple alleges fraudulent inducement

The Hagles sue Rush in Orange County, Florida circuit court, alleging fraudulent inducement and violation of Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

April 2023: OceanGate sends 2023 plan to court

Concannon sends a letter to the District Court saying the 2023 expedition will begin in early May and continue in 8-day segments through the end of June.

"Each dive will consist of the deployment of the 5-person submersible Titan, which has a 4,000m/13,120 ft. depth capability (with a comfortable safety margin). Constructed of titanium and filament wound carbon fiber, the innovative vessel has proven to be a safe and comfortable vessel proven to withstand the enormous pressures of the deep ocean," the letter states.

The participating scientists and archaeologists on previous dives "are compiling and analyzing theirfindings. The company and science team collaborated with eDNAtec, headquartered in St. John’s Newfoundland, to analyze environmental DNA found in water samples collected near the wreck and at a natural reef site nearby. This collaboration will continue in 2023. eDNAtec intends to make all gene sequences available through GenBank at the conclusion of their analysis."

May 26, 2023: Titanic expedition underway

Ocean Gate Expeditions tweets a photo of 24 people on deck, saying: "It's been an exciting week with our Mission 2 crew!"

June 1, 2023: In the 'middle of the North Atlantic'

OceanGate Expeditions tweets "Despite being in the middle of the North Atlantic, we have the internet connection we need to make our #Titanic dive operations a success - thank you @Starlink!"

June 15, 2023: Missions underway

OceanGate tweets: "Despite being in the middle of the North Atlantic, we have the internet connection we need to make our #Titanic dive operations a success - thank you @Starlink !"

June 17, 2023: Harding posts dive planned next day

Hamish Harding, chairman of Action Aviation, posts on Facebook that he has joined OceanGate Expeditions for the Titan mission and will be on an attempted dive on June 18.

June 18, 2023: Day ends in disaster

8:00 a.m. – Titan begins a descent from the Canadian research vessel the Polar Prince to the Titanic wreck, a trip expected to take two hours to reach the ocean floor, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

9:45 a.m. – Communications cease between the Titan and its mothership , about 90 minutes into the trip.

Unknown time – Navy acoustic equipment detects an "anomaly" in the vicinity of the site.

3:00 p.m. – Titan fails to appear at the expected time for resurfacing

5:40 p.m. – Coast Guard receives a report on an overdue 21-foot submersible, with five people on board, diving to view the wreckage of the Titanic , approximately 900 nautical miles East of Cape Cod.  

June 19, 2023: Search underway

Coast Guard says one of its C-130 Hercules aircraft and crew, as well as a Canadian P8 aircraft with underwater sonar capability, are searching for the submersible.

June 20, 2023: Hope flares

The Canadian aircraft reports hearing "underwater noises in the search area."

Coast Guard establishes a command to help coordinate multiple vessels conducting search operations, says 10,000 square miles have been searched, including a Bahamian research vessel using a remotely operated vehicle and another C-130 crew. Coast Guard reports eight vessels enroute, including five Canadian ships, a French research vessel, the motor vessel Horizon Arctic and the commercial vessel Skandi Vinland.

June 21, 2023: Search continues

Coast Guard reports a third C-130 enroute, as well as a Magellan ROV. The Navy is sending experts and a Deep Ocean Salvage System designed to lift underwater objects.

June 22, 2023: Debris field located

11:48 a.m. Coast Guard announces a debris field has been discovered by an ROV from the Horizon Arctic near the Titanic, likely the result of a catastrophic implosion.

OceanGate announces the crew of the Titan has been lost.

June 23, 2023: Lawsuit dropped

The Hagles, adventurers who became the first married couple on a commercial spaceflight last year , drop their lawsuit. They state: “Money is a driving force in our economy, but honor, respect and dignity are more important to the human soul."

June 24, 2023: Canada to investigate

Canada's Transportation Safety Board says it will investigate the Polar Prince , Titan's mothership, owned by Horizon Maritime. The company also owns the Horizon Arctic, the ship whose crew found the Titan wreckage.

June 25, 2023: Coast Guard to investigate

The Coast Guard says its Marine Board of Investigation will lead an investigation into the loss of the Titan. The MBI'S chairman, Capt. Jason Neubauer, says his primary goal is to "prevent a similar occurrence by making the necessary recommendations to advance the safety of the maritime domain worldwide."

June 28, 2023: Titan debris recovered

The Horizon Arctic vessel brings pieces of the Titan back to shore in St. John's, Newfoundland. After consulting with international partners, the Coast Guard intends to take the evidence to a U.S. port for further analysis and testing. A news release says medical professionals will conduct " a formal analysis of presumed human remains that have been carefully recovered within the wreckage ."

July 2, 2023: OceanGate shutting down

OceanGate Expeditions updates its website to say it is ceasing operations .

Contributing: Grace Hauck

Missing sub: Mapping and visualizing debris found near titanic

Titan sub timeline: When did it go missing and other key events

A timeline of events surrounding the trip to the Titanic wreck for the submersible that suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’.

The five people on board a submersible visiting the wreck of the Titanic died after a “catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.”

A “debris field” matching the submersible was discovered by a robotic deep-sea vessel on Thursday.

Keep reading

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Here is a timeline of the events leading up to the discovery:

Friday, June 16

The expedition sets off from St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.

We've been working hard to get ready for our 2023 Titanic Expedition that begins next month. We moved @OceanGate 's sub, Titan, to The Launch at the @marineinstitute for final preparations. The Launch has brand-new facilities with everything we need to prepare for expedition! pic.twitter.com/iLgs6CJXUI — OceanGate Expeditions (@OceanGateExped) April 21, 2023

Saturday, June 17

British billionaire and adventurer Hamish Harding , one of those on board the submersible, posts on Facebook: “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023. A weather window has just opened up, and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.”

“More expedition updates to follow IF the weather holds!”

This was his last post on Facebook.

Sunday, June 18

04am ET (08:00 GMT) – This is when the submersible was originally planned to start its descent, according to a post by Harding on Instagram . But the descent starts four hours later, according to the US Coast Guard.

8am ET (12:00 GMT)  – Titan submersible starts what should be a two-hour descent to the Titanic wreck, which lies at a depth of 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) in the North Atlantic, US Coast Guard says.

9:45am ET (13:45 GMT)  – Communications between the submersible and the surface vessel are lost an hour and 45 minutes after starting its descent, the US Coast Guard says.

3pm ET (19:00 GMT) – The submersible is scheduled to return to the surface, the US Coast Guard says. It fails to appear.

5:40pm ET (21:40 GMT) – Coast Guard receives a report about an overdue submersible from the Canadian research vessel Polar Prince with five people on board diving to view the Titanic wreck about 900 nautical miles (1667km) east of Cape Cod on the US coast.

Monday, June 19

US and Canadian ships and planes are swarming the area, some dropping sonobuoys that can monitor to a depth of 13,000 feet (4,000 metres), US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger says. He adds it is a remote area and a challenge to conduct a search. Officials have also asked commercial vessels for help.

Officials say if the submersible is still intact,  it is estimated to have between 70 and 96 hours of oxygen.

Tuesday, June 20

Morning – The family of Pakistani-born businessman Shahzada Dawood confirms he is on board with his 19-year-old son Suleman.

10:50am ET (14:50 GMT) – France says it will help with the search by deploying Atalante, a ship equipped with a deep-sea diving vessel.

During the day – Sounds detected over several hours by Canadian Lockheed P-3 Orion aircraft, equipped with gear to trace submarines. The US Coast Guard – which announces this on Wednesday – does not give a precise timing.

Media reports say Canadian aircraft detected banging sounds at 30-minute intervals.

Harding’s friend, Jannicke Mikkelsen, says: “And as it stands right now, it would be a miracle if they are recovered alive.”

The search becomes a big international operation . More ships, underwater vessels and aircraft join the mission.

Wednesday, June 21

During the day – US Coast Guard, US Navy, Canadian Coast Guard and OceanGate Expeditions establish a unified command to handle the search .

2am ET (06:00 GMT) – US Coast Guard announces Canadian P-3 aircraft detected underwater noises . It says remotely operated vehicle (ROV) searches are directed to the area of the sounds and the data are also sent to US Navy experts for analysis.

Thursday, June 22

6am (10:00 GMT) – Rough deadline for when the oxygen in the submersible will run out, based on the US Coast Guard’s estimate. The vessel has 96 hours of supply from the time it is sealed, according to its specifications. This depends on the vessel being intact and other factors, such as whether the sub still has power in the icy depths.

2pm (18:00 GMT) – A debris field that was found near the wreckage of the Titanic in the North Atlantic contains the pieces of the Titan submersible, officials said.

3pm (19:00 GMT) – The debris was consistent with loss of the pressure chamber and an implosion, the US Coast Guard said. There were no survivors, it added.

• International

June 22, 2023 - Missing Titanic sub crew killed after 'catastrophic implosion'

By Helen Regan , Adam Renton, Rob Picheta , Aditi Sangal , Elise Hammond , Matt Meyer , Tori B. Powell and Maureen Chowdhury , CNN

Our live coverage of the Titan submersible tragedy has moved here.

"Titanic" director worries implosion will have a negative impact on citizen explorers

Film director James Cameron said Thursday he's worried that the Titan submersible's implosion will have a negative impact on citizen explorers.

"These are serious people with serious curiosity willing to put serious money down to go to these interesting places," the "Titanic" director told CNN's Anderson Cooper. "I don't want to discourage that. But I think that it's almost now a lesson. The takeaway is, make sure if you're gonna go into a vehicle, whether it's an aircraft or surface craft or a submersible, that it's been through certifying agencies."

Some background: Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, which operated the Titan submersible, and who died in the implosion, had spoken about his antipathy to regulations .

“At some point, safety just is pure waste,” Stockton  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. Don’t do anything.”

"Titanic" director says news of submersible's implosion did not come as a surprise

From CNN's Sabrina Souza

James Cameron, director of the hit 1997 film “Titanic,” says news of the Titan submersible's explosion "certainly wasn't a surprise."

Cameron, who has made 33 dives to the wreckage himself, told CNN's Anderson Cooper that when he first heard the news of the Titan incident Monday morning, he connected with his small community in the deep submergence group and found out within about a half-hour that the submersible had lost communication and tracking, simultaneously. 

“The only scenario that I could come up with in my mind that could account for that was an implosion,” he told Cooper on Thursday. “A shockwave event so powerful that it actually took out a secondary system that has its own pressure vessel and its own battery power supply which is the transponder that the ship uses to track where the sub is." 

Cameron said he did more digging and got some additional information that seemed to confirm that the submersible had imploded.

"I encouraged all of them to raise a glass in their honor on Monday,” Cameron said of his community group.

He said false-hopes kept getting dangled as search teams looked for the missing passengers over the following days.

"I watched over the ensuing days this whole sort of everybody-running-around-with-their-hair-on-fire search, knowing full well that it was futile, hoping against hope that I was wrong but knowing in my bones that I wasn’t,” Cameron told Cooper.

He expressed condolences for the families of the passengers.

Submersible heading to Titanic wreckage suffered "catastrophic implosion." Here's what we know

From CNN staff

The five passengers on the Titan submersible that was diving 13,000 feet to view the Titanic on the ocean floor died in a "catastrophic implosion," authorities said Thursday, bookending an extraordinary five-day international search operation near the site of the world's most famous shipwreck.

The tail cone and other debris were found by a remotely operated vehicle about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, deep in the North Atlantic and about 900 east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

“This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger, the First Coast Guard District commander, told reporters.

Here's what we know:

• Debris: The remotely operated vehicle found " five different major pieces of debris " from the Titan submersible, according to Paul Hankins, the US Navy's director of salvage operations and ocean engineering. The debris was "consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber " and, in turn, a " catastrophic implosion ," he said. As of now, there does not appear to be a connection between the  banging noises picked up by sonar  earlier this week and where the debris was found.
• Timing: The US Navy detected an acoustic signature consistent with an implosion on Sunday and relayed that information to the commanders leading the search effort, a senior official told CNN. But the sound was determined to be “not definitive,” the official said. Mauger, for his part, said rescuers had sonar buoys in the water for at least the last 72 hours and had "not detected any catastrophic events." Listening devices set up during the search also did not record any sign of an implosion, Mauger added.
• What comes next: The remotely operated vehicles will remain on the scene  and continue to gather information, Mauger said. It will take time to determine a specific timeline of events in the "incredibly complex" case of the Titan's failure, Mauger said. The Coast Guard official said the agency will eventually have more information about what went wrong and its assessment of the emergency response.
• Response: Mauger applauded the “huge international” and “interagency” search effort. He said teams had the appropriate gea r and worked as quickly as possible. The Coast Guard official also thanked experts and agencies for assisting with the search for the Titan submersible.

• Who was on board: Tour organizer OceanGate Expeditions said Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Paul-Henri Nargeolet and  OceanGate CEO  Stockton Rush died in the submersible. They "shared a distinct spirit of adventure," the company in a statement .
• Reaction: Nargeolet, a French diver, was an incredible person and highly respected in his field , said his friend Tom Dettweiler, a fellow ocean explorer. The president of The Explorers Club said the group is heartbroken over the tragic loss. Two passengers, businessman Harding and Nargeolet, were members, it said. Engro Corporation Limited, of which Shahzada Dawood was Vice Chairman, said the company grieves the loss of him and his son. The governments of Pakistan and the United Kingdom also offered condolences .

White House thanks Coast Guard and international partners for search efforts

From CNN's Jeremy Diamond

The White House thanked the US Coast Guard and international partners for their search and rescue efforts for the submersible that went missing on its way to the Titanic wreckage.

"This has been a testament to the skill and professionalism that the men and women who serve our nation continue to demonstrate every single day," a White House spokesperson said.

Earlier Thursday, the Coast Guard thanked experts and agencies from all over the world for assisting in the effort, calling it a “huge international” and “interagency” search.

The White House spokesperson also expressed sympathy for the families of the five passengers onboard the submersible.

“Our hearts go out to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives on the Titan. They have been through a harrowing ordeal over the past few days, and we are keeping them in our thoughts and prayers," the spokesperson said.

Passengers lost in the "catastrophic implosion" of the Titan submersible remembered by loved ones

From CNN's Sugam Pokharel, Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman, Mostafa Salem in Abu Dhabi and Sofia Cox in Atlanta

The Titan submersible bound for the Titanic that went missing on Sunday with five people on board suffered a “catastrophic implosion,” US Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said Thursday.

Now those who knew the passengers are grappling with their tragic loss and some have sent messages of condolences as their legacies are remembered.

Engro Corporation Limited, where Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood was vice chairman, issued a statement on the deaths of Dawood and his son Suleman — who were among the five people on board the Titan submersible .

“With heavy hearts and with great sadness, we grieve the loss of our Vice Chairman, Shahzada Dawood, and his beloved son, Suleman Dawood. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Dawood family at this tragic time. We extend our heartfelt condolences to the family, colleagues, friends, and all those around the world who grieve this unthinkable loss,” the company tweeted on Thursday.

Dubai-based Action Aviation, the company owned by passenger Hamish Harding released a statement on behalf of his family.

“Today, we are united in grief with the other families who have also lost their loved ones on the Titan submersible," the statement read. "Hamish Harding was a loving husband to his wife and a dedicated father to his two sons, whom he loved deeply. To his team in Action Aviation, he was a guide, an inspiration, a support, and a Living Legend."

The statement went on to praise the efforts made to search for the Titan sub.

"We know that Hamish would have been immensely proud to see how nations, experts, industry colleagues and friends came together for the search, and we extend our heartfelt thanks for all their efforts. On behalf of the Harding family and Action Aviation, we would like to politely request privacy at this incredibly difficult time," it said.

The family of French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet said he will "be remembered as one of the greatest deep-sea explorers in modern history."

The statement signed by Nargeolet’s children and wife said that they hope people think about Paul-Henri and his work when they think about the Titanic, "but what we will remember him most for is his big heart, his incredible sense of humor and how much he loved his family. We will miss him today and every day for the rest of our lives."

His stepson, John Paschall, described him as an “incredible stepfather” and someone who was caring and had a great sense of humor. He recalled how his mother and Nargeolot drove across the country to attend his college graduation in 2014 after their flight got canceled.

“They hop into their small, blue Mini Cooper and they drive 16 hours across the country from Connecticut to Chicago, drive through the night. I am quite certain that he did a lot of the driving. They showed up with one hour to spare for graduation,” he told CNN. “They made it there. At that time, my mom was very sick of cancer and meant so much to me that she could be there for that moment. That is something I will never forget about him.”

US Navy detected implosion on Sunday and relayed information to search efforts, official says

From CNN's Oren Liebermann

The US Navy detected an acoustic signature consistent with an implosion on Sunday in the general area where the Titan submersible was diving in the North Atlantic when it lost communication with its support ship, according to a senior Navy official.

The Navy immediately relayed that information to the on-scene commanders leading the search effort, the official said Thursday, adding that information was used to narrow down the area of the search.

But the sound of the implosion was determined to be “not definitive,” the official said, and the multinational efforts to find the submersible continued as a search and rescue effort.

The Wall Street Journal was the first to report about the acoustic signature picked up by the Navy.

Audio of the implosion was picked up by a network of sensors as part of an underwater Navy acoustic listening system, said the official, who declined to go into more detail about the secret system. The network of sensors allowed the Navy to zero-in on a possible location of the noise, providing search teams with a more refined area. 

The Navy also helped analyze the audio signatures of banging and other acoustic data that were heard throughout the search efforts. Those were likely some form of natural life or sounds given off by other ships and vessels that were part of the search effort, the official said.

Expert describes how robots and other machinery will help recover Titan wreckage

A single vessel, if properly equipped, and remotely controlled vehicles on the seafloor would likely be capable of recovering the wreckage of the Titan submersible, Capt. Mark Martin, a salvage master and deep submergence pilot, said Thursday.

The ship would need a crane with a wire that can reach a depth of 4,000 meters (about 2 and a half miles), which can be found on many vessels involved in offshore gas and oil construction, Martin said in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper.

Recovery crews will also need one or two remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, which have already played a key role in the search for signs of Titan, the captain said. The ROVs are large, powerful machines that can be controlled from the vessel above them.

The ROVs will work in concert with the crane to scoop pieces of the sub into large "recovery baskets," which Martin said look like half of a shipping container made of mesh.

ROVs will pick up pieces with their arms and move them into baskets, or help attach pieces to straps for the crane, which will lift pieces to the surface, he said.

Director James Cameron says he sees similarities between Titanic wreck and submersible tragedy

From CNN’s Lisa France

James Cameron, who directed the hit 1997 film "Titanic" and has made 33 dives to the wreckage, said he saw some similarities between the Titan traged y and the sinking of the famous ship it was bound for.

"I'm struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship and yet steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night and many people died as a result," Cameron told  ABC News Thursday.

He added, "And with a very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded to take place at the same exact site with all the diving that's going on all around the world I think it's just astonishing. It's really quite surreal."

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Titan submersible: timeline of vessel’s voyage

As the US Coast Guard announces the vessel suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’, we chart its journey over the last week

• Titanic sub: latest updates

The expedition sets off from St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.

The British billionaire and adventurer Hamish Harding , one of those onboard the submersible, posts on Facebook: “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023. A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.”

8am GMT/ 4am ET: Time the submersible originally aimed to start its descent, according to a post by Harding on Instagram. It actually started its descent later, according to the US Coast Guard.

12pm GMT/ 8am ET: The submersible starts what should be a two-hour descent to the Titanic wreck, nearly 4,000 metres down, according to the US Coast Guard.

1 .45pm GMT/ 9.45am ET: Communications between the submersible and the surface vessel are lost 1 hour and 45 minutes after starting its descent.

7pm GMT/ 3pm ET: Titan is scheduled to return to the surface, the US Coast Guard says, but fails to appear.

9.40pm GMT/ 5.40pm ET: US Coast Guard receives report about an overdue submersible from the research vessel Polar Prince about 900 nautical miles east of Cape Cod on the US coast.

US and Canadian ships and planes are swarming the area , some dropping sonar buoys that can monitor to a depth of almost 4,000 metres, US Coast Guard R Adm John Mauger says. Officials have also asked commercial vessels for help.

2.50pm GMT/ 10am ET: France says it will help with search by deploying Atalante, a ship equipped with a deep-sea diving vessel. It is expected to arrive late on Wednesday.

During the day: Sounds detected over several hours by Canadian Lockheed P-3 Orion aircraft, equipped with gear to trace submarines. CNN and Rolling Stone magazine report banging sounds at 30-minute intervals had been detected.

US Coast Guard, US Navy, Canadian Coast Guard and OceanGate Expeditions establish a unified command to handle the search.

6 am GMT/ 2am ET: US Coast Guard confirms Canadian P-3 aircraft detected underwater noises . It says remotely operated vehicle (ROV) searches are directed to the area of the sounds and the data is also sent to US Navy experts for analysis.

5pm GMT/1pm ET: US Coast Guard says more underwater noises were detected and that the search area had increased to “two times the size of Connecticut”.

Late on Wednesday: More vessels, including a French research ship, equipped with a deep-sea diving vessel, were due to arrive to assist the “complex response effort”, which covers an area twice the size of Connecticut.

10 am GMT/ 6am ET: Approximate deadline for when the air in the submersible was expected to run out, based on the US Coast Guard’s estimate that the Titan could have up to 96 hours of air supply from the time it was sealed.

Around 12pm GMT/8am ET: Two remotely operated vehicles have been deployed as part of the search effort. Experts say it is still unclear whether the submersible is on the surface or on the seabed, and warn “weeks of intense survey” may be required to locate it.

Around 3pm GMT/11am ET: Canadian navy ship carrying a medical team specialising in dive medicine arrives on the scene.

3.48pm GMT/ 11.48am ET: The US Coast Guard say a debris field was discovered within the search area by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) near the Titanic wreck.

7pm GMT/ 3pm ET: US Coast Guard to hold press conference after announcing discovery of debris.

8pm GMT/4pm ET: Five crew members aboard the submersible Titan were probably killed instantly in a “catastrophic implosion”, the US Coast Guard said. Rear Adm John Mauger, the First Coast Guard District commander, said a remotely operated vehicle discovered the tail cone of the Titan sub and the debris is “consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber”. A large debris field containing five major pieces of the vessel wasspotted by a remotely operated vehicle scouring the seabed near the Titanic wreck site 400 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland, officials said.

This article was amended on 22 June 2023 to correct the time conversion from GMT to ET.

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Live updates | Titan’s catastrophic implosion likely killed 5 occupants instantly, experts say

The Titan submersible was touted for its unconventional design. After its catastrophic underwater implosion that killed five people, the question remains, was the design destined for disaster? (June 23) (AP Video/Production: Rodrique Ngowi)

A friend and former colleague of Paul-Henri Nargeolet, known as “PH,” who was among five people killed aboard the Titan submersible, said Nargeolet loved his work from the time they collaborated in the 1990s up until Nargeolet’s death. (June 22)

A submersible carrying five people to the Titanic imploded near the site of the shipwreck and killed everyone on board, authorities said Thursday, bringing a tragic end to a saga that included an urgent around-the-clock search and a worldwide vigil for the missing vessel. (June 22)

FILE - In this image released by Action Aviation, the submersible Titan is prepared for a dive into a remote area of the Atlantic Ocean on an expedition to the Titanic on Sunday, June 18, 2023. Rescuers are racing against time to find the missing submersible carrying five people, who were reported overdue Sunday night. (Action Aviation via AP, File)

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In this satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies, from top to bottom, the vessels Horizon Arctic, Deep Energy and Skandi Vinland search for the missing submersible Titan, Thursday, June 22, 2023 in the Atlantic Ocean. (Satellite image ©2023 Maxar Technologies via AP)

This photo combo shows OceanGate Expeditions’ Titan submersible (top) and The Pisces IV submersible (bottom). The Titan, developed and operated by OceanGate Expeditions, was touted for a design that included a carbon fiber hull, an elongated cabin for crew and passengers, and more. But outside experts say the design and construction of the submersible put greater stress on its structure. (AP Photo/File)

U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger, commander of the First Coast Guard District, talks to the media, Thursday, June 22, 2023, at Coast Guard Base Boston, in Boston. The missing submersible Titan imploded near the wreckage of the Titanic, killing all five people on board, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

A boat with the OceanGate logo is parked on a lot near the OceanGate offices Thursday, June 22, 2023, in Everett, Wash. The U.S. Coast Guard said Thursday that the missing submersible Titan imploded near the Titanic shipwreck site, killing everyone on board. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

FILE -Flowers adorn the renovated Isidor and Ida Straus memorial plaque as Macy’s and the Straus Historical Society celebrate its rededication during a ceremony at the Macy’s Herald Square flagship store, Thursday, May 29, 2014, in New York. The plaque was first erected by employees of the store after the Titanic disaster claimed the their lives on Dec. 12, 1912. Wendy Rush. the wife of the man who was piloting the OceanGate submersible when it disappeared during a dive to the wreckage of the Titantic is a descendant of a wealthy couple who died when the ocean link sank in 1912. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

FILE - Director James Cameron walks in Purmamarca, Jujuy province, Argentina, on June 8, 2023. Cameron says the search operation for a deep-sea tourist sub turned into a “nightmarish charade” that prolonged the agony of the families of the passengers. Cameron told the BBC in an interview broadcast on Friday June 23, 2023 that he “felt in my bones” that the Titan submersible had been lost soon after he heard it had lost contact with the surface during its descent to the wreckage of the ocean liner at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. (AP Photo/Javier Corbalan, File)

Follow along for live updates on the submersible that imploded deep in the Atlantic Ocean, killing all five people aboard during a voyage down to the Titanic shipwreck.

TITAN’S CATASTROPIC IMPLOSION LIKELY KILLED 5 OCCUPANTS INSTANTLY

Experts say the Titan submersible suffered a catastrophic implosion that likely killed its pilot and four passengers instantly amid the intense water pressure in the deep North Atlantic .

Maritime researchers called an implosion the worst possible outcome of all the scenarios envisioned during the desperate round-the-clock search to find the missing vessel.

Experts had cautioned that under intense pressure at extreme depths the Titan’s hull could implode, which would result in instant death for anyone aboard the vessel.

The 22-foot long (6.7-meter long), 23,000-pound (10,432-kilogram) Titan’s larger internal volume — while still cramped with a maximum of five seated people — meant it was subjected to more external pressure.

The water pressure at 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) below the surface at the site of the Titanic wreck is roughly 400 atmospheres or 6,000 pounds per square inch.

What to know:

— What caused the Titan to implode? Right now, it’s not even clear who will lead the investigation

— How the unconventional design of the Titan sub may have destined it for disaster

— A Titanic expert, an adventurer, a CEO, and a father and son were killed in Titan’s implosion

— Tourist sub’s implosion draws attention to murky regulations of deep-sea expeditions

— ‘Titanic’ director James Cameron says the search for the missing sub became a ‘nightmarish charade’

— How much did Titan submersible search cost ? US Coast Guard’s bill alone will be in the millions

— The latest on the Titan submersible tragedy and what’s next in the recovery efforts

TITAN PASSENGERS LIKELY SIGNED WAIVERS TO ACKNOWLEDGE RISK

The four passengers who died this week when the Titan imploded were most likely asked to sign liability waivers.

One of the waivers, signed by a person who planned to go on an OceanGate expedition, required passengers to acknowledge risks involved with the trip on the Titan vessel and any support vessels.

The waiver, which was reviewed by The Associated Press, said that passengers could experience physical injury, disability, emotional trauma and death while on board the Titan.

Passengers also waive the right to take action for “personal injury, property damage or any other loss” that they experience on the trip, the document states.

The form also makes it clear that the vessel is experimental and “constructed of materials that have not been widely used for manned submersibles.”

The waiver could play an outsized role as families of those who died consider their legal options . Legal experts said that what the investigation into the disaster uncovers will determine much about the case, including what caused the vessel to implode.

CANADA’S TRANSPORTATION BOARD LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said Friday it’s launching an investigation involving the loss of the Titan that will focus on the cargo vessel Polar Prince.

Polar Prince is a Canadian-flagged ship that served as mothership to the Titan submersible. The Transportation Safety Board will investigate the Polar Prince in its role as a support vessel and will conduct a safety investigation into the circumstances of the operation, the agency said.

The agency said a team of investigators is traveling to St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador to gather information and conduct interviews. It said it will coordinate with other agencies in the days ahead.

There were 17 crew members and 24 people on board the Polar Prince, the agency said.

TITAN’S UNCONVENTIONAL DESIGN SUBJECTED CRAFT TO MORE WATER PRESSURE

The deadly implosion of the Titan submersible raises questions about whether the vessel exploring the Titanic wreckage was destined for disaster because of its unconventional design and its creator’s refusal to submit to safety checks that are standard in the industry.

The Titan, owned and operated by OceanGate Expeditions, first began taking people to the Titanic in 2021. It was touted for a design that included a carbon fiber composite hull and an elongated chamber for crew and passengers — a departure from more traditional spherical cabin areas and all-titanium construction.

Experts say the cabin where people sit in most submersibles is spherical because water pressure is exerted equally on all areas. By comparison, the Titan’s chamber was a larger, more elongated tube shape .

The 22-foot long (6.7-meter long), 23,000-pound (10,400-kilogram) Titan’s larger internal volume — while still cramped with a maximum of five seated people — meant it was subjected to more external pressure.

While OceanGate promoted the Titan’s carbon fiber and titanium construction as “lighter in weight and more efficient to mobilize than other deep diving submersible,” experts say carbon composites have limited life when subject to excessive loads or poor design which leads to stress concentrations.

ADVENTURERS DROP OCEANGATE FRAUD LAWSUIT AFTER TITAN TRAGEDY

A pair of adventurers who sued OceanGate for fraud said they have dropped their lawsuit against the company that owned the Titan submersible.

Sharon and Marc Hagle sued OceanGate after they put money down for a trip to the Titanic wreckage site and the voyage never happened. The couple said the trip was both rescheduled and canceled, and they were told they would not receive a refund.

The Hagles are adventurers who became the first married couple on a commercial space flight last year, according to Purdue University, Marc’s alma mater.

The couple said in a statement to The Associated Press on Friday that they have decided to drop their legal action in the wake of CEO Stockton Rush’s death, along with four passengers, and the loss of the Titan at sea.

“Money is a driving force in our economy, but honor, respect and dignity are more important to the human soul,” the statement read. “We wish the entire OceanGate family and the families of those aboard the Titan the very best as they grieve the loss of their loved ones.”

COST OF SEARCH FOR TITAN WILL EASILY STRETCH INTO MILLIONS OF DOLLARS

The cost of the search for the missing Titan submersible will easily stretch into the millions of dollars for the U.S. Coast Guard alone. The Canadian Coast Guard, U.S. Navy and other agencies and private entities also rushed to provide resources and expertise.

There’s no other comparable ocean search, especially with so many countries and even commercial enterprises being involved, said Norman Polmar, a naval historian, analyst and author based in Virginia.

The aircraft, alone, are expensive to operate.

The Pentagon has put the hourly cost at tens of thousands of dollars for turboprop P-3 Orion and jet-powered P-8 Poseidon sub hunters, along with C-130 Hercules, all utilized in the search.

Some agencies can seek reimbursements. But the U.S. Coast Guard is generally prohibited by federal law from collecting reimbursement pertaining to any search or rescue service, said Stephen Koerting, a U.S. attorney in Maine who specializes in maritime law.

The first priority in search and rescue is always saving a life, and search and rescue agencies budget for such expenses, said Mikki Hastings, president and CEO of the National Association for Search and Rescue.

Rescue agencies don’t want people in distress to be thinking about the cost of a helicopter or other resources when a life is in danger.

“Every person who is missing – they deserve to be found. That’s the mission regardless of who they are,” Hastings said.

TITAN’S IMPLOSION HIGHLIGHTS MURKY REGULATIONS FOR DEEP-SEA VOYAGES

The Titan’s voyage down into the North Atlantic highlights the murkily regulated waters of deep-sea exploration .

It’s a space on the high seas where laws and conventions can be sidestepped by risk-taking entrepreneurs and the wealthy tourists who help fund their dreams. At least for now.

Thursday’s announcement by the U.S. Coast Guard that the Titan had imploded near the Titanic shipwreck, killing all five people on board , has drawn attention to how these expeditions are regulated.

The Titan operated in international waters, far from the reach of many laws of the United States or other nations. It wasn’t registered as a U.S. vessel or with international agencies that regulate safety, nor was it classified by a maritime industry group that sets standards on matters such as hull construction.

Stockton Rush , the OceanGate Expeditions CEO and Titan pilot who was among the dead, had said he didn’t want to be bogged down by such standards.

Experts say wrongful death and negligence lawsuits are likely in the Titan case — and they could be successful. But legal actions will face various challenges, including waivers signed by the Titan passengers that warned of the myriad ways they could die.

CRITICS POINT TO LACK OF CERTIFICATION FOR TITAN SUBMERSIBLE

Bob Ballard, a member of the research team that found the Titanic wreck in 1985, called the lack of certification by outside experts “the smoking gun” in the case of the Titan submersible .

The U.S. Coast Guard announced Thursday that the Titan, a small craft headed to the wreck of the Titanic, suffered a catastrophic implosion, killing all five aboard.

“We’ve made thousands and thousands and thousands of dives with other countries as well to these depths and have never had an incident,” Ballard said Friday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “So this is the first time, and the smoking gun is that this is the first time by a submarine that wasn’t classed.”

Appearing on the same show, “ Titanic” director James Cameron called the lack of certification by an engineering entity or “classing bureau” “a critical failure.”

He described several potential problems with the Titan’s design, but said the weakest link was the carbon fiber composite hull.

“You don’t use composites for vessels that are seeing external pressure. They’re great for internal pressure vessels, like scuba tanks, for example, but they’re terrible for external pressure,” he said. “So this was trying to apply aviation thinking to a deep submergence engineering problem. And we all said this was a flawed idea.”

COAST GUARD SAYS FOCUS REMAINS ON SEARCH, OFFICIAL INVESTIGATION YET TO BE LAUNCHED

Still focused on the search, the U.S. Coast Guard said Friday that an official investigation has yet to be launched into the disappearance and implosion of the Titan submersible.

Coast Guard officials announced Thursday that the craft that was headed to the wreck of the Titanic suffered a catastrophic implosion, killing all five aboard.

On Friday morning, the Coast Guard said an official investigation had not yet been launched because the agencies involved were focused on the search and still determining who has the appropriate jurisdiction and authority to lead it. Possibilities include the U.S. Coast Guard, Canadian Coast Guard, other federal or international agencies, or a joint effort.

The Coast Guard also said it was too soon to say whether any policy changes would be made.

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Experts raised safety concerns about OceanGate years before its Titanic sub vanished

Rachel Treisman

OceanGate uses its Titan vessel to take tourists deep below sea level to visit the Titanic shipwreck. It disappeared in the North Atlantic during one such trip on Sunday. AP hide caption

OceanGate uses its Titan vessel to take tourists deep below sea level to visit the Titanic shipwreck. It disappeared in the North Atlantic during one such trip on Sunday.

Experts from within and outside OceanGate raised concerns about the safety of its Titan submersible as far back as 2018, years before it went missing during a deep-sea dive to the Titanic shipwreck site.

Several of those complaints have resurfaced this week, as the frantic search for the vessel — and its five passengers — continues.

Missing Titanic sub search enters a critical phase as the Titan's oxygen supply drops

"It hasn't surprised us," said Will Kohnen, the chair of the Marine Technology Society's Submarine Committee (formerly the Manned Underwater Vehicles Committee), about the Titan's disappearance. "We've been aware of this project for some time and have had some concerns."

In March 2018, after one of the international industry group's annual conferences, Kohnen drafted a letter to OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush — the pilot of the missing vessel — expressing "unanimous concern" on behalf of its members about the development of the Titan and its planned Titanic expeditions.

"Our apprehension is that the current experimental approach adopted by Oceangate could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry," he wrote, according to a copy obtained by the New York Times .

OceanGate wants to change deep-sea tourism, but its missing sub highlights the risks

NPR has reached out to OceanGate for comment.

Kohnen told Morning Edition 's A Martínez on Wednesday that the group's main concern was a lack of oversight and adherence to industry-accepted safety guidelines.

"Most of the companies in this industry that are building submersibles and deep submersibles follow a fairly well-established framework of certification and verification and oversight, through classification societies," he said. "And that was at the root of OceanGate's project, is that they were going to go solo, going without that type of official oversight, and that brought a lot of concerns."

Deep sea rescues have a mixed track record. The Pisces III is one that succeeded

Kohnen doesn't see Titan's disappearance as a reason to take a step back from deep sea explorations as a whole.

"We have submarines all over the world diving 12,000 to 20,000 feet every day of the year for research," he said. "We know very well how to build and how to design these machines and how to operate them safely."

The same is true for tourism purposes, he adds: "It just gets expensive."

OceanGate's push to innovate worried industry experts

Third-party agencies around the world, like the American Bureau of Shipping and DNV in Europe, are responsible for overseeing structures like ships, oil platforms and submarines to ensure that they're designed to specification, Kohnen explained.

That process involves publishing rules and sending out engineers to review designs and inspectors to witness testing.

Most major marine operators require chartered vessels to be "classed" by one of these independent groups, OceanGate acknowledged in a 2019 blog post . However, it said that process only assesses physical vessels, not a company's operating procedures and decision-making processes, which are more often to blame for accidents.

A former passenger details what it's like inside the missing Titan submersible

The company affirmed its commitment to operational safety and risk mitigation, touting its "constant, committed effort and a focused corporate culture." But it also painted the third-party approval process as "anathema to rapid innovation," its founding principle.

"By definition, innovation is outside of an already accepted system," the blog post reads. "However, this does not mean that OceanGate does meet standards where they apply, but it does mean that innovation often falls outside of the existing industry paradigm."

Kohnen said that while his letter was never officially submitted to OceanGate, he did have a conversation with Rush in which the two "agreed to disagree." He points out that the complaint that regulatory bodies are slow to react to new innovations isn't unique to submarines.

"All industries face the same issue," Kohnen added. "And it is a careful dance of how do you push regulations forward in the face of rapid-changing technology."

The OceanGate logo is pictured on a boat at the Port of Everett Boat Yard in Everett, Wash., on Tuesday. Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

The OceanGate logo is pictured on a boat at the Port of Everett Boat Yard in Everett, Wash., on Tuesday.

A former employee says he was fired after raising concerns

OceanGate's own former director of marine operations also flagged potential safety issues with the Titan around the same time — and says he was fired after doing so, as NPR station WBUR reported .

David Lochridge, himself an experienced submarine pilot, alleged in a 2018 lawsuit that he was fired after raising concerns that the company wasn't properly testing the vessel's carbon fiber hull. He had also pushed for the company to utilize a classification agency to inspect and certify it.

Lochridge said he first raised his safety and quality control concerns verbally to executive management, which ignored them. He then sought to address the problems and offer solutions in a report.

'Tiny sub, big ocean': Why the Titanic submersible search is so challenging

The day after it was submitted, the lawsuit says, various engineering and HR executives invited him to a meeting at which he learned that the viewport of the submersible was only built to a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, even though the Titanic shipwreck lies nearly 4,000 meters below sea level.

Lochridge reiterated his concerns, but the lawsuit alleges that rather than take corrective action, OceanGate "did the exact opposite."

"OceanGate gave Lochridge approximately 10 minutes to immediately clear out his desk and exit the premises," it said.

OceanGate said in legal filings that it had relied on acoustic tests "better suited" to detect safety issues, and accused Lochridge of breaching his contract, according to WBUR.

"The company said Lochridge was not an engineer and refused to accept assurances from the lead engineer that testing was sufficient," WBUR's Walter Wuthmann told Morning Edition .

They settled out of court in 2018.

Previous expeditions haven't all gone smoothly

The Titan made its first dive to the Titanic wreck site in 2021 and returned the following year — though those trips haven't been without issue .

Greek court orders smuggling suspects held pending trial over migrant ship disaster

OceanGate acknowledged in legal filings that the vessel had encountered a battery issue and some external damage during its maiden voyage.

CBS Sunday Morning correspondent David Pogue said the submersible lost contact with the surface crew for about five hours during his expedition in 2022 and told NPR that a mechanical issue forced the vessel to abort a November trip after making it 37 feet down.

He said he's since learned that such dives "rarely go to plan."

"With each of these expeditions that OceanGate makes, they spend five days over the [Titanic] shipwreck," Pogue said. "And typically of those five days, they managed to get down only once or twice. And this season it's been zero."

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Money Can Buy a Visit to Space or the Deep Sea, but It Can’t Guarantee Safety

The Titan submersible tragedy spotlights the issues around rescue operations and government oversight as an increasing number of wealthy thrill seekers undertake risky adventures and expeditions.

By Christine Chung

Mountaineers have long climbed atop Mount Everest, and scientists in submersibles have descended into the Antarctic Ocean. In recent decades, travelers with deep pockets and little expertise have joined these explorers or even ventured further, paying to visit the bottom of the ocean or the edge of space, touching the literal bounds of Earth. But as the deaths of five people aboard the Titan submersible make evident, there are no clear safeguards in place when something goes wrong.

The tragedy this week spotlighted the issues around rescue operations and government oversight in this new world of extreme travel — who is responsible for search and rescue, and who pays for it? Is it even possible to purchase insurance against catastrophe? It also raises questions about when risk is too great and dangers too immense for rescue.

This all comes at a time when an increasing number of thrill seekers are undertaking risky — and riskier — adventures and expeditions.

“People want these experiences, and they’re going to continue to want them and be willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money for them,” said Anthony Berklich, a travel adviser and founder of the luxury travel service Inspired Citizen .

An adrenaline rush with a high price

Innovations in technology have opened up the possibilities of travel in recent years, and wealthy travelers are willing to spend more to go further , especially when it comes to space travel and underwater exploration.

“Some people like watches, other people like exploring, because that’s how they get their kicks,” said Roman Chiporukha, of Roman & Erica, a referral-based luxury lifestyle and travel firm based in New York City, and the SpaceVIP service, which connects clients to space tourism operators.

About one million tourists a year embark on some sort of underwater sightseeing expedition, according to Triton Submarines , a Florida-based company offering “superyacht submersibles.” (These large, ultraluxury and customizable underwater vessels reportedly cost between $2.5 million and $40 million to build and count the “Titanic” movie director, James Cameron, as an investor.)

The expeditions can range from short submarine tours, like a two-hour, $180 trip that dips 100 feet below the waves of the Hawaiian island of Maui to an overnight stay in Lovers Deep, a submarine hotel equipped with a chef and butler, which will take passengers through reefs of St. Lucia in the Caribbean for nearly $300,000 a night. The expedition on the Titan to view the Titanic was priced at $250,000 a person.

Diego Gomes, 36, a medical director from Seattle, visited Antarctica in February. He booked passage with Seabourn Cruise Line, where most cabins start at $10,000, and after reaching the Antarctic Ocean, was able to get a glimpse of the ocean floor in Seabourn’s Expedition Submarine.

The experience, Mr. Gomes said speaking before the fate of the Titan was known, went above his expectations. The public, he said, “never hears about underwater life in Antarctica, and that’s what made me sign up for it.”

Before boarding, he and other travelers were given a tour of safety features on the submarine, he said, and were in constant connection with the ship while they went 1,000 feet below.

“I felt extremely secure,” he said. “I’d do it again.”

Then there is space tourism . The sector is booming, with billionaire-led companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX already successfully launching suborbital spaceflights. Virgin Galactic , where tickets for a suborbital spaceflight start at $450,000, said in a news release that it plans to launch its first flight next week.

“With last year’s Blue Origin and Virgin launches, and the James Webb telescope photos, there is renewed interest in space and it has become the cultural zeitgeist,” Mr. Chiporukha said. His SpaceVIP service, he said, has seen a 40 percent increase in inquiries this year.

And little training is required for aspiring space travelers. Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, whose passengers have included the “Star Trek” television star William Shatner, says that passengers can “fully train” for the experience of blasting 62 miles above Earth in just two days.

When things go wrong

For many forms of adventure travel, insurance and support systems are available. Those who wish to climb Everest can join expedition companies, hire Sherpas to guide them along the ascent and purchase travel insurance to offer various protections up to the mountain’s high altitudes.

When things go wrong, companies can often swoop in to whisk you away to a hospital or conduct a field rescue, if and when they know where you are. A helicopter can fetch you if you get frostbite while attempting a summit in the Himalayas . If you’re mired in civil unrest abroad, former Navy SEALS can come to extract you.

Nick Goracy, a spokesman for Servius Group , a company offering private travel security on a case-by-case basis, said that fees can hover between five and six figures.

Then there are travel-assistance companies that provide yearly memberships for security needs, medical evacuations and rescue services. Covac Global offers “fully indemnified” packages for medical and security evacuation, including search and rescue, costing about $2,800, with up to $1.3 million in expenses covered, said Ross Thompson, the company’s chief executive.

To date, no client has exceeded the coverage’s maximum, he said, adding that the priciest evacuation, from Indonesia to Canada, was for a traveler with a critical case of Covid-19. It cost $400,000.

In the United States, federal and state agencies, including the National Park Service, will cover the costs of search and rescue efforts, depending on where you are. For water rescues, the U.S. Coast Guard, which led the Titan rescue, is not legally allowed to charge for its operations, an agency spokeswoman said.

Three countries deployed at least nine vessels and multiple aircraft and remotely operated vehicles during the vast rescue effort to save the doomed Titan submersible. Experts estimate the cost will be in the tens of millions of dollars, at least.

Mr. Thompson priced the Titan search and rescue response at around $100 million, adding that R.O.V.s are “very expensive to operate.”

“Ultimately, taxpayers will be responsible because that is where the Coast Guard’s budget comes from,” said Mikki Hastings, president of the National Association for Search and Rescue , a nonprofit that focuses on wilderness rescues.

But most domestic search and rescue teams are volunteer organizations, said Chris Boyer, the executive director of the search and rescue association.

He underscored that the new level of extreme travel requires rethinking what rescue efforts can reasonably be made when disaster strikes.

“Can people do things like this and expect a voluntary response? Or do they expect an agency and government response?” Mr. Boyer said of space tourism particularly. “Who is going to do that and how does it work?”

Indeed, as the Titan’s doomed journey indicates, even established travel-assistance companies face limits.

“There’s nothing that you can do to help somebody that’s 15,000 feet below the surface of the ocean,” said Dan Richards, chief executive of Global Rescue , which provides evacuation and field rescue services. “We can only do what’s humanly possible.”

In terms of insurance policies, there may be new calculations about insuring extreme risk, said Mr. Thompson of Covac Global. Old models may no longer make sense for complex rescue efforts whose costs are unprecedented. We are “a long way from anyone saying, ‘I’ll cover the dive down to the Titanic,’” Mr. Thompson said.

The Federal Aviation Administration oversees regulation of commercial space tourism and requires operators to have “insurance, or demonstrate financial responsibility to cover potential damage and injury to the public, public property, and any government personnel and property at risk from the operation,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

Additional policies, such as insurance for participants climbing into capsules for travel into space, are a “matter between the operator and the participant.”

Murkiness with oversight

Regulation for these otherworldly experiences is also lagging behind the pace of the booming market.

The F.A.A.’s oversight of space tourism is limited to “protecting the public on the ground and others” in the country’s domestic and over-sea airspace, said the agency’s spokesperson. The F.A.A. has no role in “regulating the safety of passengers onboard commercial space vehicles.”

And the “niche little market” of plunging to the deep sea in a submersible to see wreckage up close has little oversight, said Salvatore Mercogliano, a maritime history expert and professor at Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C.

There was little to no regulation regarding the Titan’s design. Classification of submersibles is not compulsory in international waters, Dr. Mercogliano said, a loophole allowing OceanGate Expeditions to skirt this step . The Everett, Wash.-based company claimed that the Titan was so advanced that certification by assessment agencies would take years, a circumstance the organization described in a 2019 blog post as “anathema to rapid innovation.” (The post has since been removed.)

Complicating the matter further, the Titan was operating in international waters, where it wasn’t subject to the jurisdiction of any one nation, Dr. Mercogliano added.

“There is no real outside agency to ensure that things like a redundant communication system was fitted, an emergency beacon to be launched if necessary,” he said.

International maritime law requires all available vessels to respond to distress calls in the sea, a regulation implemented after the Titanic sank more than a century ago and which prompted this week’s huge search-and-rescue response.

Who should go?

Whether last week’s ill-fated Titan expedition will lead to better oversight remains to be seen. But the incident has sparked conversations among explorers and wealthy travelers alike about who exactly should be embarking on this type of danger-filled travel.

West Hansen, a 61-year-old ultramarathon canoe racer and member of the Explorers Club , has paddled the 2,100-mile Volga River in Russia and the entire length of the Amazon River. Next week, along with four other experienced kayakers, Mr. Hansen will embark on a journey to paddle the Northwest Passage. He believes that the tourists who are “dabbling” in areas that “explorers are just getting to see” may have a false sense of security.

The drive to explore and test limits is deeply human, Mr. Hansen added, but money does not “diminish potential danger.”

Debra Kamin contributed reporting.

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Christine Chung is a Times reporter covering airlines and consumer travel. More about Christine Chung

What is submersible tourism? The Titanic expedition, explained.

How common are deep-sea expeditions like the Titan’s? Where else do submersibles go?

Seeing the wreck of the Titanic firsthand is a journey.

One must board a submersible vessel about the size of a minivan built to withstand the pressure of descending nearly two and a half miles into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean . It takes about two hours to reach the sunken ship and another two to get back to the surface, plus time for exploration.

And even with a price tag of a quarter of a million dollars, there has been no shortage of people with interest for such an adventure. Philippe Brown, founder of the luxury travel company Brown and Hudso , said there’s a long wait list for the OceanGate Expeditions submersible experience at the center of the world’s attention. The vessel, called the Titan, vanished Sunday in the North Atlantic with five onboard , triggering a wide-reaching search mission that ended Thursday, when the Coast Guard said a remotely operated vehicle discovered debris from the vessel on the ocean floor. Pieces of the submersible indicated it had imploded in a “catastrophic event," Coast Guard officials said. A spokesperson for OceanGate said the pilot and passengers “have sadly been lost."

For the world’s richest and most intrepid travelers, a submersible trip is not so far-fetched, says Roman Chiporukha, co-founder of Roman & Erica, a travel company for ultrawealthy clients with annual membership dues starting at $100,000.

“These are the people who’ve scaled the seven peaks, they’ve crossed the Atlantic on their own boat,” Chiporukha said. The typical vacation of the ultrawealthy, like a beach getaway on the Italian Riviera or St. Barts, “really doesn’t do it for them,” he added.

That description fits tycoon Hamish Harding , who was among the five people on Titan. An avid adventurer who’s thoroughly explored the South Pole and the Mariana Trench, Harding was also on the fifth spaceflight of Blue Origin , the private space company founded by Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Capt. Hamish Harding (@actionaviationchairman)

Harding and the Titan journey represent the extreme end of the submersible tourism industry, which has been growing in popularity since the 1980s. Ofer Ketter , a longtime submersibles pilot and co-founder of SubMerge , a firm that provides consulting and operations of private submersibles, says such deep-sea journeys are rare in comparison to those in more tropical locations. For example, the luxury tour operator Kensington Tours offers a $700,000, 10-day yacht trip that includes a 600-plus-foot dive in a submersible in the Bahamas to explore the Exumas ocean floor.

Here’s what else to know about the industry.

Deep water, high pressure: Why the Titanic sub search is so complex

Missing Titanic submersible

The latest: After an extensive search, the Coast Guard found debris fields that have been indentified as the Titan submersible. OceanGate, the tour company, has said all 5 passengers are believed dead.

The Titan: The voyage to see the Titanic wreckage is eight days long, costs $250,000 and is open to passengers age 17 and older. The Titan is 22 feet long, weighs 23,000 pounds and “has about as much room as a minivan,” according to CBS correspondent David Pogue. Here’s what we know about the missing submersible .

The search: The daunting mission covers the ocean’s surface and the vast depths beneath. The search poses unique challenges that are further complicated by the depths involved. This map shows the scale of the search near the Titanic wreckage .

The passengers: Hamish Harding , an aviation businessman, aircraft pilot and seasoned adventurer, posted on Instagram that he was joining the expedition and said retired French navy commander Paul-Henri Nargeolet was also onboard. British Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son, Suleman, 19, were also on the expedition, their family confirmed. The CEO of OceanGate , the submersible expedition company, was also on the vessel. Here’s what we know about the five missing passengers.

Rich Guys Are Diving Down to the Titanic Again, Because Things Will Be Different This Time

They’re aiming to right the wrongs of the doomed Titan submersible.

• Ohio real estate billionaire Larry Connor has plans to partner with the Triton Submarines co-founder to dive to the Titanic in 2026.
• The Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer is designed to dive over 13,000 feet, enough to reach the ocean floor where the Titanic resides.
• Connor has long sought extreme adventures, having traveled to the Mariana Trench and the International Space Station.

“I want to show people worldwide that while the ocean is extremely powerful, it can be wonderful and enjoyable and really kind of life-changing if you go about it the right way,” Larry Connor tells The Wall Street Journal .

To make it happen, the wealthy businessman, who has already visited the Mariana Trench and the International Space Station, will partner with Patrick Lahey, co-founder of Triton Submarines. The pair plan to join in the company’s 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer to drop 13,000 feet—the depth the submersible is reportedly capable of handling—to explore the Titanic in summer 2026.

“Patrick has been thinking about and designing this for over a decade,” Connor tells the newspaper. “But we didn’t have the materials and technology. You couldn’t have built this sub five years ago.”

According to The Wall Street Journal , the OceanGate-owned Titan ’s implosion inspired the mission. Connor contacted Lahey, a critic of OceanGate and its practices, in the aftermath of the summer 2023 news and said the two should prove to the world they were capable of something better. “What we need to do is build a sub that can dive to [ Titanic -level depths] repeatedly and safely and demonstrate to the world that you guys can do that, and that Titan was a contraption,” Lahey tells The Wall Street Journal about what Connor told him at the time.

The June 18, 2023, implosion of the 22-foot-long Titan submersible happened roughly one hour and 45 minutes into a mission to bring five people to see the Titanic . During the rescue attempt of the Titan , remotely operated underwater vehicles found a debris field from the Titan about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic .

The expected 2026 effort will take place in the Triton 4000/2 Abyss Explorer , named for its ability to send two people 4,000 meters (13,500 feet) into the depth of the ocean within the acrylic sub’s construction.

The Triton submersible features what the company calls a “Gull Wing” design to improve versatility of movement. The wings retract for ascent and descent, while allowing movement through tight spaces. The wings can partially deploy to help the submersible silently glide and track objects, while fully deployed the wings raise the vehicle’s propulsion, managed by eight direct-drive thrusters. Cameras on the wing tips provide a fresh perspective on the surroundings.

“As a platform,” the company boasts on its website, “the Triton Abyssal Explorer’s capabilities are simply unmatched.”

Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland. 

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19-year-old Titan passenger was ‘terrified’ before trip, his aunt says

In the days before the Titan vessel went into the ocean off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, the 19-year-old university student accompanying his father on the expedition expressed hesitation about going, his aunt said in an interview Thursday.

Azmeh Dawood — the older sister of Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood — told NBC News that her nephew, Suleman, informed a relative that he "wasn't very up for it" and felt "terrified" about the trip to explore the wreckage of the Titanic.

But the 19-year-old ended up going aboard OceanGate's 22-foot submersible because the trip fell over Father's Day weekend and he was eager to please his dad, who was passionate about the lore of the Titanic, according to Azmeh.

"I am thinking of Suleman, who is 19, in there, just perhaps gasping for breath ... It's been crippling, to be honest," Azmeh said in a phone interview from the home in Amsterdam she shares with her husband, Jonathan.

She was devastated on Thursday when OceanGate, the company behind the Titan expedition, confirmed that all five passengers aboard were presumed dead . The U.S. Coast Guard said that debris in the search area was consistent with a "catastrophic implosion."

"I feel disbelief," Azmeh said, speaking through sobs. "It's an unreal situation."

The last four days were agonizing for Azmeh. She was glued to television news coverage of the hunt for the Titan, desperate for updates about her brother and nephew — and fearing the worst.

"I feel like I've been caught in a really bad film, with a countdown, but you didn't know what you're counting down to," she said. "I personally have found it kind of difficult to breathe thinking of them."

More on the Titan submersible

• Titan passengers share eerie accounts of safety issues on the submersible's past expeditions
• See the Titanic wreckage more than 100 years later
• Titanic submersible lost at sea raises legal questions for high-risk businesses

"I never thought I would have an issue with drawing breath," she added. "It's been unlike any experience I've ever had."

Azmeh and Shahzada are scions of one of the most prominent corporate dynasties in Pakistan. The family’s namesake business empire, Dawood Hercules Corp., has investments in agriculture, the health sector and other industries.

Shahzada was the vice chairman of the Karachi-based Engro Corporation and an adviser to Prince’s Trust International, a charitable organization founded by King Charles III. 

'He was my baby brother'

In recent years, Azmeh had fallen out of touch with Shahzada.

She was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis in 2014 and "reduced to being in a wheelchair." She and her husband decided to move from England to Amsterdam so she would have easier access to medicinal cannabis.

But some of her family members, including Shahzada, disapproved of her use of cannabis and they started speaking less frequently. She said that she continued to feel close to Suleman, a young man she described as thoroughly good-hearted.

But with the news Thursday that both men were believed to be dead, Azmeh was reminded of the intense love she felt for her sibling.

"He was my baby brother," she said, weeping and seemingly overwhelmed with emotion. "I held him up when he was born."

In a statement, Azmeh and Shahzada's parents asked people to "keep the departed souls and our family in your prayers" and thanked the search teams for their "untiring efforts."

"The immense love and support we receive continues to help us endure this unimaginable loss," Hussain and Kulsum Dawood said.

Azmeh recalled that Shahzada was "absolutely obsessed" with the Titanic from a young age. When they were kids in Pakistan, the Dawood siblings would constantly watch the 1958 film "A Night to Remember," a British drama about the sinking of the cruise liner.

She recounted that when Shahzada met her husband, he asked if they could sit down and watch a four-hour documentary about the Titanic. Shahzada also loved going to see museum exhibitions featuring artifacts recovered from the wreckage.

She was not surprised when she learned that her brother had purchased tickets for the OceanGate mission. It was not something she would ever do, she explained: "If you gave me a million dollars," she said, "I would not have gotten into the Titan."

Azmeh spent part of Thursday afternoon looking at old family photos, trying to make sense of the tragedy that befell her brother and nephew — and grappling with the emotional ripple effect around the world.

"I feel very bad that the whole world has had to go through so much trauma, so much suspense," she said.

Daniel Arkin is a national reporter at NBC News.

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Another billionaire wants to ride a submarine to the Titanic wreckage

By Clarissa-Jan Lim

The Titan submersible that was traveling to the depths of the sunken Titanic disappeared nearly a year ago today and was later found to have imploded during its descent, killing five people. Now, another billionaire is reportedly preparing to make that same journey — also in a submersible, though one built by a different company.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal , Larry Connor, a real estate and tech billionaire from Ohio, and Patrick Lahey, the founder and CEO of Triton Submarines, are planning to make the same expedition to the Titanic wreckage 3,800 meters below sea level. Neither said when will the voyage take place, but the vessel they intend to travel in is the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer, valued at $20 million and reportedly built using cutting-edge materials and tech to design.

The Titan tragedy exposed the fatal downsides of the unregulated deep-sea tourism industry. After the vessel disappeared last year, a massive amount of resources was deployed to search for those aboard the submersible; many contrasted it with the tepid global response to a mass humanitarian crisis that involved the sinking of a migrant boat just days prior.

Of course, Lahey and Connor believe that the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer will be far more secure than the Titan submersible, which had faced safety concerns for years. “I want to show people worldwide that while the ocean is extremely powerful, it can be wonderful and enjoyable and really kind of life-changing if you go about it the right way,” Connor told the Journal.

But who else could enjoy such an experience besides billionaires such as himself? Like space tourism (also a province of the ultra-rich ), deep-sea tourism costs an exorbitant amount of money and is thus only available to the most affluent. OceanGate, for example, reportedly charged $250,000 per person for Titanic expeditions before the disaster happened and it ceased operations. Triton Submarines itself was described by the Journal as “one of the leading makers of personal submersibles, serving a deep-pocketed clientele with aspirations of exploring the undersea realm.”

Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking/trending news blogger for MSNBC Digital. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.

Undersea adventure reborn: Billionaires to revisit Titanic wreck in 2026

T he tragic end of last year's Titan submersible expedition to the Titanic wreck did not discourage more adventurers from attempting to visit the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean again. This time, billionaire Larry Connor, accompanied by Patrick Lahey, co-founder of Triton Submarines, aims to undertake the journey.

Titan - the tragic expedition to the bottom of the Atlantic

In June 2023, the world was shocked by the catastrophe of the Titan submersible , whose five-person crew perished while attempting to reach the Titanic wreck. The tragedy sparked criticism against the expedition's organizer, OceanGate , accusing them of unprofessionalism and inadequate mission preparation.

The Titan submersible's hull was made of carbon composites and was theoretically designed for dives to nearly 3,960 metres. However, its construction had weak points, such as a viewport made from material certified only to a depth of 1,310 metres. Additionally, the technology used for the Titan's outer shell was far from ideal, and only 14 percent of previous attempts to submerge the vehicle succeeded.

The remnants of the submersible were found about 500 metres from the Titanic's bow, and the implosion occurred 105 minutes after the dive began at a depth of about 3,500 metres. Rather than serving as a warning, the history of this tragic expedition inspired two other billionaires,  Larry Connor and Patrick Lahey .

Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer - a new hope

The two mentioned billionaires decided to prove that commercial expeditions to the Titanic wreck are feasible if earlier mistakes are avoided. To this end, they plan to descend to the Atlantic's bottom in 2026 in a  two-person submersible, the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer , which, according to the manufacturer, Triton Submarines , is set to be unrivalled in its class.

The company emphasizes that the challenge lies in constructing a submersible capable of reaching the Titanic wreck and creating a vehicle that permits mass commercial tours, ensuring high travel comfort.

Triton Submarines has extensive experience building underwater tourism vehicles and respects the extreme conditions at nearly 3,960 metres where the Titanic rests.

The future of extreme underwater travel

The manufacturer already boasts some successes, including a two-person submersible, the Triton 36000/2 , which can reach the greatest depths on Earth. A few years ago, it was used to film the Titanic wreck in 4K resolution.

Compared to the Titan's old-fashioned appearance, the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer resembles a futuristic spacecraft. It features a spherical acrylic cabin that can accommodate two people. It also has wings that fold during descent and ascent and unfold to facilitate maneuvering. This design also ensures more accessible transport and storage of the submersible.

Larry Connor, who has visited the Mariana Trench and the International Space Station , knows the risks associated with such expeditions. He compares the journey to the ocean's bottom to space travel, emphasizing that both endeavours present immense challenges. In the first instance, the main problem is extreme conditions, while in the second, it is the need to overcome Earth's gravity.

In an interview with "The Wall Street Journal," Connor expressed hope that he can show people worldwide that the ocean, despite its power, can be a source of wonderful and joyous experiences if approached with proper caution.

American billionaire prepares to conquer Titanic depths again

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