titanic tour gone wrong

A Deep Dive Gone Wrong: Inside the Titanic Submersible Voyage That Ended With 5 Dead

How a commercial expedition to the titanic wreckage site in the north atlantic went horribly wrong for the five people aboard the oceangate submersible titan..

There was no miracle ending for the story that gripped so much of the world  this week.

Four days after OceanGate Expedition's 22-foot submersible went missing on its way to tour the wreckage of the RMS Titanic , the U.S. Coast Guard announced that  the vessel had suffered a deadly implosion .

USCG Rear Adm. John W. Mauger  said June 22 that the families of the five people aboard were immediately notified once officials and experts had concluded the craft was lost.

"I can only imagine what this has been like for them," Mauger said. "I hope that this discovery provides some solace during this difficult time." 

OceanGate, whose CEO and founder Stockton Rush  was piloting the June 18 expedition, called the five men who were presumed dead "true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure , and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world's oceans."

Meanwhile, just thinking about their fate is enough to cause hyperventilating. The search for the sub Titan turned into a horror show unfolding in real time, the most chilling detail being not what officials described as "limited rations" of food and water onboard, but the 96-hour oxygen supply  they set off with.

And as soon as news of the missing sub broke, tragic and downright bizarre details started piling up alongside reports of long-standing concerns about the safety of OceanGate's overall operation, including from previous Titan passengers .

OceanGate has not said anything about the resurfaced criticisms this week. The company did not return E! News' or NBC News' requests for comment.

"This is a mature art,"  Titanic  director James Cameron , who made 33 dives to the 111-year-old wreckage that inspired his 1997 blockbuster, told ABC News after Titan's fate was known , "and many people in the community were very concerned about this sub."

We may only be at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the full story surrounding the events of the past week, but this is how it's unfolded so far:

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Rush wanted to see what was left of the Titanic—which claimed the lives of his wife Wendy Rush 's great-great-grandparents Ida and Isidor Straus  when it sank in 1912—before it decayed into nothingness. And he felt there was a market to give paying customers the same chance.

"It made perfect sense," he told Deutsche Welle in 2019. "We just had to make the submersible to get there."

The Seattle-based aerospace engineer (and once-aspiring astronaut) started developing plans for a sub in 2003 and started OceanGate in 2009, his goal being to make several dives a year. Wendy's LinkedIn bio says that she's the company's communications director, as well as an expedition team member.

What was it like onboard the submersible Titan?

Rush touted the pioneering aspects of Titan, which in December 2018 became the first private company-owned sub with a human aboard to dive the average depth of the ocean and beyond, to 13,000 feet, a little deeper than the Titanic wreckage. 

"We realized that we had to have at least the capability for four people, which nobody did," he told Deutsche Welle. "The reason is you have to have a pilot and an expert, because having somebody who's passionate and knowledgeable about what you're looking at completely changes the nature of the dive. And then if you're going to take somebody to go see the Titanic it's going to be the most life-changing experience for them. They won't want to do it alone."

Titan was also much lighter than other submersibles, he said. Vessels made out of titanium or steel "all weigh 25 or so tons and they're huge," Rush explained. "The sub we built out of carbon fiber only weighs a little over 10 tons, we have five people on it— three laypeople, a pilot and a researcher—and it's still relatively small, which means it can go faster."

And, last but not least, Titan had a bathroom. Dives are 10 to 12 hours long, Rush noted, and on tinier subs "they give you a cup and a skirt that you wrap around your waist" when you have to go. "People would starve themselves the day before," he said. "It's a big fear. But because our sub is carbon fiber and we have so much space, we actually have a bathroom that is bigger than most private jets'. You can put up a little curtain and you have some privacy."

That being said, the toilet was still a plastic bottle and some Ziploc bags. The overall passenger compartment has been compared to the size of a minivan.

Ahead of what was supposed to be OceanGate's first Titanic dive with paying passengers in June 2019,  Smithsonian  reported that tickets were going to cost $105,129—the inflation-adjusted price for first-class passage on the Titanic—but had since gone up to $125,000 per person.

They didn't make that  inaugural expedition  until July 2021, OceanGate subsequently sharing on Twitter that they had set a record reaching the Titanic depths of 12,296 feet in a five-person carbon fiber submersible, making it in 2.5 hours and "landing directly in the least documented area of the debris field."

The Simpsons  producer  Mike Reiss  made the trip in 2022. He recalled signing "a massive waiver that lists one way after another that you could die on the trip," telling the BBC in a June 20 interview, "They mention death three times on page one. So it's never far from your mind."

The waiver also notes that Titan is not approved or certified "by any regulatory body."

Who were the passengers aboard the OceanGate submersible Titan on June 18?

Rush, a 61-year-old father of two, was joined by Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood , 48, and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood , British billionaire  Hamish Harding , 58, and former French navy diver  Paul-Henri Nargeolet , 77, who like Harding was a member of The Explorers Club.

The company-described "mission specialists" paid $250,000 per person for an eight-day experience that included a number of dives.

Nargeolet was director of RMS Titanic Inc., the U.S. company that owns the salvage rights to the wreckage, and he had completed more than 35 dives to the site, including once on the Titan, according to the New York Times .

"For him to have died tragically in this way is almost impossible for me to process," Cameron told ABC.

Hamish, a father of two with wife Linda Harding , was chairman of the Dubai-based private jet brokerage Action Aviation and lived in the United Arab Emirates. The avid adventurer had visited the South Pole several times, reached the Mariana Trench (the deepest part of the ocean on Earth) and went to space in 2022 on Blue Origin's fifth human-crewed flight.

Shahzada Dawood, who hailed from one of Pakistan's richest families, lived in London with wife Christine and their daughter Alina . And apparently he was the one who wanted to see the Titanic while his son was reluctantly along for the ride  for Father's Day. 

A family statement, per the BBC, said Suleman was a "big fan of science fiction literature and learning new things." But the teen, a business student at Strathclyde University, told a relative he was "terrified" about the deep-sea excursion, his aunt Azmeh Dawood  told NBC News. 

"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," Azmeh said. "I personally have found it kind of difficult to breathe thinking of them."

What happened to the Titan submersible?

The Titan began its 2.4-mile trip below the ocean's surface from the Canadian expedition ship the Polar Prince on the morning of June 18, about 435 miles south of St. John's, Newfoundland.

The control center lost contact with the sub roughly an hour and 45 minutes into the dive.

A joint search operation involving the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, Canadian Coast Guard and a number of private vessels commenced, ultimately traversing thousands of miles of ocean as time ticked away, the Titan's four-day oxygen supply providing the harshest of deadlines for a successful rescue operation.

Crews used sonar devices to try and catch any sound and deployed a remotely operated vehicle to comb the depths of the North Atlantic. 

"We wouldn't be searching and putting all effort out there" if they didn't think there was a chance of recovery, USCG Capt. Jamie Frederick  said on June 20.

But retired U.S. Navy submarine captain David Marquet put the Titan passengers' chances of survival at "about 1 percent."

"It's basically imagining a spacecraft disappeared on the far side of the moon," he told NPR's  Morning Edition two days into the search. "A, you have to find it. B, you have to get to it. Even when you get to it...you still need to somehow get the people out of there to safety."

It was possible , he added, "but I think the families should prepare themselves for bad news."

On June 21, the Coast Guard advised that " underwater noises " had been detected, after which "ROV operations were relocated in an attempt to explore the origin of the noises."

"Those ROV searches have yielded negative results," the agency said, "but continue."

When did officials determine the Titan submersible had imploded?

Officials estimated that the 96-hour oxygen deadline passed at roughly 7:10 a.m. ET on June 22.

That afternoon, the Coast Guard announced that a robotic vehicle from the vessel Horizon Arctic had discovered the tail cone of the Titan, as well as other large pieces of debris "consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber," about 1,600 feet away from the bow of the Titanic. 

But even before pieces of Titan were found on the ocean seabed, officials had reason to suspect the sub was lost.

The U.S. Navy said that acoustic sensors had likely detected an implosion just hours after the dive began four days prior, meaning some senior officials suspected they weren't searching for an intact vessel.

"While not definitive, this information was immediately shared with the Incident Commander to assist with the ongoing search and rescue mission," a senior Navy official said in a June 22 statement to the Washington Post . "This information was considered with the compilation of additional acoustic data provided by other partners and the decision was made to continue our mission as a search and rescue and make every effort to save the lives on board."

Experts told NBC News that the water pressure that crushed the sub was akin to the weight of the 10,000-ton wrought-iron Eiffel Tower, but the implosion would have been so quick, no one aboard would have had even a second to react.

"They would have known nothing," said University of Southampton professor Paul White , an expert in underwater acoustics and forces. "The minute this body of water hit them, they would have been dead."

What caused the implosion of the Titanic-bound sub?

Officials have not yet been able to pinpoint a reason for why the expedition turned deadly, and investigations into the cause of the implosion are ongoing.

Cameron raised the possibility that the carbon-fiber composite that the Titan was built with, making it lighter than any other sub doing comparable dives, proved to be its undoing.

The material has "no strength in compression," the filmmaker, whose numerous expeditions include a solo dive to Challenger Deep—the deepest point of the Mariana Trench—aboard the 24-foot sub Deepsea Challenger in 2012, told the  New York Times . "It's not what it's designed for."

Cameron has now said in multiple interviews that the deep-submergence engineering community generally abides by the strictest of certifications and safety protocol. Which, he pointed out, was why nothing like this tragedy had happened before.

"We've never had an accident like this," he told the  Times . "There've never been fatalities at this kind of depth and certainly no implosions."

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Watch CBS News

What we know about the tourist sub that disappeared on an expedition to the Titanic

By Emily Mae Czachor

Updated on: June 23, 2023 / 11:35 PM EDT / CBS News

Five people on board the tourist  submarine that disappeared  on an expedition to explore the  Titanic shipwreck  over the weekend did not survive a "catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber," officials said Thursday.

The announcement came after the U.S. Coast Guard said the  massive search  underway in the North Atlantic had located a debris field on the sea floor, which was confirmed to be pieces of the missing sub .

"The debris field is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel," Rear Adm. John Mauger of the Coast Guard said at a briefing, offering "deepest condolences to the families." A spokesperson for OceanGate Expeditions, the company behind the voyage, told reporters that the passengers, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, "have sadly been lost."

Here's what we know so far about the submersible craft and what led up to this point.

What happened?

A five-person crew on a submersible named Titan, owned by OceanGate Expeditions, submerged on a dive to the Titanic wreckage site Sunday morning, and the crew of the Polar Prince research ship lost contact with the sub about an hour and 45 minutes later, the Coast Guard   said . 

The Coast Guard first alerted mariners about the missing sub Sunday night, saying a "21 foot submarine" with a white hull was overdue and giving its last known position. "VESSELS IN VICINITY REQUESTED TO KEEP A SHARP LOOKOUT, ASSIST IF POSSIBLE," the alert message read.

The sub was lost in an area about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, in the North Atlantic, in water with a depth of about 13,000 feet, which is about level with the depth of the Titanic wreck . Amid growing concern about its  dwindling supply of breathable air , search and rescue efforts by a unified command composed of several international agencies ramped up accordingly.

The five people aboard included an operator — later identified as Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions — and four mission specialists, a term the company uses for its passengers, who paid up to $250,000 for a seat.

For days, the fate of the sub and its passengers was a mystery.

But after the debris was found, a U.S. Navy official said the Navy had detected "an acoustic anomaly consistent with an implosion" shortly after the sub lost contact with the surface Sunday, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reported. The information was relayed to the Coast Guard, which used it to narrow the radius of the search area, the official said.

Such an implosion, under the intense pressure of the depths of the sea , would have destroyed the vessel almost instantly, experts explained.

"in a fraction of a second, it's gone," Will Kohnen, chairman of the professional group the Marine Technology Society Submarine Committee, told the Reuters news agency. 

"It implodes inwards in a matter of a thousandth of a second," Kohnen said. "And it's probably a mercy, because that was probably a kinder end than the unbelievably difficult situation of being four days in a cold, dark and confined space. So, this would have happened very quickly. I don't think anybody even had the time to realize what happened." 

The Coast Guard is leading the investigation into the incident, and the National Transportation Safety Board  said Friday  it will assist.   

Who were the passengers aboard the sub? 

CBS News confirmed that the five people aboard the submersible were  Hamish Harding , a 59-year-old British billionaire, business owner and explorer; British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman; French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who had made multiple dives over the years to explore the Titanic; and Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, who was serving as pilot.

Just ahead of the Coast Guard briefing Thursday afternoon, a statement issued by OceanGate spokesperson Andrew Von Kerens offered condolences to the families of the Titan crew and recognized that all five people on board the submersible were believed to be dead.

"These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world's oceans," the company said in the statement. "Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew."

When the Coast Guard confirmed the sub's likely implosion on Thursday, Mauger said they were communicating with consulates general in both the U.K. and France.

The Dawood family, of the large Pakistan-based global business conglomerate Dawood Group, issued a statement Tuesday confirming their family members were on the expedition.

"Please continue to keep the departed souls and our family in your prayers during this difficult time of mourning," the Hussain and Kulsum Dawood family said Thursday in a statement through the Dawood Foundation. "We are truly grateful to all those involved in the rescue operations. ... The immense love and support we receive continues to help us endure this unimaginable loss."

Nargeolet, a renowned French explorer and former diver for the French Navy who was part of the first expedition to visit the Titanic wreck in 1987, was returning for another dive aboard the Titan submersible. 

In a  Facebook  post on Monday, Rory Golden, an explorer who became the first Irish diver to visit the Titanic wreckage in 2000, said he was part of the voyage but was not on the submersible that went missing.

Search and rescue efforts

Authorities  said  early Thursday morning that a Canadian vessel, Horizon Arctic, had deployed a  remotely operated underwater vehicle that reached the sea floor . The ROV ultimately located what the Coast Guard originally described as a debris field on the sea floor, which included identifiable pieces of the sub, authorities confirmed that afternoon.

"This morning, an ROV, or remote operated vehicle, from the vessel Horizon Arctic, discovered the tail cone of the Titan submersible approximately 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic on the sea floor," said Mauger at a news briefing. "The ROV subsequently found additional debris. In consultation with experts from within the unified command, the debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber."

"Upon this determination, we immediately notified the families," he added. "On behalf of the United States Coast Guard and the entire unified command, I offer my deepest condolences to the families. I can only imagine what this has been like for them and I hope that this discovery provides some solace during this difficult time."

Mauger said authorities were "still working to develop the details for the timeline involved with this casualty and the response," and referenced the "incredibly complex operating environment along the sea floor, over two miles beneath the surface."

Paul Hankins, an undersea expert for the U.S. Navy, explained during the news conference that crews discovered "five different major pieces of debris that told us that it was the remains of the Titan." These pieces included, initially, the nose cone, which was outside of the pressure hull. 

"We then found a large debris field," Hankins said. "Within that large debris field, we found the front end bell of the pressure hull. That was our first indication that there was a catastrophic event."

A second, smaller debris field was located shortly after, and the debris found there "comprised the totality of that pressure vessel," Hankins said. 

"The debris field is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel," he said, adding that the team will continue to map the debris field area.

Asked by a reporter what the prospects were for recovering the passengers, Mauger said, "This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor, and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel. So we'll continue to work and continue to search the area down there, but I don't have an answer for prospects at this time."

Discovering the Titan debris came after multiple agencies from the U.S. and Canada spent days scouring thousands of square miles of open ocean in search of the missing sub.

The U.S. Coast Guard announced Wednesday that  underwater noises were detected  in the search area and that searches involving ROVs were  focusing on the area where the noises were heard .

On Wednesday, three more vessels had arrived to join the search, including one with side-scan sonar capabilities designed to create images of large sections of the sea floor, the Coast Guard said in a  tweet . That vessel began conducting search patterns alongside at least two others, as multiple military and other agencies worked together under a unified command. 

Frederick said Wednesday there were five "surface assets" involved in the search , and another five were expected to join the operation within the next 24 to 48 hours. He said the team also had two ROVs "actively searching," with several more due to arrive to join the search Thursday.

The Coast Guard  said  it had C-130 aircraft searching for the sub, and that the Rescue Coordination Center Halifax was assisting with a P-8 Poseidon aircraft, which has underwater detection capabilities. Canadian P-3s were also involved in the operation and deployed sonar buoys.

Just after midnight Wednesday, officials said  aircraft had detected underwater noises  in the search area, and underwater search operations were relocated as a result, though the origin of the noises remained unknown. The sounds were picked up several times Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, according to the Coast Guard. 

"With respect to the noises, specifically, we don't know what they are, to be frank with you," Frederick said. "The P-3 detected noises, that's why they're up there, that's why they're doing what they're doing, that's why there are sonar buoys in the water."

News of the vanished submersible and subsequent rescue mission originally broke Monday morning. At the time, Lt. Jordan Hart of the Coast Guard in Boston told CBS News that personnel there were leading the rescue mission, and focusing on waters off Newfoundland in eastern Canada. 

The Boston Regional Coordination Center was managing the rescue operation, as the location of the Titanic shipwreck falls within the Boston coordination center's territory, according to a  map  of jurisdictions along the East Coast of North America.

That combined search area grew to about twice the size of the state of Connecticut, and the subsurface search extended down as far as 2 and a half miles deep, Frederick said, stressing that the search and rescue teams were dealing with an incredibly complex set of circumstances.

"We also have to factor in the ever-changing weather conditions, currents and sea states that expand the search area every hour," he said earlier in the week. "There's an enormous complexity associated with this case due to the location being so far offshore and the coordination between multiple agencies and nations. We greatly appreciate the outpouring of support and offers to provide additional equipment."

What caused the noises?

Frederick acknowledged that the sounds detected underwater by Canadian aircraft could have been caused by multiple sources. 

Following the discovery of the sub debris on the sea floor, a U.S. Navy source told CBS News that the implosion would be inconsistent with banging noises heard at 30-minute intervals. Those noises, the official said, are now assessed as having come from other ships in the area.

Carl Hartsfield, an expert in underwater acoustics and the director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which is on-site at the search area as a consultant, explained that it can be challenging to differentiate between "human sounds" and "nature sounds" coming from beneath the surface.

"The ocean is a very complex place, obviously, human sounds, nature sounds, and it's very difficult to discern what the sources of those noises are at times," Hartsfield said. 

Before the sub was found, Chris Roman, an associate professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, told CBS News that, technically, it was possible that sounds from inside a submersible could have been detected, but that wasn't the only potential source of the noise.

"Sound travels very efficiently underwater. If people were intentionally making noises within the sub, it's very likely they could be detected with a sound buoy, and that position can be translated into a new search area," Roman said. But he also noted that, as Frederick mentioned in his briefing, "there's a lot of other things in the ocean that make noises."

The submarine

The unique submersible craft that disappeared was owned by OceanGate Expeditions , a company that deploys manned submarines for deep sea exploration and has in the past advertised this particular sub's voyages to carry tourists down to the wreckage of the RMS Titanic for $250,000 per seat. 

More than a century after the Titanic sank in April 1912, the wreck lies on the ocean floor about 400 miles southeast of the Newfoundland coast. 

OceanGate said recently on its website and on social media that its expedition to the shipwreck was "underway," describing the seven-night trip as a "chance to step outside of everyday life and discover something truly extraordinary." In addition to one ongoing expedition, the company had planned two others for the summer of next year, according to the site. 

Because of the sub's oxygen capacity, it can only be fully submerged for a portion of the weeklong voyage. The sub has emergency oxygen and a 96-hour sustainment capability if there's an emergency aboard, Mauger said.

In a statement Monday after news broke of the missing sub, OceanGate confirmed the missing submersible was theirs and that a rescue operation had been launched to find and recover it. The company said it was "exploring and mobilizing all options to bring the crew back safely." 

"For some time, we have been unable to establish communications with one of our submersible exploration vehicles which is currently visiting the wreck site of the Titanic," said Andrew Von Kerens, a spokesperson for OceanGate. "We pray for the safe return of the crew and passengers, and we will provide updates as they are available."

Inside the Titan

Dubbed the Titan, OceanGate's deep sea vessel, was said to be the only five-person submersible in the world with the capabilities to reach the Titanic's depth, nearly 2 and a half miles beneath the ocean's surface, CBS "Sunday Mornings" correspondent David Pogue reported last year. 

BBC News reported that the vessel typically carries a pilot, three paying guests and another person described as a "content expert" by the company.  OceanGate's site says the Titan, weighing around 23,000 pounds, has the ability to reach depths of up to 4,000 meters — over 13,000 feet — and has about 96 hours of life support for a crew of five people.

Last summer, Pogue accompanied the Titan crew on the journey from Newfoundland to the site where the Titanic as lost. Several dive attempts had to be canceled when weather conditions indicated it may not be safe. At the time, he described the Titan as a one-of-a-kind submersible craft made from thick carbon fiber and coated on both ends by a dome of titanium. 

In 2018, a former employee of OceanGate Expeditions, submersible pilot David Lochridge, voiced concerns about the safety of the Titanic tour sub and filed a lawsuit against the company . 

Lochridge, who was fired by OceanGate and sued by the company for allegedly disclosing confidential information in a whistleblower complaint to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said in a court filing that the Titan would carry passengers as deep as 4,000 meters even though that depth had never been reached in a sub with its type of carbon fiber hull. According to his claim, he learned the vessel was built to withstand a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, although OceanGate planned to take passengers to 4,000 meters.  

Lochridge was not the only skeptic. The same year his complaint was filed, other industry leaders approached OceanGate with questions about the safety of its submersible. William Kohnen, president and CEO of Hydrospace Group, outlined his concerns in a 2018 letter to OceanGate, originally published by The New York Times, that warned of potentially "catastrophic" issues with the "experimental" sub, which was not certified. Kohnen told CBS News on Wednesday that although he did not send it, the letter was leaked to OceanGate and prompted the company to "amend a number of details that made sure the public knew" the submersible had not received its certification.

"The letter to Oceangate was meant as a professional courtesy to the CEO expressing industry concerns that the company was not following a traditional classification route for the certification of the submersible," Kohnen said. "The industry operates along an established and dynamic set of safety regulations and protocols that have served the submersible industry worldwide."

Ahead of his planned dive last summer, Pogue recalled signing paperwork that read, in part, "This experimental vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, emotional trauma, or death." 

Space inside the submarine was similar to the interior of a minivan, and, with just one button and a video game controller used to steer it, the vessel "seemed improvised, with off-the-shelf components," Pogue said.

On his voyage, the  sub was lost for a few hours , Pogue said.

"There's no GPS underwater, so the surface ship is supposed to guide the sub to the shipwreck by sending text messages," he reported at the time. "But on this dive, communications somehow broke down."

You may remember that the @OceanGateExped sub to the #Titanic got lost for a few hours LAST summer, too, when I was aboard…Here’s the relevant part of that story. https://t.co/7FhcMs0oeH pic.twitter.com/ClaNg5nzj8 — David Pogue (@Pogue) June 19, 2023

Were conditions right for the dive?

G. Michael Harris, founder of RMS Titanic, Inc. — a company that salvages artifacts from the Titanic wreckage — told CBS News on Tuesday evening that Titanic expeditions are generally conducted within a "three-month weather window" between the end of June and September, when the ocean waters are at their calmest.

Harris, who has led several expeditions to the wreckage site, questioned why the Titan's dive was conducted as early as Sunday.

"Right now, it's really early in the season. I'm not sure why OceanGate went out this soon," Harris said.

Harris also noted that when he conducts diving expeditions, he uses a transponder system, something that he believed the Titan likely did not have.

"It's a net that we navigate in so that we know where we are at all times on the wreck of the Titanic," Harris said. "We're in constant communication with the vessel up top."

Harris said the Titan was "put on a sled and dumped in the water and their only navigation is from the support ship up top."

"I don't adhere to that myself, personally," Harris said. 

Harris noted that he has worked with Nargeolet, who is listed as director of underwater research for RMS Titanic, for the past 30 years, describing him as an "all-around good guy."

Who was Hamish Harding?

Harding, the first of the passengers to be publicly identified, had previously posted on social media about joining the Titanic shipwreck expedition.

In a post shared to his  Facebook  page on Saturday, Harding wrote: "I am proud to finally announce that I joined OceanGate Expeditions for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic."

I am proud to finally announce that I joined OceanGate Expeditions for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist... Posted by Hamish Harding on  Saturday, June 17, 2023

"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," Harding's Facebook post continued. "A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow. We started steaming from St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada yesterday and are planning to start dive operations around 4am tomorrow morning. Until then we have a lot of preparations and briefings to do."

That post was Harding's most recent social media update related to the submarine trip. It included multiple photographs of him, including one that showed Harding signing his name on a banner that read "Titanic Expedition Mission V" and another that pictured the submersible vessel itself.

Richard Garriott de Cayeux, president of The Explorers Club, where Harding helped found the board of trustees, said they had spoken just a week earlier about the expedition. 

"When I saw Hamish last week at the Global Exploration Summit, his excitement about this expedition was palpable. I know he was looking forward to conducting research at the site," he said in a letter to club members after the sub's disappearance.

Harding was a veteran adventure tourist who also  traveled to space  aboard a Blue Origin rocket last year. Two years ago, he made it to the deepest part of the ocean, traveling with U.S. explorer  Victor Vescovo  to the floor of the Mariana Trench, 35,876 feet below the sea surface. That trip, in a $48 million submersible, earned both explorers the Guinness World Record for the  longest distance traveled  at the deepest part of the ocean by a crewed vessel.

"It was potentially scary, but I was so busy doing so many things — navigating and triangulating my position — that I did not really have time to be scared," Harding told  The Week  after that excursion.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on Monday, June 19. Reporting contributed by Emmet Lyons, Roxana Saberi, Alex Sundby, Aimee Picchi, Aliza Chasan, Li Cohen, Caroline Hinson, Anna Noryskiewicz, Analisa Novak and other CBS News staff.

• Newfoundland
• United States Coast Guard

Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She covers breaking news, often focusing on crime and extreme weather. Emily Mae has previously written for outlets including the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.

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June 20, 2023

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What Happened to Imploded Titanic Tourist Sub?

The tourist submersible Titan imploded while diving to visit the wreckage of the Titanic, which sank in 1912

By Meghan Bartels & Jeanna Bryner

U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) Captain Jamie Frederick speaks during a press conference about the search efforts for the submersible that went missing near the wreck of the Titanic  at USCG Base Boston on June 20, 2023. The Titan submersible with five people onboard has “about 40 hours of breathable air” left, Frederick said on Tuesday.

Joseph Prezioso/Getty Images

Editor’s Note (6/23/23): On June 22 the U.S. Coast Guard announced that a remotely operated vehicle found debris from the Titan submersible. OceanGate Expeditions, the company that owns the vehicle, declared that the Titan and all five people onboard were lost. For more on the deep-sea environment where the debris was discovered, read “ See How Crushing Pressures Increase in the Ocean’s Depths .”

During a descent to visit the wreckage of the famed Titanic ocean liner, a submersible craft called the Titan went missing with five people onboard. The vehicle lost communications on Sunday in the North Atlantic Ocean, several hundred miles off Newfoundland. On the following Thursday, after days of searches from the air and with remotely operated vehicles on the seafloor, the U.S. Coast Guard announced the discovery of debris from the sub that is consistent with a catastrophic implosion.

All five crew members are assumed to be dead, according to a press briefing and news outlets.

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A remotely operated vehicle (ROV) connected to the ship Horizon Arctic “discovered the tail cone of the Titan submersible approximately 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic on the seafloor,” said U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger during the press briefing on Thursday. After finding additional debris, including the other end of the pressure chamber, experts agreed “the debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber,” Mauger said. (The pressure chamber, or pressure vessel, is the interior compartment of the submersible, which is designed to withstand the crushing pressure of the deep ocean .)

Rescue teams and anyone following the story seemed to be holding out hope that the crew of five were still alive and able to survive on the 96 hours of oxygen thought to be onboard the sub at its descent. But at the briefing, Carl Hartsfield, a retired U.S. Navy captain and a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said the evidence points to an implosion in the water column. And this could have occurred as early as when the submersible lost contact with the surface less than two hours into its excursion. The Titanic shipwreck lies some 12,500 feet beneath the sea surface, where pressures increase to about 375 atmospheres , or the equivalent of 5,500 pounds of force pressing in on every square inch of an object’s surface.

Here’s what to know about the now imploded submersible, the perils of deep-sea exploration and what’s next in the investigation process.

What parts of the submersible did the ROV find?

“We found five different major pieces of debris that told us that it was the remains of the Titan ,” said Paul Hankins, director of salvage operations and ocean engineering at the U.S. Navy, during the press briefing. The searchers’ initial find was the nose cone, followed by a large debris field, where they discovered the front end of the pressure hull. “That was the first indication there was a catastrophic event,” Hankins said. In another span of debris, a smaller one, they found the other end of the pressure hull, which “basically comprised the totality of the pressure vessel.”

Did the sub collide with wreckage from the Titanic?

The preliminary answer seems to be no. The ROV found the remains of the Titan sub a far distance from the shipwreck. “That’s off the bow of Titanic ,” Hartsfield said during Thursday’s briefing. “It’s in an area where there is not any debris of Titanic —it is a smooth bottom. To my knowledge ... there is no Titanic wreckage in that area.” Hartsfield added that the finding is consistent with the location of the last communication with the sub. “And the size of the debris field is consistent with that implosion in the water column,” he said.

Also consistent with a water column implosion at the time of communication loss is the fact that the sonar buoys that were deployed on Monday did not pick up any sign of an implosion, according to Mauger.

What’s next?

Mauger was leading the search operation, which is complete now, he said at the briefing. Over the next 24 hours, his team will demobilize the nine vessels, medical personnel and other equipment on the scene. “But we’re going to continue remote operations on the seafloor,” he said.

As for whether this catastrophe will lead to an evaluation of safety measures for submersibles, Mauger said, “there’s a lot of questions about why, how, when this happened. And the members of the unified command have those questions, too, as professionals and experts that work in this environment. And this is an incredibly difficult and dangerous environment to work in out there.” (The U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, Canadian Coast Guard and OceanGate Expeditions, the deep-sea tourism company that operated the Titan , had established a unified command to respond to the incident.)

Mauger said he expects that “questions about the regulations that apply and the standards, that is going to be the focus of future review. Right now, we’re focused on documenting the scene and continuing the seafloor operation.”

What is the Titan, and where did it disappear?

The Titan was a submersible. That means it was a small vehicle used for making excursions from another base craft rather than a submarine that has enough power to get to and from port on its own. The vehicle was about 22 feet long and held a pilot and four passengers—each of whom reportedly paid $250,000 for a ticket to see the famous shipwreck. According to the New York Times , on this expedition, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush served as pilot, accompanied by French maritime expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British businessman and explorer Hamish Harding, and British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman.

The Titan had hitched a ride to the Titanic ’s resting spot—about 400 miles east-southeast off Newfoundland—with a Canadian research ship called the Polar Prince . The latter ship deployed the submersible on Sunday morning. The Titan was last heard from an hour and 45 minutes after starting its descent.

Remote expeditions like this are inherently dangerous, says Jules Jaffe, a research oceanographer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, who helped find the Titanic in 1985.. “You’re all on your own, so if anything goes wrong, you better have enough safety backups to make sure that you can get back out,” he says.

How common are deep-sea incidents like this?

Jaffe says he doesn’t know of other incidents similar to this one, although the U.S. has lost military submarines before. But there simply haven’t been all that many deep-sea expeditions like the Titan ’s to start with. The number of people who have visited depths as low as the Titanic ’s resting place probably wouldn’t fill a commercial passenger jet.

What’s it like to make a deep-sea dive in a submersible?

One of the people who has visited such depths is Dawn Wright, an oceanographer and chief scientist at a mapping company called Esri. In 2022 Wright visited Challenger Deep, the deepest point in Earth’s oceans at nearly 36,000 feet below sea level. The Titanic itself lies at a depth of 12,500 feet—still remarkably far down. Even on a fast submersible, the descent is a slow process, Wright says. “It’s a beautiful experience,” she adds. “It’s actually very, very peaceful.”

Wright says submersibles are fully under the control of their pilot, so she herself hasn’t had to do a lot of preparation for her expeditions. This allowed her to focus on scientific observations during the trip to Challenger Deep. “There is a lot to know about the submersible, but there’s not as much as one might think, because you’re putting your life in the hands of the pilot,” Wright says. “You really are a passenger.”

What’s it like at such depths?

At the Titanic ’s depth, the ocean is pitch-black and relatively poor in nutrients, so there’s not a whole lot of life or much else to see in most regions, Jaffe says.

The biggest hazard in the deep oceans is the enormous weight of water pushing down on you . Jaffe says that, at the Titanic ’s depth, the ocean’s pressure is difficult to comprehend, but he suggests imagining that something massive, like the Statue of Liberty, pressing down on something tiny, like a penny.

“It’s unthinkable,” Jaffe says. “The only reason organisms can survive at that depth is because they’re more or less the same density as the water around them, so they don’t get deformed like us air-breathing creatures.”

What do you need to make a dive like this safely?

Vehicle design is crucial. Deep-sea submersibles are often spherical, or at least their inner chamber is, because the shape helps evenly distribute pressure. Submersibles have traditionally been made of titanium, a particularly strong material, Jaffe says. The worst thing that can happen is for that hull to fail, Wright says. “At those intense pressures, your life ends in a second,” she says. “Everything implodes and you just die instantly.”

Humans on a dive also need oxygen—and the ability to use it efficiently. For instance, Wright says, passengers must be able to stay calm in stressful situations because panicking increases respiration. The vehicle began its expedition on Sunday morning with enough oxygen for five people for 96 hours, but there was no way to monitor at a distance how much oxygen remained. Before the fate of the submersible was known, it was thought that if the passengers could breathe slow and steady, they might have been able to extend the timeline slightly, according to the New York Times. At the time, it was also thoguht that the vehicle’s battery could have also been a factor, according to USA Today , because its power controlled the submersible’s temperature in water that could be only a little above freezing.

The easiest way to control such a the vehicle’s descent and its return to the surface, Jaffe says, is to manipulate its density—for example, with a bladder that can expand and contract. “It’s not hard to get stuff down,” Jaffe says. “Getting the stuff back is the problem.”

Wright says that the communications system is crucial, too. On most of her deep-sea dives, she says, the team sends a robot down first. This helps the submersible navigate and keeps it in touch with the main ship. But Wright says she does not know whether OceanGate used this kind of technology.

It remains largely unclear what safety precautions OceanGate had taken in this situation. Although universities and military organizations operating deep-sea submersibles likely have strict safety and testing protocols, Jaffe says there’s no international regulation of this type of excursion.

How are deep-sea exploration technologies developing?

Deep-sea submersibles are still cutting-edge technology themselves, Wright says, noting that the vehicle she rode was one of only two submersibles in the world that can safely reach Challenger Deep.

“One of the biggest technological advances is this ability to go anywhere in the ocean,” Wright says. “The real advancements are in these vehicles and instruments that can withstand the hydrostatic pressure—it’s the destructiveness of the pressure in the ocean that is a major impediment.”

Within a submersible, battery advances are particularly important. Researchers are also developing better deep-sea lighting systems and mapping technology to support expeditions, she says.

Where could the Titan be, and how are people looking for it?

Editor’s Note: This information dates to when the search was being conducted.

Jaffe says he sees three potential scenarios for the missing submersible. The best-case scenario is that it was able to shed weight and rise to the surface of the water. The vehicle would still be difficult to find, given local weather conditions—on Wednesday, waves were expected to reach nine feet amid low clouds and fog, according to the New York Times —but airplanes flying over might be able to spot it.

The other scenarios are grimmer, Jaffe says. “The best thing would be if they’re on the surface,” he adds. “I think rescue from the seafloor or mid-water is going to be extremely difficult, even if we knew where they were.”

If the Titan is indeed stranded in “mid-water,” or around the middle third of the water column, that would require ships to survey the area using sonar, Jaffe says. Sonar would easily detect anything floating in the water column, he notes, but ships equipped with this technology would move slowly, and they would need to survey a large area of water.

The Titan could also be stuck on the bottom of the ocean. “If they’re sitting on the seafloor, that’s probably the worst news,” Jaffe says. To begin with, there are few vehicles that can reach the Titanic ’s depths. Even if the search-and-rescue teams have one, the lost submersible would be difficult to locate—after all, it took several missions to find the much larger Titanic itself in 1985. And the successful expedition needed a week of searching to locate the shipwreck.

If the submersible is on the seafloor, it might blend in with the Titanic ’s own debris field, Jaffe notes. “If it’s sitting on the bottom, I don’t know any quick way to find it in a clutter field like the Titanic, ” he says.

What is it about the Titanic that inspires such tourism?

The Titanic and its wreckage have long fascinated people, Jaffe says, thanks to its glamour—and the fact that some 1,500 people died when it sank. “It was a monumental ship that we thought was indestructible, and what we found out was that we are still vulnerable to forces on this planet that are beyond our control,” Jaffe says.

That symbolism has drawn people to the site since its discovery, and both Jaffe and Wright say they’re glad to see adventurers take to the deep seas. Wright compares the Titanic shipwreck to a national park on land—places where both science and tourism thrive. “The hope with the Titanic wreck was that it would be more of a sacred site that people would visit, that would be protected from treasure hunters,” Wright says.

“But there’s also great dangers here,” she adds. “It’s like the people who try to climb El Capitan in Yosemite: That’s something that you can do; it’s a wonderful thing to do. But it’s an incredibly dangerous thing to do.”

Editor’s Note (6/22/23): This story was edited after posting to include updated information about the search for the Titan and its implosion. Previosuly, the text was amended on June 21 to include updates on the crew onboard the sub, local weather conditions and concerns about the supplies of oxygen and battery power.

How a Trip to the Titanic Went So Wrong

What we know so far about a tragic expedition

Updated at 1:05 p.m. ET on June 27, 2023

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An expedition to see the remains of the Titanic turned into a tragedy. How did it go so wrong?

First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic :

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Lost Contact

The Titan, a submersible vessel carrying passengers to see the ruins of the Titanic, lost contact with its support ship during a dive on Sunday. The ensuing search-and-rescue mission in the Atlantic Ocean covered some 10,000 square miles. This afternoon, OceanGate Expeditions, the tourism and research company running the voyage, announced that it believed that all of the passengers “have sadly been lost.” The U.S. Coast Guard said soon after that debris from the vessel had been found on the ocean floor, about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic.

The search-and-rescue effort had become a race against the clock, as the vessel was believed to have had about four days’ worth of oxygen on board. Five people were on the expedition: Stockton Rush, OceanGate’s chief executive; Hamish Harding, a British businessman and explorer; Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who had traveled to the Titanic site more than 35 times; Shahzada Dawood, a British-Pakistani businessman; and Suleman Dawood, Shahzada’s 19-year-old son. Suleman was a business student in Glasgow.

Over the past week, alarming reports about the vessel have emerged. As my colleague Marina Koren wrote in a story today about the tragic ending to Sunday’s expedition:

Most concerning of all, it is not clear whether the Titan was inspected for safety by outside experts. In 2018, dozens of industry experts warned OceanGate that if the company didn’t put the Titan through an independent safety assessment, its Titanic expeditions could face potentially “catastrophic” problems. Even OceanGate’s own director of marine operations was at the time worried about “the potential dangers to passengers of the Titan as the submersible reached extreme depths,” The New York Times reported this week. At least one previous dive had problems too: According to Pogue , a Titan expedition last year got lost on the seafloor for about five hours.

Although officials don’t know what caused the disaster or what regulations might have prevented it, OceanGate’s leaders have argued in the past that innovation can be at odds with safety regulations. In a 2019 blog post, the company wrote, “Bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing is anathema to rapid innovation.” (OceanGate did not respond to a request for comment about safety concerns regarding the Titan.)

As Marina noted today, the space-tourism industry often draws attention to the safety measures of its craft—at least in public. (What the companies do in private is another story, she reminds us.) But by comparison, “OceanGate’s public approach to safety seems almost cavalier, less like modern-day space tourism and more reminiscent of the rushed and occasionally ramshackle efforts of the space race,” she writes. In the 2018 open letter from industry experts, more than three dozen people, including oceanographers and industry experts, warned that the company’s “experimental” approach “would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry.”

What those consequences might be remains to be seen. At the news conference earlier today, John Mauger, a rear admiral of the U.S. Coast Guard, acknowledged that many questions linger about how, when, and why this happened. “That’s going to be, I’m sure, the focus of future review,” he said. “Right now, we’re focused on documenting the scene.”

• The Titanic sub and the draw of extreme tourism
• How could this have happened?

Today’s News

• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is meeting with President Joe Biden for a state visit to discuss new partnerships between the two countries.
• The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been detained by Russian officials on espionage charges that he denies, lost his appeal against pretrial detention.
• Tropical Storm Bret is nearing the eastern Caribbean , moving at just below the speeds of a Category 1 hurricane.
• Up for Debate : Conor Friedersdorf reflects on Joe Rogan, RFK Jr., and the public debates worth having .

Explore all of our newsletters here.

More From The Atlantic

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Culture Break

Listen. Are we just too impatient for baseball? In a new episode of Radio Atlantic , Hanna Rosin and staff writer Mark Leibovich discuss the MLB’s attempt to save the sport.

Watch. The Bear ’s second season (streaming on Hulu) is a radical and profound reinvention.

Play. Try out Caleb’s Inferno , our new print-edition puzzle. It starts easy but gets devilishly hard as you descend into its depths.

Don’t miss Marina’s piece from earlier this week, also linked above in the “Related” section. Marina, who covers science and space exploration, reflected on the parallels—and differences—between space and deep-sea tourism. “The voyage, as grim as it seems now, is one of many treacherous tourism options for the wealthy,” she wrote .

Katherine Hu contributed to this newsletter.

This newsletter originally included an image of a boat identified in the caption as part of the rescue team searching for the submersible that disappeared on June 18. In fact, the boat was not part of the rescue team. The image has been replaced.

The Titan submersible mystery unfolded in unimaginable horror but for those on board, it was over in a moment

From the moment news broke that a submersible trying to get to the wreck of the Titanic was missing, rescuers had to confront several terrifying scenarios. 

Could the five people on board be trapped at the bottom of the ocean, with little option but to wait as their limited oxygen supply dwindled?

Or had there been some kind of catastrophic accident, leaving no chance that they could be saved?

After days of desperate searching, the US Coast Guard in Boston called a press conference to confirm a sad reality.

Multiple pieces of debris, found on the ocean floor, suggested the sub had imploded and everyone on board had died.

As investigators try to understand what went wrong, many are questioning why the vessel, known as the Titan, was there in the first place.

The company behind the "experimental" sub had reportedly been warned about safety concerns but still took passengers to the depths of the North Atlantic.

More than a century ago, the sinking of the Titanic served as a wake-up call for the maritime sector.

The question now is whether lessons will be learned in the wake of another tragedy.

The desperate search for the missing submersible

The Titan lost contact with its mother ship, the Polar Prince, 1 hour and 45 minutes into its dive on Sunday, June 18.

But for reasons not yet explained, it would be 8 hours before the United States Coast Guard was alerted to its disappearance.

An international search operation was quickly stood up, with US and Canadian aircraft deployed to scour the area from the air and to drop sonar buoys into the waters below.

Rescuers were faced with extraordinary challenges from the outset.

The Titanic wreck is located in a remote part of the ocean, hundreds of kilometres away from the coasts of both the US and Canada, and is nearly 4 kilometres below the surface.

"First of all, it's freezing cold. Two, [it's] pitch black," explained retired Navy submarine captain David Marquet.

"The pressure is 380 times what we feel here. It's an Empire State building of lead sitting on top of you."

Few vessels are able to withstand those sorts of conditions. Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) equipped with cameras, which could be deployed deep into the ocean, were prioritised as a way of providing visibility to crews on the surface.

Just days into the search, many dared to hope there could be signs of life after underwater noises were detected in the search area.

Two US media outlets cited internal government documents describing the sounds as "banging".

It led to frenzied speculation that there could be survivors inside the vessel, trying to signal for help.

With estimates suggesting that the sub had 96 hours' worth of breathable oxygen when it started its journey, a grim countdown served as the backdrop to discussions about any possible rescue.

The Coast Guard has since said the noises were not related.

The same phenomenon occurred in 2017, during the search for a missing Argentine submarine, the San Juan , which is now thought to have imploded.

Again, rescuers thought they might have detected distress signals from the submarine's crew, but later concluded the sounds could have come from the ocean or marine life.

While authorities cannot say exactly when the Titan is believed to have been lost, the Wall St Journal is reporting that a top-secret military system detected what could have been the implosion shortly after the sub's disappearance.

"The only saving grace about that is that it would have been immediate," rescue expert David Mearns told Sky News.

"Literally in milliseconds, and the men would have had no idea what was happening."

Five wealthy adventurers dove the depths of the Atlantic

On dry land, the saga turned into a social media debate about the folly of the super-rich.

But for the loved ones of the five on board the submersible, each minute of the last week has ticked away with unimaginable horror.

Until their fate was confirmed, families lived in fear that somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, the five men were bolted into a vessel that they could not escape from without outside help.

Stockton Rush, 61, was the CEO of OceanGate and charged his four passengers $US250,000 ($374,000) for an adventure to the bottom of the sea.

On board, he was joined by Shahzada Dawood, a businessman from one of Pakistan's richest families, and his 19-year-old son Suleman.

Sulamen's aunt Azmeh Dawood told NBC News that her nephew "wasn't very up for" the expedition and felt "terrified" about the trip, but was eager to please his dad.

Also on board was Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a former French Navy diver who earned the nickname Mr Titanic for his repeated visits to the shipwreck.

The fifth person on board was 58-year-old British adventurer Hamish Harding, who ran a Dubai-based private jet dealership.

He trekked to the South Pole multiple times and holds three Guinness World Records, including the longest time spent at the deepest part of the ocean.

Of his journey to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 2021, Harding said he was realistic about the risks he was taking with his life.

"The only problem is that there is no other sub that is capable of going down there to rescue you," he said at the time.

"If something goes wrong, you are not coming back."

One of Harding's close friends, Jannicke Mikkelsen, said she was upset the mission was "being branded as a UK billionaire going for a sightseeing trip to the Titanic".

She said expeditions were also for scientific research.

"These types of expeditions are very expensive and we need people like Hamish who can pay and sponsor such an expedition but also take the risk of joining such an expedition with his expertise," she said.

Why wealthy adventurers pay big money to see the Titanic

More than a century after the Titanic plunged to the bottom of the sea, the luxury passenger liner still captures public imagination.

Named after the Titans of Greek mythology, the British ship struck an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912, killing 1,500 passengers.

The maritime tragedy is an enduring cultural touchstone that has inspired countless books, films, podcasts and documentaries.

But only a rare few have the money, the risk appetite and the special access to participate in a deep sea voyage to the wreckage site.

OceanGate's tours of the ruins, which began after successful expeditions in 2021 and 2022, are an extreme form of tourism not for the faint of heart.

Exclusivity appeared to be part of the company's selling point to clients, who were encouraged to take part in an eight-day "once in a lifetime" experience.

Although a specific number is difficult to know, the company says it is believed that fewer than 200 people have seen the wreck in person — far fewer than have flown in space or climbed Mount Everest.

"What I've seen with the ultra-rich — money is no object when it comes to experiences. They want something they'll never forget," Nick D'Annunzio, the owner of TARA, Ink, a public relations firm specialising in special events, told CNN.

But shipwreck tourism is not without its critics. In 2003, Ed Kamuda, an enthusiast and president of the Titanic Historical Society, told The Associated Press that human activity needed to be limited at the wreck.

He said the site should be a simple maritime memorial and left alone.

Scientists have also previously warned that human visitors were "loving the Titanic to death".

Those who had taken part in expert expeditions in 2003 told the New York Times the surrounding recovery site was littered with beer and soda bottles as well as cargo nets and chains.

Scientists had previously raised the alarm about Titan's safety

In happier times, Stockton Rush proudly invited observers onto the Titan for a look, or even a dive, on his "innovative" vessel.

CBS reporter David Pogue documented his trip onboard the sub last year.

"An experimental submersible vessel, that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma, or death," he read from a waiver he signed ahead of the journey.

Mr Rush showed off features that appeared to take the journalist by surprise, including components described as "off the shelf", lights from "Camper World" and a game controller used to control the Titan.

The story also said an earlier attempt to reach the Titanic was abandoned after the sub got "lost" for two and a half hours.

In the days since the sub's disappearance, a number of reports emerged about safety concerns previously raised about OceanGate.

It's been revealed a former employee had alleged he was fired after raising questions about testing.

He and OceanGate sued each other and the case was settled on undisclosed terms.

It has also been reported that Marine Technology Society, a group of ocean engineers, technologists, policymakers and educators, wrote a letter in 2018 voicing fears about OceanGate's "experimental approach".

Additionally, questions have been asked about why the Titan wasn't classed or certified.

Most major marine operators in the US require that chartered vessels are classed by an independent group, such as the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS).

But OceanGate wrote in a blog post in 2019 that while the company met standards where they apply, "innovation often falls outside of the existing industry paradigm".

Alfred McLaren, a retired US Navy captain and friend of Mr Nargeolet, said the hull was made from carbon fibre and titanium, two materials that respond differently to temperature and pressure.

"Maybe you get a good seal on land. But then as soon as you get in the water, particularly salt water, and you start cycling that thing, it was a catastrophe. It was bound to happen."

Former merchant mariner Sal Mercogliano said that "one of the ironies of this whole situation" is that two years after the Titanic sank in 1912, all the major shipping nations of the world came together to overhaul maritime safety and avoid another tragedy of its scale.

"They promulgate what's called the Safety of Life at Sea convention that says, 'hey, you need lifeboats, you need rescue material, you need a 24-hour radio' … all these provisions that we take for granted today, that are inspected and double-checked," he said.

Mr Mercogliano has suggested modern changes could be prompted by the Titan's demise.

"There's a saying in the maritime industry that all rules and regulations are written in blood, because it usually takes an accident of some kind to generate this," he said.

"I'm wondering a year or two from now if we write a new amendment to the Safety of Life at Sea convention that includes the operation of submersibles in international waters.

"A lot of countries have those rules in place for their coast, for their areas. But this is a very niche market, as everyone likes to say."

Some in the industry are scathing in their criticism of OceanGate's approach.

James Cameron — the director of the film Titanic, who is also an experienced deep-sea explorer — said the design of the Titan was fundamentally flawed.

"It's completely inappropriate for a vessel that sees external pressure," he told CNN about the use of carbon-fibre composites.

"We always understood that this was the wrong material for submersible hulls because with each pressure cycle, you can have progressive damage.

"So it's quite insidious because you may have a number of successful dives, which is what happened here, and then have it fail later."

Mr Cameron said it was "unconscionable" to take passengers onto the Titan without having the vessel certified.

"I think there's a great, almost surreal irony here, which is Titanic sank because the captain took it full steam into an ice field at night, on a moonless night with very poor visibility after he had been repeatedly warned."

He also queried the response to the sub's disappearance, arguing he strongly suspected from the beginning that the Titan had experienced a catastrophic failure.

"This entire week has just felt like a prolonged and nightmarish charade where people are running around talking about banging noises and talking about oxygen and all this other stuff, and the Coast Guard is out with airplanes," he told the BBC.

"I knew that sub was sitting exactly underneath its last known depth and position. That's exactly where they found it."

Explorer Richard Wiese, who was a friend of Mr Harding's, said his community would be learning what it could from what had happened.

"When the Challenger went up and had that explosion, could you have guessed it was the O-rings?" he asked, referring to the space shuttle disaster which killed seven crew members in 1986.

"I believe in the evolution of humans. And I think in the exploration community, yes, there's definitely grief.

"But, you know, next week, people will detach themselves emotionally from the individuals and sort of assess the situation.

"With a disaster … if you don't come out of that disaster or accident, knowing more and being better as a society, then you have failed."

A quest for answers

While any hope of a rescue mission has evaporated, authorities will continue to search the area where the sub debris was found in an attempt to understand what went wrong.

Canada's Transportation Safety Board (TSB) has announced an investigation, given the Polar Prince was Canadian-flagged.

"A team of TSB investigators is travelling to St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, to gather information, conduct interviews, and assess the occurrence," it said in a statement.

"In the coming days, we will coordinate our activities with other agencies involved."

The search for the Titan captivated global attention and highlighted serious safety concerns within the adventure tourism industry.

The agonising wait for the families of those on board may be over, but their search for answers has likely just begun.

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The latest on the Titan submersible tragedy and what’s next in the investigation

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)

FILE - This undated image provided by OceanGate Expeditions in June 2021 shows the company’s Titan submersible. Rescuers are racing against time to find the missing submersible carrying five people, who were reported overdue Sunday night. (OceanGate Expeditions via AP, File)

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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)

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)

FILE - This 2004 photo provided by the Institute for Exploration, Center for Archaeological Oceanography/University of Rhode Island/NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration, shows the remains of a coat and boots in the mud on the sea bed near the Titanic’s stern. Rescuers are racing against time to find the missing submersible carrying five people, who were reported overdue Sunday night, June 18, 2023. (Institute for Exploration, Center for Archaeological Oceanography/University of Rhode Island/NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration, File)

CORRECTS SPELLING OF THE NAME TO HENRI, INSTEAD OF HENRY This photo combo shows from left, Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Stockton Rush, and Hamish Harding are facing critical danger aboard a small submersible that went missing in the Atlantic Ocean. The missing submersible Titan imploded near the wreckage of the Titanic, killing all five people on board, the U.S. Coast Guard announced Thursday, June 22, 2023. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this image released by Action Aviation, company chairman and billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding looks out to sea before boarding the submersible Titan for a dive into the Atlantic Ocean on an expedition to the Titanic on Sunday, June 18, 2023. The missing submersible Titan imploded near the wreckage of the Titanic, killing all five people, Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood, Paul-Henry Nargeolet, Stockton Rush, and Hamish Harding, the U.S. Coast Guard announced, Thursday, June 22, 2023. (Action Aviation via AP)

This undated photo provided by SETI Institute shows Shahzada Dawood, SETI Institute Trustee. Father-and-son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood are facing critical danger aboard a small submersible that went missing in the Atlantic Ocean. The race is on to find the Titan, which has an oxygen supply that is expected to run out early Thursday, June 22, 2023. The people on board include British businessman and world-record holding adventurer Hamish Harding; Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet, and OceanGate CEO and founder Stockton Rush. (SETI Institute via AP)

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)

The around-the-clock search for the missing Titan submersible engrossed the world for days, but after news of the catastrophic implosion that killed the pilot and his four passengers near the Titanic shipwreck, investigators are focusing on how it happened — and if it could have been prevented.

Deep-sea robots will continue searching the North Atlantic sea floor for clues. Investigators in Canada are looking at the Titan’s Canadian-flagged support ship. U.S. authorities are looking into other aspects of the tragedy.

The Titan , owned by undersea exploration company OceanGate Expeditions, had been chronicling the Titanic’s decay and the underwater ecosystem around the sunken ocean liner in yearly voyages since 2021.

Authorities and experts are seeking answers: Exactly when and why did the implosion occur? Will the victims’ bodies ever be found? What lessons are there for the future of undersea exploration?

Here’s what we know so far:

WHEN AND WHERE DID THE TITAN GO MISSING?

The craft submerged Sunday morning, and its support vessel lost contact with it about an hour and 45 minutes later, according to the Coast Guard.

The vessel was reported overdue about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, according to Canada’s Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The Titan was launched from an icebreaker that was hired by OceanGate and formerly operated by the Canadian Coast Guard. The ship has ferried dozens of people and the submersible craft to the North Atlantic wreck site, where the Titan has made multiple dives.

WHAT HAPPENED ABOARD THE TITAN?

The vessel suffered a catastrophic implosion, killing all five aboard, sometime after it submerged Sunday morning. It’s not clear exactly when or where the implosion occurred, but a U.S. Navy acoustics system detected an “anomaly” Sunday that was likely the Titan’s fatal implosion.

The Coast Guard announced that debris from the submersible had been found and the end of rescue efforts Thursday, bringing a tragic close to a saga that included an urgent around-the-clock search and a worldwide vigil for the missing vessel.

A deep-sea robot discovered the debris, near the Titanic shipwreck, that authorities say came from the submersible.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OCCUPANTS WHEN THE TITAN IMPLODED?

Experts say the catastrophic implosion 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.

While OceanGate Expeditions, which owned and operated the craft, touted the Titan’s roomier cylinder-shaped cabin made of a carbon-fiber , industry experts say it was a departure from the sphere-shaped cabins — considered ideal because water pressure is exerted equally on all areas — made of titanium used by most submersibles.

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.

WHO WAS KILLED?

The Titan victims are : Oceangate chief executive and Titan pilot Stockton Rush; two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

Worldwide condolences have poured in, offering tributes to the men and support for their families.

“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” OceanGate said in a statement. “We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.”

WHO REGULATES DEEP-SEA EXPEDITIONS?

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.

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.

WHAT’S NEXT?

The Coast Guard will continue searching near the Titanic for more clues about what happened to the Titan.

Officials say there is not a timeframe for when they will call off the effort, and the prospect of finding or recovering remains is unknown.

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.

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

HOW MUCH DID THE SEARCH COST?

The cost of the search 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.

Titanic sub updates: Boeing denies it helped build sub, search for human remains may be moot

Editor's note: This page reflects the news on the Titan submersible from Friday, June 23. For the  latest updates on the lost submersible  and the recovery efforts, read our  live updates page for Saturday, June 24 .

After the mission turned from rescue to recovery following the grisly discovery that the missing Titan submersible imploded, institutions cited as partners in its manufacture distanced themselves from claims of their involvement in the ill-fated vessel's design.

In statements, Boeing, NASA, and the University of Washington clarified their roles in the development and testing of the Titan watercraft built and billed by OceanGate Inc. as a safe, seaworthy vehicle that would provide an unmatched, once-in-a-lifetime experience for passengers at $250,000 a pop ‒ even as the OceanGate CEO conceded some rules had been broken to speed the innovative submersible's debut.

Officials determined a "catastrophic implosion" killed the five people aboard the Titan vessel after starting its dive to view the Titanic wreckage site . The U.S. Navy analyzed its acoustic data and found an anomaly consistent with an implosion near where the submersible was operating when communications were lost June 18, Coast Guard spokesperson Briana Carter confirmed to USA TODAY. The information was shared immediately with the search commander.

Here's the latest on the search and recovery efforts and the high-stakes finger-pointing after a tragic mission gone wrong.

Critiques about 'experimental' carbon fiber used to construct The Titan continue to surface, OceanGate website down on Friday

On Friday, several experts critiqued OceanGate's use of experimental materials like carbon fiber on a submersible they invited passengers to board when they knew of potential risks.

Bart Kemper, a principal engineer at Kemper Engineering Services, told NBC News the carbon fiber that was used to create The Titan is not guaranteed to withstand the pressures of the deep sea.

“It’s a design that’s not been used in this way at this depth. All it has to do is fail in one spot and game over," Kemper told the news outlet.

According to OceanGate's website, which was down Friday afternoon, the company constructed The Titan with titanium and filament-wound carbon fiber.

"There are a number of reasons why it could have imploded," said Aileen Maria Marty, an expert in infectious disease and disaster medicine, adding that there are other safe subs that use regulated materials. "One is simply a problem with the carbon filaments."

– Kayla Jimenez, USA Today

OceanGate exaggerated ties to University of Washington, Boeing in Titan submersible design

Questions were swirling Friday about whether OceanGate may have over-hyped its ties to NASA, Boeing, and the University of Washington in developing the Titan submersible.

According to archived webpages, OceanGate Expeditions wrote on its site that the "state-of-the-art vessel" was "designed and engineered" in "collaboration (with) experts from NASA, Boeing and the University of Washington."

A brochure hailed the "innovative vessel" constructed of titanium and carbon fiber that was "designed in collaboration with NASA to provide a safe and comfortable pressure hull which will withstand the enormous pressures." A press release OceanGate put out in 2021 identified Boeing as a partner in "Design and engineering support."

But in a statement, Boeing said it "was not a partner on the Titan and did not design or build it."

And a spokesperson for NASA told USA TODAY the Marshall Space Flight Center had a "Space Act Agreement" with OceanGate and "consulted on materials and manufacturing processes for the submersible."

"NASA did not conduct testing and manufacturing via its workforce or facilities, which were done elsewhere by OceanGate," Lance Davis, Marshall Space Flight Center acting news chief said.

The University of Washington told USA TODAY it had a $5 million contract with OceanGate but that the two "parted ways" after only a fraction of the contracted work was completed, and that work was on a different OceanGate submersible called Cyclops 1, which went to much shallower depths than Titan.

The university's Applied Physics Laboratory "was not involved in the design, engineering or testing of the TITAN submersible used in the RMS TITANIC expedition," University of Washington spokesperson Victor Balta said.

Balta said OceanGate also used the university's testing tanks several times between 2018 and 2021, but the university's employees and researchers weren't involved.

What happened when the Titan submersible imploded?

The final moments of the Titan would have been swift – and unleashed amid a force difficult to comprehend, experts in physics and submarines told USA TODAY. Pressure at the depth of the Titanic – 12,500 feet down – is nearly 380 times greater than at the surface, said Luc Wille, a professor and chair of physics at Florida Atlantic University.

Even high-grade military submarines don’t wander around the ocean at full depth because it's just too dangerous, said Eric Fusil, a submarine expert and associate professor at the University of Adelaide’s School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. It would take about "20 milliseconds to crush a hull" at those depths, Fusil said.

Although the Titan’s composite hull is built to withstand intense deep-sea pressures, any defect in its shape or build would compromise its integrity and increase the risk of implosion, said Professor Stefan Williams ,  a marine robotics and underwater vessel expert at the University of Sydney.

– Dinah Voyles Pulver

Where the missing sub was found: Debris field confirmed to be missing Titanic submarine.

Family members remember victims

Loved ones of the men killed when the submersible imploded are remembering them as adventure-loving. OceanGate, the company that owned the Titan, said they had "a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans."

Hamish Harding, a British explorer and dealer of private jets, "was one of a kind and we adored him," his family said in a statement. "What he achieved in his lifetime was truly remarkable and if we can take any small consolation from this tragedy, it’s that we lost him doing what he loved."

Another explorer on board, noted Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet, was "the ultimate prankster and had the BEST sense of humor," his stepson John Paschall tweeted Friday.

Paschall said Nargeolet's name will "live on in the oceanographic world forever."

"What makes me feel so fortunate is that I got to have him as a stepdad. He immediately welcomed me as family and our connection only grew stronger through the years," Paschall said.

"I can’t think of anything that I’m aware of that he would enjoy doing more than traveling around and sharing information and his experiences with people," longtime friend and former colleague Matthew Tulloch said of Nargeolet.

Remote-operated vehicle launched on mission to map debris field

The ROV that first discovered the debris from the Titan's implosion continued its mission Friday to return to the seafloor as part of recovery efforts, the company that owns it said.

"The mission is for continued mapping and documentation of the area and assisting in any direct recovery of debris," Pelagic Research Services spokesperson Jeff Mahoney said in a statement.

The ROV, Odysseus 6K, is the only ROV that has been to the debris site as of Friday, Mahoney said. It launched from the Horizon Arctic vessel in the Northern Atlantic.

Pakistani teen was 'terrified' of dive, aunt says

A family member of the two Pakistani passengers killed in the dive says her 19-year-old nephew was hesitant to accompany his father on the voyage.

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

She told the outlet that Suleman ended up going on the trip because it fell over Father's Day weekend and he was eager to please his dad, who was passionate about the Titanic. "I feel disbelief," Azmeh told NBC. "It's an unreal situation."

Suleman Dawood was a student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, the university confirmed. He just completed his first year in the business school there.

The other three people believed to have perished are Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate, British adventurer Hamish Harding and French deep-sea explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

"Tragic news that those on the Titan submersible, including three British citizens, have been lost following an international search operation," U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly wrote on Twitter on Thursday. "The UK government is closely supporting the families affected and expresses our deepest condolences."

Lawsuit still possible despite waivers being signed

OceanGate, the privately-owned company that led the voyage to the wreckage of The Titanic, could face legal action, according to a legal expert.

The families of the passengers who died on The Titan could sue the company even though the men signed waivers warning them of injury or death before boarding the sub, a trial lawyer and former federal prosecutor  Neama Rahmani  told People.

"You can waive known risks, but you can’t waive something more than that," Rahmani told the news outlet.

– Kayla Jimenez

Who pays for the search?

U.S. Coast Guard officials said remote-operated vehicles will continue working on the seafloor where searchers identified the debris field of the imploded capsule, even as the mission turned from search and rescue to recovery.

Authorities have already spent several days combing the surface and depths of the ocean in a massive search that likely cost taxpayers millions , according to Chris Boyer, the executive director of the National Association for Search and Rescue.

Boyer said the Coast Guard doesn’t charge people for search and rescue. “That’s their job,” he said, noting fear of costs could deter people from seeking lifesaving help.

While some adventure expeditions require patrons to take out insurance policies, few would come close to covering likely the costs of the current rescue mission, he said. 

-Chris Kenning, USA TODAY

Who designed the Titan submersible?

Submersible company OceanGate designed, owned and operated the Titan vessel, according to the company's website. OceanGate Expeditions, based in the Bahamas, operates the U.S.-based OceanGate Inc., headquartered in Everett, Washington.

The Titan submersible was about 8 feet high, 9 feet wide and 22 feet long, according to the OceanGate website. It was designed to reach about 13,000 feet deep and travel at 3 knots, the company says. The vessel had a five-inch-thick carbon fiber and titanium hull and four 10-horsepower electric thrusters, according to court filings.

Missing Titanic sub: How does the Titan submersible work? Here's a look inside

How many times did OceanGate go to the Titanic?

At least 46 people successfully traveled on OceanGate's submersible to the Titanic wreck site in 2021 and 2022, according to letters the company filed with a U.S. District Court in Virginia.

"On the first dive to the Titanic, the submersible encountered a battery issue and had to be manually attached to its lifting platform," one filing says. "In the high sea state, the submersible sustained modest damage to its external components and OceanGate decided to cancel the second mission for repairs and operational enhancements."

Was the Titan submersible regulated?

When the Titan submersible made its fateful dive into the North Atlantic on Sunday, it also plunged into 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 wealthy tourists who help fund their dreams. At least for now.

"We’re at a point in submersible operations in deep water that's kind of akin to where aviation was in the early 20th century," said Salvatore Mercogliano, a history professor at Campbell University in North Carolina who focuses on maritime history and policy.

Mercogliano said such operations are scrutinized less than the companies that launch people into space. In Titan's case, that's, in part, because it operated in international waters, far from the reach of many laws of the U.S. or other nations.

The Titan wasn’t registered as a U.S. vessel or with international agencies that regulate safety, Mercogliano said. Nor was it classified by a maritime industry group that sets standards on matters such as hull construction.

– The Associated Press

Missing Titanic submersible: Maps, graphics show last location, depth and design

James Cameron says passengers may have had 'warning' before implosion

Filmmaker and ocean explorer James Cameron, who directed the blockbuster movie "Titanic," reflected on the eerie parallel between the Titan submersible and the wreck of the Titanic in interviews with multiple news outlets this week.

"The (Titanic) captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship, and yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night and many people died as a result," Cameron told ABC News. "For 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."

Cameron has embarked on 33 deep-sea dives to visit the Titanic's wreck site and co-designed a submersible that went to the deepest part of the ocean. He has been vocally critical of the engineering behind the Titan and said he was always concerned it could be too experimental to take passengers to the Titanic wreckage.

He told ABC the five people on the Titan may have had a warning that something was going wrong before the sub imploded. "They probably had warning that their hull was starting to delaminate," Cameron told the outlet. He said the submersible had sensors on the inside of the hull, "to give them a warning when it was starting to crack."

Warning system may have given crew little time to react, lawsuit suggests

The Titan sub's warning system might have given the crew very little time to react, according to court filings by an ex-employee who was sued by OceanGate in 2018.

David Lochridge, a former director of marine operations, was sued over an engineering report he wrote saying the craft under development needed more testing and that passengers might be endangered when it reached "extreme depths." He claimed he expressed concern that the company was relying on an acoustic monitoring system to "detect the start of a hull breakdown when the submersible was about to fail."

"(T)his type of acoustic analysis would only show when a component is about to fail – often milliseconds before an implosion – and would not detect any existing flaws prior to putting pressure onto the hull," Lochridge contended in a countersuit.

Prior submersible passengers express concerns

Science writer and CBS correspondent David Pogue, who boarded the submersible for a report that aired in November, told USA TODAY he was concerned about the vessel's safety .

"There were parts of it that seemed to me to be less sophisticated than I was guessing. You drive it with a PlayStation video controller … some of the ballasts are old, rusty construction pipes," Pogue said. "There were certain things that looked like cut corners."

Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman from Germany, took a dive to the site two years ago. "Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can't stand. You can't kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other," Loibl told the Associated Press. "You can't be claustrophobic."

During the 2.5-hour descent and ascent, the lights were turned off to conserve energy, he said, with the only illumination coming from a fluorescent glow stick. The dive was repeatedly delayed to fix a problem with the battery and the balancing weights. In total, the voyage took 10.5 hours, he said.

Titanic sub lost at sea documentary receives criticism

A news special on the Titan submersible sparked backlash this week while crews were in the midst of searching for the vessel at sea. ITN's "Titanic Sub: Lost at Sea" was scheduled to air on Britain's Channel 5 on Thursday at 2 p.m. EDT. Members of the public slammed the program because of its timing.

Where is the Titanic wreck on a map?

Contributing: Jorge L. Ortiz, Dinah Voyles Pulver, Morgan Hines and Edward Segarra, USA TODAY; The Associated Press

Missing Titanic tourist sub: Everything we know so far, from who's on board to when it disappeared

• The Titan submersible went missing during an expedition to the RMS Titanic shipwreck Sunday.
• Five passengers were on board the vessel when it went missing in the Atlantic Ocean.
• The Coast Guard announced Thursday that the vessel likely imploded after a ROV found a debris field.

A submersible carrying tourists to the wreck of the RMS Titanic went missing shortly after it began its journey to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday.

On Thursday, the Coast Guard announced that the vessel likely imploded and that an underwater robot found pieces of debris consistent with the sub on the ocean floor. 

The submersible was part of an eight-day expedition operated by OceanGate Expeditions, which organizes trips to the remains of the Titanic — two main pieces that sit about 2 ½ miles down into the ocean and about 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Insider previously reported . Tourists pay $250,000 for the trip.

Customers who board the small submersible experience the "massive scale of the wreck," OceanGate's website says.

According to OceanGate, there were successful missions to the wreck in 2021 and 2022, before the sub lost communication with its mothership Sunday.

When did the Titan sub go missing?

OceanGate's Titan submersible left for its mission to the Titanic wreck on Sunday morning. The vessel was carrying five passengers — one pilot and four tourists.

But it lost communications with its mothership, the Canadian research ship the Polar Prince, less than two hours into the journey, the US Coast Guard said Monday afternoon.

The Coast Guard said it began searching for the 21-foot sub Monday afternoon.

Coast Guard officials said the oxygen on board the submersible was expected to run out between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Thursday, if the submersible hadn't imploded before that.

Fresh hope was raised for finding the crew alive when the US Coast Guard said early Wednesday that a Canadian P-3 aircraft helping the search had detected "underwater noises," with remotely operated vehicles sent to investigate.

It came after Rolling Stone reported that a Canadian aircraft detected "banging" in 30-minute intervals from the area where the submersible went missing.

Officials said they heard more banging on Wednesday, though officials and experts said it isn't clear what the noises were, and the source of the noises was never verified. 

The US Coast Guard, which worked with the US Navy, the Canadian Coast Guard, and the Canadian military to search for the vessel, announced on Thursday afternoon that a debris field found by a remote-operated vehicle was from the missing Titan sub and that it was "consistent with the  catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber ."

The agency indicated that the vessel likely imploded at some point before the search and rescue efforts began .

OceanGate released a further statement saying it believes five passengers onboard the Titan are presumed dead .

Later on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal first reported that the US Navy heard what it believed was an implosion days before, just hours after the Titan began its mission. 

A top-secret military acoustic detection system that the Navy employs to spot enemy submarines picked up the sound of the implosion shortly after the sub lost communications with its mother ship, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Navy had started listening for the missing sub almost as soon as it went missing. 

When was the missing Titanic sub found?

Debris from the submersible was found on Thursday, 1,600 feet away from the famous Titanic shipwreck its five passengers hoped to explore, the Coast Guard said.

Related stories

Officials said they notified passengers' families after an ROV found the tail comb of the Titan approximately 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic. Additional debris that is consistent with a loss of cabin pressure that would have triggered the vessel to implode was also discovered by the ROV. 

US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger said investigators discovered five major pieces of debris confirmed to be the remains of the Titan, including a nose comb outside of the pressure hull, the front of the pressure hull,  and the totality of the pressure vessel.

The Coast Guard added that ROVs will stay on the scene to continue to investigate what happened and to gather more information about the tragic event. 

Who was on the missing Titanic sub?

The Titan could fit five people and was at capacity when it set out on its mission. 

The BBC and Reuters identified the five passengers on board as Hamish Harding, Paul Henry Nargeolet, Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood, and Stockton Rush, the founder and CEO of OceanGate.

According to OceanGate, Rush performed a 4,000-meter validation dive on the Titan in December 2018. 

Harding, a 58-year-old British billionaire, had a taste for adventure and once went on a Blue Origin flight to space. He's a known explorer who holds at least four Guinness World Records honors for achievements including the longest time  spent navigating the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean, and the  fastest flight going all the way around the globe, crossing both poles, Insider previously reported . He's also been to the South Pole twice. 

Harding announced his trip on the Titan in a Sunday Instagram post before the sub started its expedition.   

Nargeolet, a 77-year-old former French navy captain and veteran deep-sea diver known as "Mr. Titanic," was no stranger to the wreck of the RMS Titanic. Before Sunday's trip, Nargeolet had been there at least 35 times. 

He was also one of the passengers on the first human expedition to the wreckage in 1987, just two years after it was discovered, The Telegraph reported .

Mathieu Johann, Nargeolet's spokesperson, told the BBC that he hoped the people on board the missing submersible were reassured by Nargeolet's poise and military background as search-and-rescue teams worked to locate the vessel, Insider previously reported .

Shahzada Dawood, a 48-year-old British-Pakistani businessman, was also aboard the Titan with his son, Suleman Dawood, 19.

In a statement shared with the BBC , their family said Shahzada Dawood was interested in "exploring different natural habitats." He served as the vice chair of Pakistan's Engro Corp. and lived in London with his son, wife, and other child, Alina. 

Suleman Dawood was "a big fan of science fiction literature and learning new things" and was a university student, his family said.

Where did the Titanic sink?

According to OceanGate, the wreck of the Titanic is approximately 380 nautical miles south of Newfoundland, or about 437 miles.

The wreck is in two main pieces 3,800 meters, or 12,800 feet, deep in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Titan is the only sub in OceanGate's fleet that can go as deep as the Titanic wreck. It is unclear how deep the sub was or how close it was to the Titanic wreck when it went missing Sunday.

The deepest sub rescue in history was of a small submersible called the Pisces III, which was carrying the former Navy pilots Roger Mallinson and Roger Chapman in September 1973, according to the BBC .

A hatch broke off a rear compartment, plunging the sub to a depth of 1,575 feet. It took two days for the vessel to be brought to the surface, leaving the men with only 12 minutes of oxygen left at the time of their rescue. 

The Titanic wreck is much deeper than the deepest point the Pisces III reached.

Watch: Sub taking tourists to see the Titanic goes missing

• Main content

9 questions about the missing Titanic submersible, answered

The crew of the missing sub is dead, following a “catastrophic implosion,” the US Coast Guard said Thursday.

by Whizy Kim , Adam Clark Estes , and Izzie Ramirez

Editor’s note, June 22, 4:40 pm ET: The Titan submersible suffered a “catastrophic implosion,” the US Coast Guard announced on Thursday afternoon. OceanGate, the company that operates the Titan submersible, said that the crew of the sub is dead. The company said in a statement, “We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost.”

The story that follows was originally published on June 21 and has been updated throughout.

The US Coast Guard delivered some difficult news at a Thursday afternoon press conference: Pieces of the submersible vessel that had been lost for nearly five days had been found about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic. The sub had suffered a “catastrophic implosion.” All five crew members are believed to be dead.

The craft, called the Titan, went missing in the North Atlantic Ocean on Sunday morning less than two hours after being deployed by a former Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker called the Polar Prince. On board were five passengers, including a French maritime expert, a billionaire British explorer, a British Pakistani tycoon and his teenage son, as well as Stockton Rush, the founder and CEO of OceanGate, the company leading the expedition to the Titanic. A massive search and rescue effort swiftly ramped up as the submersible only had approximately 96 hours of oxygen reserves on board. 

For the first couple of days, the international team of rescuers offered few updates on the progress of the search, which eventually spanned an area twice the size of Connecticut, or more than 10,000 square miles. There were reports of banging noises in the search area on Wednesday, and the Coast Guard announced midday Thursday that a debris field had been discovered near the Titanic shipwreck. The Coast Guard confirmed a few hours later that the field of debris was “consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.” The Titan had imploded, although the exact timing of the event was not yet known.

The story of the lost submersible touched on more than just the search and rescue effort. Following news of the missing submersible has become a global media obsession as it touched on everything from the difficulties of underwater exploration to the rise of risky chartered expeditions for the ultrarich. (A trip on the Titan submersible cost $250,000 per passenger.) It also raised questions about the attention we pay to a wealthy person’s hobby gone wrong versus to the near-daily reality of maritime disasters affecting the less fortunate. 

Here are nine questions about the Titan, the effort to find it, and its tragic conclusion. This is a developing story, and we’ll be updating this post as new information becomes available.

1. When and where did the Titanic submersible disappear?

After departing from St. John’s on the eastern edge of Newfoundland on June 16, the Polar Prince dropped anchor roughly 900 miles east of Cape Cod and was scheduled to deploy the Titan at 3 am ET the morning of June 18, although the Coast Guard said it didn’t begin its descent until around 7 am ET. The sub was supposed to send out a ping every 15 minutes during its descent down to the Titanic shipwreck, nearly 13,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. The entire voyage was supposed to take just two and a half hours, but the Polar Prince lost contact with the Titan approximately an hour and 45 minutes into the trip, triggering a desperate search for the missing sub. —Adam Clark Estes

2. Who was on board? 

There were five people aboard the Titan submersible, including Stockton Rush, the 61-year-old pilot. He’s the founder and CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, which organized the expedition that the submersible embarked on to see the wreckage of the Titanic. Rush was an aerospace engineer with a well-documented love of deep-sea exploration and designing experimental aircraft and modded submersibles (there’s been a lot of talk of how the Titan was maneuvered by a modified video game controller ). Though OceanGate was founded in 2009, tours to the Titanic weren’t available to paying customers until 2021. As of April 2020, the company had raised almost $37 million in total funding, according to data from PitchBook, including a new $18 million investment that year to help fund the nascent Titanic expeditions.

Also on board was Hamish Harding, a 58-year-old British billionaire with a penchant for adventuring to the extremes of the Earth. In 2016, he visited the South Pole with astronaut Buzz Aldrin; he holds three Guinness world records , including one for a more than four-hour dive in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench. Last summer, he joined the six-person crew of a suborbital flight with Blue Origin , the space exploration company started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos . He also flew planes and was a skydiver; in 2022, he was inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation , an award recognizing people who have made significant contributions to aviation — other honorees include space billionaires Elon Musk , Bezos, Richard Branson, and actors Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford.

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Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a 77-year-old former commander of the French Navy, was a deep-sea search expert who completed at least 35 dives to the wreck of the Titanic . An authority on the famous shipwreck, Nargeolet was also the director of underwater research at RMS Titanic Inc., which has exclusive rights to salvage artifacts from the wreck. Nargeolet was part of the Air France Flight 447 search efforts, helping to find the plane that had disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean.

Shahzada Dawood, a 48-year-old Pakistani British businessman and philanthropist, had joined the Titan crew with his 19-year-old son Suleman. He was the head of the Engro Corporation, one of the largest conglomerates in Pakistan, which operates in the food and agriculture, energy, and telecommunications sectors. He sat on the board of trustees of his family foundation , which focuses on education in the sciences and technology. Dawood was also on the board of the SETI Institute, a renowned scientific research organization that, in part, searches for extraterrestrial life .  

The five passengers aboard the submersible were connected by an interest — and some experience and bona fides — in exploring air, space, and sea, as well as the financial means to pursue these passions. Again, OceanGate’s Titanic expeditions to the wreckage site cost as much as $250,000 per passenger. The company has claimed that its aim is to increase access to the deep sea for tourists and to contribute research on the wreck and its surrounding debris. —Whizy Kim

3. How exactly did the sub work?

The Titan was not a big submersible, nor was it designed for extended periods underwater, or capable of traveling to a port without help from another vessel, as naval submarines are . The teardrop-shaped vessel was 22 feet long, could carry five people, and was equipped with one small porthole window on the front of the vessel, where there was also a small toilet. The cylindrical, all-metal interior otherwise lacked seats and was approximately the size of a minivan , according to David Pogue, a CBS reporter and former passenger. Mike Reiss, a producer and writer for The Simpsons , traveled on the Titan in 2022 and said passengers were given sandwiches and water on board his voyage, which lasted 10 hours, during which the vessel’s compass was “acting very weird” and the passengers only had about 20 minutes to view the Titanic wreckage. 

Because it traveled so deep in the ocean, the Titan could not use GPS and communicated with the Polar Prince through a text messaging system. It was piloted with a video game controller, which is not as weird as it sounds . Even the US Navy uses Xbox controllers to operate the photonic scopes that replaced periscopes on submarines.

Critically, the Titan submersible only had 96 hours of oxygen reserves on board. That means that as soon as the vessel went missing, the clock started ticking on remaining life support. It’s not clear if the sub imploded before the oxygen supply ran out. But even if the sub had been able to resurface on its own, the passengers would have been stuck inside until help arrived, since the hatch was closed from the outside and sealed shut with 17 bolts. —ACE

4. Who owns and operates the Titan sub?

The Titan was operated by OceanGate Expeditions, a Washington-based private company that offers chartered deep-sea exploration for commercial and scientific purposes. The company has also become known for leading deep-sea tourism trips. Its first trips to the Titanic were in 2021 and 2022, and OceanGate has said it would return to the shipwreck annually to survey its decay.

OceanGate has led more than a dozen underwater trips , including to shipwrecks like the Andrea Doria, which lies up to 240 feet underwater near Nantucket. In addition to the Titan , it operates two other five-person submersibles in its fleet: Antipodes and Cyclops 1 . While Antipodes and Cyclops 1 can travel just 1,000 and 1,640 feet below the surface, respectively, OceanGate says the Titan was designed to go 4,000 meters, or 13,123 feet deep — just enough to reach the Titanic wreckage, which lies about 12,500 feet down. That seems uncomfortably close to the vessel’s maximum depth.

OceanGate has for years faced criticism from experts about Titan’s safety. David Lochridge, who was an OceanGate employee from 2016 to 2018, warned about the thickness of the Titan’s hull and “the potential dangers to passengers of the Titan as the submersible reached extreme depths” in a 2018 report . Lochridge later said in a court filing that he was wrongly terminated after raising these concerns. More than three dozen experts subsequently sent a letter to OceanGate’s CEO Rush saying that the “‘experimental’ approach adopted by [the company] could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic).” OceanGate offered a response of sorts in a 2019 blog post that explained why the company had decided not to class the Titan — that is, get an independent group to evaluate whether a series of standards, including on safety, have been met , which is the industry norm. OceanGate argued that “innovation often falls outside of the existing industry paradigm” and that “by itself, classing is not sufficient to ensure safety.”

Rush seemed quite cavalier in his own right. “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,” Rush told CBS’s Pogue in 2022. “At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question.” He added that safety is a “pure waste.” —ACE

5. What do we know about the search and rescue process?

OceanGate contacted the Coast Guard after it lost touch with the Titan on Sunday afternoon. This kicked off what has become an international rescue effort on the water and in the air. The search yielded few updates until early Wednesday, when several maritime surveillance planes detected underwater noises , described as “banging noises,” in the area where the Titan went missing. The US Coast Guard said during a Thursday press conference that there didn’t appear to be any connection between the noises and the location of the Titan’s debris.

The search and rescue effort initially included two American C-130 aircraft and two Canadian P-3 aircraft that can deploy sonar probes into the water as well as a British C-17 to transport equipment. On the surface, the Polar Prince and Deep Energy, a Bahamas-flagged pipe-laying ship with two remotely operated vehicles that can dive nearly 10,000 feet, assisted with the search. The Atalante, a French research vessel, arrived on Wednesday before deploying an underwater exploration robot, called the Victor 6000. A Canadian ship, the Horizon Arctic, also arrived and deployed a remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, that reached the ocean floor on Thursday morning. A third ROV capable of reaching the ocean floor, owned by the seabed-mapping company Magellan, is expected to arrive on Thursday.

These ROVs were ultimately critical in discovering what remained of the Titan submersible. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said that one of the ROVs spotted debris about 1,600 feet from the Titanic’s bow on Thursday morning. After it was determined that the debris was the nose cone of the Titan, the Coast Guard contacted the families of the lost crew members. The ROV ended up finding five total pieces of debris in two debris fields on Thursday, according to Paul Hankins, director of salvage operations and ocean engineering for the US Navy, who said this was “the totality of the vessel.” When asked about the likelihood of recovering the remains of the crew, Rear Adm. Mauger said, “This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there.” —ACE

6. Why is it so difficult to explore the deepest parts of the ocean?

You’re probably familiar with how 70 percent of the Earth’s surface is ocean, but its depths are a much bigger mystery. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, less than 10 percent of the world’s ocean depths are mapped with sonar. 

Think of the ocean floor not as flat and even, but with geological features just like land on the surface. There are canyons, plateaus, mountains, and submarine volcanoes, among other types of formations . Crucially, the technology we have to map above ground doesn’t work as well underwater. Water is a very good shield. It’s excellent at attenuating light, radiation, electromagnetism — all of our conventional tools for studying stuff. Terrain mapping can include satellite imagery and GPS , both of which can’t operate beyond rather shallow depths. So beyond 50 meters of depth, you really can’t know what’s going on unless you’re physically there.

• 7 ocean mysteries scientists haven’t solved yet

To identify objects in the very deep parts of the ocean, researchers are left to use sound waves , which can travel through water much more accurately, via sonar. We can use echo sounding to map the ocean floor in a practice called bathymetry . There’s also geodesy , a satellite technology that’s increasingly being used to map by measuring tiny changes in gravity, which in turn illustrate the bottom of the ocean.

A part of the struggle comes through relying on sound waves, which physically have to be deployed. It’s expensive to make vessels that can withstand the pressures of the depths, and even more expensive to get people in said vessels. The farther down you go, the higher and more deadly the pressure is . In 2016, scientists estimated it would cost more than $3 billion to map the ocean floor. OceanGate claims to provide submersibles for scientific projects as well . 

“In some ways, it’s a lot easier to send people into space than it is to send people to the bottom of the ocean,” oceanographer Gene Carl Feldman told Oceana , an ocean conservation group. “The intense pressures in the deep ocean make it an extremely difficult environment to explore.”

So while we know where the oceans are, and their surface is mapped with satellites, the depths are still just roughly estimated . We have a better understanding of Mars’s geography than we do of the ocean’s.

As for the rescue, the OceanGate submersible only had sonar to rely on — and that’s if their technology was working. (The New York Times reported that it’s unclear whether the Titan even had an acoustic homing beacon.) According to Rear Adm. Mauger, the implosion of the Titan “would have generated significant broadband sound down there that the sonar buoys would have picked up.” Listening devices that were dropped in the general area Monday allegedly did not catch any implosion sounds , the US Coast Guard said. However, the Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday evening that the US Navy had heard what could have been an implosion sound in the hours soon after the Titan went out of contact. — Izzie Ramirez

7. How dangerous is deep sea tourism?

In most cases, folks who aren’t experts in deep-sea exploration aren’t ending up down near the sea floor. And if they are, usually they’re accompanied or trained by people who know how to operate deep-sea machinery and what to do in emergency situations. That’s what made this particular incident with OceanGate precarious — generally, deep-sea equipment has several redundant failsafes to protect the people inside. 

Because deep-sea exploration trips are so expensive, there are limited ways to get on one. You can be conducting government-funded research, have extremely wealthy benefactors (or be wealthy yourself), or be contracted as an employee of an industry that’s operating in the depths. In the research arena, that’s improved loads. Just earlier this month, a Florida scientist — nicknamed “Dr. Deep Sea” — broke the world record for living underwater the longest. He stayed in a subaquatic compound for 100 days.

But it hasn’t always been so safe. And safety, of course, is dependent on the infrastructure and systems around an individual. In 1983, a team of saturation divers for Byford Dolphin, a semi-submersible oil rig in the North Sea, experienced a terrible accident . The diving bell , or the structure that maintains pressure to keep divers safe, released before a connecting chamber’s doors were entirely closed, instantaneously decompressing the area. Three of the divers died instantly, with the nitrogen in their bodies erupting, “boiling” into gas. Another was sucked through an opening — his internal organs scattered onto the deck after being torn from his body.

The danger of pressure underwater will likely never go away, but we’ve gotten better at building vessels and ships that have backup plans for their backup plans. That, and we don’t send as many crewed vessels into the deep. — IR

8. How does deep-sea tourism compare to space tourism?

Rush, in an interview with the New York Times last year, argued that OceanGate’s private explorations served a public good. “No public entity is going to fund going back to the Titanic,” he said. It’s an argument not dissimilar to the one spacefaring billionaires make about the societal value their multibillion-dollar ventures provide. They, too, point to a diminishment of interest and funding for space exploration — so thank the heavens they’re magnanimously picking up the slack. In a 2017 interview with Fast Company, Rush noted that as a teenager he dreamed of being the first person on Mars, only later turning his eye to the ocean.

He also said that the cost of OceanGate’s expeditions were a “fraction” of going to space. That’s true more broadly — setting up an aerospace company and building reusable rockets probably requires a lot more capital than sending submersibles into the depths of the ocean. But a ticket on a Virgin Galactic spaceflight also cost around $250,000 in 2021, though it has since upped the price to a cool $450,000 . This February, Rush was sued for fraud by a Florida couple alleging that the Titanic voyage they paid a hefty sum for had never happened.

In recent years, space exploration — often with dreams of colonizing Mars — has become the billionaire pet project du jour. But there have been plenty of other trendy, expensive fascinations, too. In fact, the elite fascination with the deep sea appeared to be having a moment in the early 2010s . Richard Branson spent an estimated $17 million on a submarine in 2011, and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen also revealed in 2011 that he had a megayacht big enough to house a personal submarine. Ex- Google CEO Eric Schmidt founded the Schmidt Ocean Institute in 2009, which aims to advance oceanographic research. To date, Schmidt and his wife Wendy have contributed over $360 million to the institute.

While the degree of danger associated with the hobbies of the ultrarich varies greatly, there’s a surfeit of adventurous pastimes enjoyed by the wealthy, whether it’s yacht racing — done by the likes of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Wendy Schmidt — or flying private planes, an infamously perilous activity that nonetheless remains a favorite hobby of rich people . —WK

9. Why does the media care so much about this story?

The quick answer to that question is that it’s pretty hard to imagine people spending $250,000 to voluntarily go to an extremely dangerous place in a claustrophobic tube with no additional safety. Rich people doing something astonishingly baffling and risky is always a point of curiosity. It’s a story, in the classic sense of the word.

The more complex — and arguably interesting — answer is that such a search endeavor reveals how little we know about the ocean. The hurdles with sonar, the physical challenges, the fact there’s so much science and guessing involved (When did they die? What caused the implosion?) can lead to a lot of important development in the future. This might be the impetus for governments to invest more in ocean exploration.

And, yes, migrants unfortunately do go missing in oceans regularly in arduous, treacherous journeys for a better life. At least 78 migrants died and hundreds of others are missing after a boat capsized in the Mediterranean earlier this week, for instance. Outlets could do more to cover this painful issue with justice and accountability. As local and national outlets continue to cover immigration, human rights, and poverty, it’s a dual responsibility from news organizations and readers alike to decide what really matters. —IR

Update, June 22, 7:30 pm ET: This story was originally published on June 21 and has been updated multiple times, most recently to include the discovery of the remains of the Titan submersible, the deaths of the crew members, and the possibility that the implosion was detected by the US Navy.

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2 men on missing Titanic tour submersible have ties to the Bay Area

By marianne favro • published june 20, 2023 • updated on june 20, 2023 at 5:45 pm.

Two of the five people on the missing Titanic tour submersible have ties to the Bay Area.

A frantic and massive search effort for the missing Titan submersible continued Tuesday roughly 900 miles east of Cape Cod. The sub lost communication on Sunday, less than two hours into a trip to view the wreckage of the Titanic.

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"There could’ve been an accident," retired Royal Navy Rear Admiral Chris Parry said. "It could have become entangled in the wreckage of Titanic. It could indeed have had a catastrophic failure."

The names of the five men aboard the sub were made public Tuesday. They are British billionaire Hamish Harding; French diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet; Stockton Rush, a Cal graduate and the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, the company that owns the missing sub; and Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman.

Shahzada Dawood has ties to the Bay Area. Since 2020, he has been on the board of the SETI Institute based in Mountain View. The institute is dedicated to identifying life across the universe. A spokesperson said the institute is deeply concerned about Shahzada and his son and are in contact with their family.

The SETI Institute and its CEO, Bill Diamond, issued the following statement: "The entire SETI Institute community is devastated by the news of our Trustee, Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman, who are on board the missing submersible with three other passengers and crew. Shahzada is not only a member of our Board of Trustees but also a dear friend and part of the SETI Institute family. We are holding out every hope for a successful rescue mission and the safe return of our brother and all those on board. Our hearts go out to Shahzada, Suleman and the entire Dawood family. The situation is extremely serious, but we extend our thoughts and best wishes for a positive outcome."

Missing Titan submersible: What it is, what might have gone wrong and what's being done to find it

‘Underwater noises' detected in frantic search for missing Titanic tourist sub with 5 aboard

As the five men face the possibility of running out of breathable air within the next two days, commercial diver Chris Lemons understands what the men might be experiencing. In 2012, he lost his air supply while diving to repair an oil rig.

"I was left with about five or six minutes of breathing gas on the bottom of the North Sea and about 4 degrees of water," Lemons said. "It took my rescuers about 40-43 minutes I think to get back to me."

Lemons said for the men on the Titan, it's critical to stay calm and regulate their breathing. He said air supply is not their only concern. Depending on what happened, the sub may have also lost heat.

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"People always assume that it's going to be the breathing gas that gets you, but actually it's often not," Lemons said. "It’s often the cold that will get you first. Hypothermia is a serious, serious danger at that depth if they're not being artificially heated. Carbon dioxide is also a huge, huge issue."

Canadian search planes have dropped sonar buoys in the rough seas, hoping to hear something from the sub in the deep expanse of the north Atlantic Ocean.

"They really only have one option," Lemons said. "They're so deep that any exposure to the water for example would be unconscionable. That would be fatal. They need to be brought up in one piece."

Missing Titanic Submersible ‘Catastrophic Implosion’ Likely Killed 5 Aboard Submersible

Pieces of the missing Titan vessel were found on the ocean floor, about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, the Coast Guard said. OceanGate Expeditions, the vessel’s operator, said, “Our hearts are with these five souls.”

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Coast Guard Says Debris of Submersible Has Been Found

The u.s. coast guard said parts of the titan submersible found on the ocean floor indicate a “catastrophic implosion” of the vessel..

This morning, an ROV or remote-operated vehicle from the vessel Horizon Arctic discovered the tailcone of the Titan submersible approximately 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic on the seafloor. The ROV subsequently found additional debris. In consultation with experts from within the unified command, the debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber. Upon this determination, we immediately notified the families. This is a incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the seafloor, and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel. This was a incredibly complex case, and we’re still working to develop the details for the timeline involved with this casualty and the response.

Daniel Victor ,  Jesus Jiménez and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs

After days of searching, no hope of finding survivors remains. Here’s the latest.

The five people aboard the submersible that went missing on Sunday were presumed dead on Thursday, after an international search that gripped much of the world found debris from the vessel near the wreckage of the Titanic. A U.S. Coast Guard official said the debris was “consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel.”

On Sunday, a secret U.S. network of acoustic sensors picked up indications of a possible implosion in the vicinity of the submersible around the time communications with it were lost, a senior Navy official disclosed on Thursday. The search continued because there was no immediate confirmation that the Titan had met a disastrous end, according to a second senior Navy official. Both officials spoke anonymously to discuss operational details.

However, the revelation is likely to raise further questions about a vast, multinational dayslong search and rescue effort that has ended in failure.

Those presumed lost onboard were Stockton Rush, the chief executive of OceanGate, the company that operated the submersible, who was piloting. The four passengers were a British businessman and explorer, Hamish Harding ; a British-Pakistani businessman, Shahzada Dawood, and his teenage son, Suleman ; and a French maritime expert, Paul-Henri Nargeolet , who had been on over 35 dives to the Titanic wreck site. ( Read more about the lives that were lost .)

Here’s what else to know:

A remote-controlled vehicle had located the debris from the Titan, including the submersible’s tail cone, about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic on the ocean floor, according to Admiral Mauger.

Leaders in the submersible craft industry warned for years of possible “catastrophic” problems with the vehicle’s design. They also worried that OceanGate Expeditions had not followed standard certification procedures .

OceanGate has provided tours of the Titanic wreck since 2021 — for a price of up to $250,000 per person — as part of a booming high-risk travel industry . The company has described the trip on its website as a “thrilling and unique travel experience.”

The Titan squeezed five passengers into a tight space with no seats, only a flat floor and a single view port 21 inches in diameter. Here’s a closer look at the craft .

Eric Schmitt

Secret Navy sensors detected a possible implosion around the time the Titan’s communications failed.

The U.S. Navy, using data from a secret network of underwater sensors designed to track hostile submarines, detected “an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion” in the vicinity of the Titan submersible at the time communications with the vessel were lost on Sunday, two senior Navy officials said on Thursday.

But with no other indications of a catastrophe, one of the officials said, the search was continued.

The data from the sensors was combined with information from airborne Navy P-8 surveillance planes and sonar buoys on the surface to triangulate the approximate location of the Titan, one of the officials said. The analysis of undersea acoustic data and information about the location of the noise were then passed on to the Coast Guard official in charge of the search, Rear Adm. John Mauger.

Because there was no visual or other conclusive evidence of a catastrophic failure, one of the officials said, it would have been “irresponsible” to immediately assume the five passengers were dead, and the search was ordered to continue even though the outlook appeared grim. Both of the Navy officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details.

It was not immediately clear how widely the Navy’s acoustical analysis was disseminated among the search team, nor why the Navy had not made it public earlier. The Navy’s acoustic analysis from the secret sensor network was first reported by The Wall Street Journal .

Search Vessels Around the Titanic Wreckage

Polar Prince

newfoundland

North Atlantic

the Titanic

Skandi Vinland

Deep Energy

The Canadian vessel

Horizon Arctic deployed

a remote-operated vehicle

that discovered a debris field.

The Titanic wreckage

sits on the ocean

floor, approximately

12,500 feet down.

North Atlantic Ocean

that discovered a debris field

containing remains of the Titan.

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William J. Broad

The director and deep-sea explorer James Cameron points to flaws in the Titan submersible’s design.

“We’ve never had an accident like this,” James Cameron, the Oscar-winning director of “Titanic,” said on Thursday.

Mr. Cameron, an expert in submersibles, has dived dozens of times to the ship’s deteriorating hulk and once plunged in a tiny craft of his own design to the bottom of the planet’s deepest recess.

In an interview, Mr. Cameron called the presumed loss of five lives aboard the Titan submersible from the company OceanGate like nothing anyone involved in private ocean exploration had ever seen.

“There’ve never been fatalities at this kind of depth and certainly no implosions,” he said.

An implosion in the deep sea happens when the crushing pressures of the abyss cause a hollow object to collapse violently inward. If the object is big enough to hold five people, Mr. Cameron said in an interview, “it’s going to be an extremely violent event — like 10 cases of dynamite going off.”

In 2012, Mr. Cameron designed and piloted an experimental submersible into a region in the Pacific Ocean called the Challenger Deep. Mr. Cameron had not sought certification of the vessel’s safety by organizations in the maritime industry that provide such services to numerous companies.

“We did that knowingly” because the craft was experimental and its mission scientific, Mr. Cameron said. “I would never design a vehicle to take passengers and not have it certified.”

Mr. Cameron strongly criticized Stockton Rush, the OceanGate chief executive who piloted the submersible when it disappeared Sunday, for never getting his tourist submersible certified as safe . He noted that Mr. Rush called certification an impediment to innovation.

“I agree in principle,” Mr. Cameron said. “But you can’t take that stance when you’re putting paying customers into your submersible — when you have innocent guests who trust you and your statements” about vehicle safety.

As a design weakness in the Titan submersible and a possible cautionary sign to its passengers, Mr. Cameron cited its construction with carbon-fiber composites. The materials are used widely in the aerospace industry because they weigh much less than steel or aluminum, yet pound for pound are stronger and stiffer.

The problem, Mr. Cameron said, is that a carbon-fiber composite has “no strength in compression”— which happens as an undersea vehicle plunges ever deeper into the abyss and faces soaring increases in water pressure. “It’s not what it’s designed for.”

The company, he added, used sensors in the hull of the Titan to assess the status of the carbon-fiber composite hull. In its promotional material , OceanGate pointed to the sensors as an innovative feature for “hull health monitoring.” Early this year, an academic expert described the system as providing the pilot “with enough time to arrest the descent and safely return to surface.”

In contrast to the company, Mr. Cameron called it “a warning system” to let the submersible’s pilot know if “the hull is getting ready to implode.”

Mr. Cameron said the sensor network on the sub’s hull was an inadequate solution to a design he saw as intrinsically flawed.

“It’s not like a light coming on when the oil in your car is low,” he said of the network of hull sensors. “This is different.”

A senior U.S. Navy official said that the Navy had, through acoustic analysis, “detected an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost.” The official said that the identification was “not definitive,” the information was immediately shared with the search effort, and that the decision was made to continue searching to “make every effort to save the lives on board.”

Christina Goldbaum and Emma Bubola

Shahzada Dawood, Executive, 48, and Son, 19, Die Aboard Submersible

Shahzada Dawood, a British Pakistani businessman who was among the five people aboard a submersible journeying deep into the Atlantic to view the Titanic, was killed when the vessel imploded during its descent to the ocean floor, the authorities said Thursday. He was 48.

His 19-year-old son, Suleman, who was with him on the Titan submersible, was also killed.

Mr. Dawood was the vice chairman of Engro Corporation, a business conglomerate headquartered in the Pakistani port city of Karachi that is involved in agriculture, energy and telecommunications. His family is known as one of the wealthiest business families in the country.

His work focused on renewable energy and technology, according to a statement from his family.

Mr. Dawood was born on Feb. 12, 1975, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He studied law as an undergraduate at Buckingham University in Britain and later received a master’s degree in global textile marketing from Philadelphia University, now part of Thomas Jefferson University. In 2012, he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

His son was a business student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and had just completed his first year, a spokesman for the school said. Like his father, he was a fan of science fiction and enjoyed solving Rubik’s Cubes and playing volleyball, according to a statement from Engro.

“The relationship between Shahzada and Suleman was a joy to behold; they were each other’s greatest supporters and cherished a shared passion for adventure and exploration of all the world had to offer them,” the family’s statement said.

The pair’s shared passion for science and discovery, friends and family said, led them to embark on the expedition to the wreck of the Titanic.

Travel and science were “part of his DNA,” said Ahsen Uddin Syed, a friend of the elder Mr. Dawood who used to work with him at Engro.

A lover of “Star Trek” and “Star Wars,” Mr. Dawood was also fond of nature and often traveled to faraway places and shared pictures of his adventures, Mr. Sayed said.

His Instagram profile is like a memory book of his love of travel and nature; it is blanketed with photos of birds, flowers and landscapes, including a sunset in the Kalahari Desert, the ice sheet in Greenland, penguins in the Shetlands and a tiny bird in London with the caption “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

“Don’t adventures ever have an end?” Mr. Dawood wrote in a Facebook post last year from a trip to Iceland, quoting Bilbo Baggins from “The Fellowship of the Ring.” “I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.”

Khalid Mansoor, another former colleague of Mr. Dawood’s, said that Mr. Dawood was a passionate champion of the environment. He was also a trustee at the SETI Institute, an organization devoted to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

In his role at Engro, the company statement said, Mr. Dawood advocated “a culture of learning, sustainability and diversity.” He was also involved in his family’s charitable ventures, including the Engro Foundation, which supports small-scale farmers, and the Dawood Foundation, an education-focused nonprofit.

“Shahzada’s and Suleman’s absence will be felt deeply by all those who had the privilege of knowing this pair,” his family’s statement read.

Mr. Dawood is survived by a daughter, Alina, and his wife, Christine.

Salman Masood contributed reporting.

Sam Roberts

Stockton Rush, Pilot of the Titan Submersible, Dies at 61

Stockton Rush, the chief executive and founder of OceanGate and the pilot of the Titan submersible, was declared dead on Thursday after his vessel was found in pieces at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, near the rusting wreck of the R.M.S. Titanic. He was 61.

Mr. Rush oversaw finances and engineering for OceanGate, a privately owned tourism and research company based in Everett, Wash., which he founded in 2009. In 2012, he was a founder of the OceanGate Foundation, a nonprofit organization that encouraged technological development to further marine science, history and archaeology.

Mr. Rush first looked skyward for adventure. In 1981, when he was 19, he was believed to be the world’s youngest jet-transport-rated pilot.

If the sky was the limit, though, it was too confining for Mr. Rush.

“I wanted to be the first person on Mars,” he told Fast Company magazine in 2017.

Ineligible for Air Force pilot training because of poor eyesight, he said, he abandoned his dream of becoming an astronaut. Interplanetary travel didn’t seem economically viable in the foreseeable future. But he saw potential in underwater travel, and he said he was willing to take on risk and bend the rules to achieve his goals.

“I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed,” he said in an interview with “CBS News Sunday Morning” last year. “Don’t get in your car. Don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question. I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules.”

Richard Stockton Rush III was the scion of one of San Francisco’s most famous families. He was descended on his father’s side from two signers of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush and Richard Stockton.

He was born on March 31, 1962, in San Francisco. His father is chairman of the Peregrine Oil and Gas Company in Burlingame, Calif., and the Natoma Company, which manages apartment and other investment properties in and around Sacramento. His grandfather was the chairman of the shipping company American President Lines. Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco was named for his grandmother.

The Davies family’s inherited wealth was derived from Ralph K. Davies, who began at Standard Oil of California as a 15-year-old office boy and rose to become the youngest director in the company’s history.

Stockton, as Mr. Rush was known, graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from Princeton University in 1984. He received a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business in 1989.

During summer breaks, he served as a DC-8 first officer, flying out of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for Overseas National Airways. The year he graduated, he joined the McDonnell Douglas Corporation as a flight test engineer on the F-15 program and was named the company’s representative at Edwards Air Force Base on the APG-63 radar test protocol.

Before founding OceanGate, he served on the board of BlueView Technologies, a sonar developer in Seattle, and as chairman of Remote Control Technologies, which makes remotely operated devices. He was also a trustee of the Museum of Flight in Seattle from 2003 to 2007.

In 1986, he married Wendy Hollings Wei l, a licensed pilot, substitute teacher and account manager for magazine publishing consultants. She became the director of communications for OceanGate.

Her grandfather, Richard Weil Jr., was president of Macy’s New York, and she was the great-great-granddaughter of the retailing magnate Isidor Straus and his wife, Ida, two of the wealthiest people to die when the Titanic sank.

The aging Mr. Straus, a co-owner of Macy’s, refused to board the lifeboat while younger men were being prevented from boarding. Ida Straus, his wife of four decades, declared that she would not leave her husband, and the two were seen standing arm in arm on the Titanic’s deck as the ship went down.

Information on Mr. Rush’s survivors was not immediately available.

In his CBS News interview, Mr. Rush acknowledged that it was prudent while exploring the ocean at depths of thousands of feet to avoid fish nets, overhangs and other hazards. But, he said, safety concerns could also be a drag on a swashbuckling career in which risk paid returns not only in profits but also in unforgettable experiences.

“It really is a life-changing experience, and there aren’t a lot of things like that,” he told Fast Company. “Rather than spend $65,000 to climb Mount Everest, maybe die, and spend a month living in a miserable base camp, you can change your life in a week.”

His trips in the Titan brought him the adventure he craved.

“I wanted to be sort of the Captain Kirk,” he said. “I didn’t want to be the passenger in the back. And I realized that the ocean is the universe. That’s where life is.”

Jacey Fortin

The Coast Guard says it found five major pieces of debris on the ocean floor.

The Titan submersible that vanished in the North Atlantic on Sunday appeared to have suffered a “catastrophic implosion,” the U.S. Coast Guard said on Thursday, and offered its condolences to the families of the five people who were on board.

Debris from the vessel, which vanished while descending to view the wreck of the R.M.S. Titanic, was found on the ocean floor on Thursday morning, about 1,600 feet from the bow of the shipwreck, Rear Admiral John Mauger of the Coast Guard said at a news conference on Thursday afternoon.

The debris was “consistent with catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber” of the submersible, he added.

Asked about the possibility of recovering the bodies of the victims, Admiral Mauger said that he did not have an answer. “This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor,” he said.

Chances for the survival of the five passengers had begun to look grim by midweek, but rescuers had said that they were holding out hope that the Titan could be out there somewhere.

But on Thursday morning, a remotely operated vehicle discovered a debris field on the ocean bottom. Paul Hankins, a salvage expert for the U.S. Navy, said there were “five major pieces” that appeared to be parts of the Titan, a 22-foot-long vessel owned by OceanGate, including a nose cone, the front end of the pressure hull and the back end of the pressure hull.

It was too early to tell exactly when the vessel imploded, Admiral Mauger said. The implosion “would have generated significant broadband sound down there that the sonar buoys would have picked up,” he added, but listening devices in the area did not hear any signs of such a catastrophic failure.

Some underwater banging noises were picked up by searchers earlier this week, but they did not appear to have had any relation to the submersible, Admiral Mauger said. Previously, the Coast Guard had said that they repositioned their search efforts around where those noises were detected.

“I know there’s a lot of questions about how, why, when this happened,” Admiral Mauger said, adding that the authorities had those same questions. “That’s going to be, I’m sure, the focus of future review,” he said. “Right now, we’re focused on documenting the scene.”

Daniel Victor

The five people on board included the chief executive of the company that operated the submersible, a Guinness World Record-holding explorer, a man who dived to the Titanic more than 35 times, and a father-and-son duo. Read more about the lives that were lost here .

Alex Williams

Hamish Harding, an Explorer Who Knew No Bounds, Dies at 58

Hamish Harding, an aviation tycoon and ardent explorer, made it his quest to probe the heavens as well as the depths, landing him a place in Guinness World Records and ultimately leading him to a fateful plunge to the wreckage of the Titanic some two and a half miles below the surface of the North Atlantic.

The submersible craft in which he was traveling with four others lost contact with its mother ship on Sunday. After a five-day multinational search across an area the size of Massachusetts, the U.S. Coast Guard said Thursday that all five had been killed when the vessel, belonging to OceanGate Expeditions, suffered “a catastrophic implosion.”

Mr. Harding was 58.

Passengers had paid up to $250,000 each for the privilege of plunging nearly 13,000 feet below the surface for a glimpse of the remains of history’s most storied oceanic tragedy. The R.M.S. Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in 1912, four days into its maiden voyage, about 400 miles off Newfoundland. More than 1,500 people died.

At the outset of the tour, Mr. Harding saw the opportunity as an unlikely stroke of good fortune. “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years,” he wrote in a social media post on Saturday, “this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023.”

He described himself as a “mission specialist” on the expedition.

Mr. Harding seemed to presage his own fate in a 2021 interview after a record-setting plunge to Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the ocean in the Mariana Trench.

At nearly 36,000 feet below the western Pacific Ocean, deeper than Mount Everest is tall, that four-hour, 15-minute voyage took him nearly three times further down than the Titanic site. That expedition, with the American explorer Victor Vescovo, earned two citations by Guinness World Records, for the longest distance traversed at full ocean depth by a crewed vessel and the longest time spent there on a single dive.

As Esquire Middle East magazine pointed out at the time, only 18 people had ever journeyed to the bottom of the Challenger Deep, as opposed to the 24 astronauts who had orbited or landed on the moon and the thousands who successfully had scaled the peak of Mount Everest.

Mr. Harding knew the risks. “If something goes wrong, you are not coming back,” he told The Week, an Indian newsmagazine. But in business, and in his life of adventure seeking, he seemed to embrace them.

A pilot licensed to fly both business jets and airliners, Mr. Harding started the first regular business jet service to the Antarctic in 2017, in partnership with the luxury Antarctic tourism company White Desert. The service landed its first flight, a Gulfstream G550, on a new ice runway known as Wolf’s Fang.

A lifelong space buff, he traveled to Antarctica in 2016 with Buzz Aldrin, the Apollo 11 astronaut and the second man to walk on the moon. At 86, Mr. Aldrin became the oldest person to reach the South Pole. Four years later, Mr. Harding took a similar journey with his son Giles, who at 12 became the youngest person to accomplish that feat.

In 2019, Mr. Harding set off on another record-setting venture with a former astronaut when he and the former International Space Station commander Col. Terry Virts completed the fastest circumnavigation of the world over both the North and South Poles in a Qatar Executive Gulfstream G650ER long-range business jet.

In June 2022, Mr. Harding finally got to experience the wonder of being an astronaut himself, soaring some 60 miles aboard the New Shepard spacecraft, from Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin space tourism company, to the edge of outer space.

“Once the liquid hydrogen/oxygen booster rocket gets the capsule to the edge of space, 350,000 feet above the earth,” he said in an interview last year with Business Aviation Magazine , “the sky above you is totally, completely black, even right next to the sun.”

Despite a life of dramatic quests that seemed drawn from boys’ adventure books, Mr. Harding was by nature “an explorer, not a thrill seeker,” Colonel Virts said in an interview with the BBC .

Mr. Harding apparently agreed. In discussing the Challenger Deep mission, he emphasized science, not derring-do.

“As an explorer and adventurer, I want this expedition to contribute to our shared knowledge and understanding of planet earth,” he said in the Esquire interview. He spoke of collecting samples from the ocean floor “that could contain new life forms and may even provide further insights into how life on our planet began.”

“And in searching for signs of human pollution in this remote environment,” he continued, “we hope to aid scientific efforts to protect our oceans and ensure they flourish for millennia to come.”

George Hamish Livingston Harding was born on June 24, 1964, in Hammersmith, London.

He was always drawn to the skies, and beyond. “I was 5 years old when the Apollo landing took place,” he said in the Business Aviation interview. “I vividly remember watching the event on an old black-and-white TV set with my parents in Hong Kong, where I grew up.”

“This event set the tone of my life in a way,” he continued. “We sort of felt that anything was possible after that, and we fully expected there to be package holidays to the moon by now.”

At 13, he became a cadet in the Royal Air Force flying Chipmunk trainer airplanes. He earned his pilot’s license in 1985 while an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge, where he studied chemical engineering and natural sciences.

In the 1990s, he built a career in information technology, rising to managing director of Logica India, a company based in Bangalore. He used the money he made in that industry to found Action Group, a private investment company, in 1999. He started Action Aviation in 2002.

His survivors include his wife, Linda; his sons, Rory and Giles; a stepdaughter, Lauren Marisa Szasz; and a stepson, Brian Szasz.

In the Business Aviation interview, Mr. Harding said that the Titanic dive, initially scheduled for last June, had been delayed because “the submersible was unfortunately damaged on its previous dive.” Instead, that summer he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with 20 family members and friends.

When asked about the risks of his boundary-pushing ventures, Mr. Harding, who was the chairman of the Middle East chapter of the Explorers Club, said, “My view is that these are all calculated risks and are well understood before we start.”

“I should add that I do not go out seeking these opportunities,” he continued. “People tend to bring them to me, and I keep saying ‘Yes!’”

Anushka Patil

The implosion “would have generated significant broadband sound down there that the sonar buoys would have picked up,” Mauger said. Listening devices in the area, which were dropped Monday, did not hear any signs of such a catastrophic failure, he reported earlier.

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs

The underwater banging noises that were picked up by the authorities earlier this week do not appear to have had any relation to the site of the submersible’s wreckage. “There doesn’t appear to be any connection between the noises and the location on the sea floor” where the debris was found, Mauger said. Previously, the Coast Guard had said that they repositioned their search efforts around where those noises were detected.

Jesus Jimenez

Asked about the prospect of recovering the bodies of the victims, Mauger said he did not have an answer. “This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor,” he said.

“I know there’s a lot of questions about how, why, when this happened,” says Admiral Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard, adding that the authorities have those same questions. “That’s going to be, I’m sure, the focus of future review. Right now, we’re focused on documenting the scene.”

Mauger said it was too early to tell when the vessel imploded. Remote operations will continue on the sea floor, he said.

Where the Titan submersible was found — 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic — and the size of the debris field indicates that the vessel imploded, according to Carl Hartsfield, an expert with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. There does not appear to be any indication that it collided with the wreckage.

The authorities found “five major pieces of debris” that indicated they were from the Titan, including a nose cone, the front end of the pressure hull and the back end of the pressure hull, said Paul Hankins, a salvage expert for the U.S. Navy. He said that finding these pieces of debris indicated there was a “catastrophic event.”

Mauger said that officials are still working to come up with a timeline of events.

The debris found today was “consistent with catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber” in the submersible, Mauger said.

Debris from the Titan submersible, including its tail cone, was found on the ocean floor on Thursday morning, about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, said Rear Admiral John Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard.

In a few moments, Rear Adm. John Mauger and Capt. Jamie Frederick of the U.S. Coast Guard will provide updates on findings from the sea floor near the Titanic.

The announcement by the company that all five passengers on the submersible are believed to be dead appears to cap an international search that stretched across several days and gripped much of the world. Even as the chances of survival looked grim, rescuers had said they were holding out hope that the Titan could be out there somewhere, hopes that appear to have been dashed by the discovery of debris.

“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” the company said. “Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time.”

OceanGate said in a statement that “we now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost.”

Jacey Fortin and Eric Schmitt

Here is why the U.S. Coast Guard led the search effort.

It would be a tall order for any agency: finding a submersible vessel that could be more than two miles below the surface of the ocean and hundreds of miles away from land.

But the United States Coast Guard was the best trained and equipped agency for the task, government officials and outside analysts said.

Most Americans are familiar with Coast Guard operations closer to home — from interdicting drug smugglers to assisting recreational boaters — but the maritime force has long been dedicated to search and rescue efforts at sea, including those in international waters.

For the past week, the Coast Guard oversaw an armada of vessels, aircraft and specialists from North America and Europe to find the Titan. International agreements divide the ocean into regions and offer guidance about which nations and agencies take primary responsibility for search and rescue in each. The site of the Titanic wreck is in an area generally assigned to the Coast Guard , even though it is closer to the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, than that of the continental United States.

Beyond that, the U.S. Coast Guard is considered “the premier maritime search and rescue agency in the world,” said Aaron C. Davenport, a senior researcher at the Rand Corporation and 34-year veteran of the service.

Chris Boyer, the executive director of the National Association for Search and Rescue, a nonprofit advocacy group, called the Coast Guard “the best prepared and the best choice, given the circumstances.” He added that while the United States Navy also had underwater rescue capabilities and was participating in the search, it was more focused on defense than on this type of mission.

The disappearance of the Titan, which vanished while descending to view the wreck of the Titanic, presented a unique challenge. The small, privately owned vessel was sealed shut from the outside, and rescuing people from it far below the surface would have been very difficult, Mr. Boyer said.

The Coast Guard handles thousands of rescues every year, but many are comparatively straightforward, like finding a lost fishing boat, according to Robert B. Murrett, a retired Navy vice admiral who is now deputy director of the Syracuse University Institute for Security Policy and Law.

“This one’s a little bit different because of the water depth involved, and the nature of the vehicle,” Professor Murrett said.

Even so, he said, the Coast Guard is adept at coordinating search efforts involving different agencies from different countries.

The search for the Titan was “an incredibly complex operation,” Rear Adm. John Mauger, a Boston-based Coast Guard commander, told reporters on Thursday.

“We were able to mobilize an immense amount of gear to the site in just a really remarkable amount of time, given the fact that we started without any sort of vessel response plan for this or any sort of pre-staged resources,” he said.

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs ,  Jenny Gross and Anna Betts

OceanGate was warned of potential for ‘catastrophic’ problems with its Titanic mission.

Years before OceanGate’s submersible craft went missing in the Atlantic Ocean with five people onboard, the company faced several warnings as it prepared for its hallmark mission of taking wealthy passengers to tour the Titanic’s wreckage.

In January 2018, the company’s engineering team was about to hand over the craft — named Titan — to a new crew who would be responsible for ensuring the safety of its future passengers. But experts inside and outside the company were beginning to raise concerns.

OceanGate’s director of marine operations, David Lochridge, started working on a report around that time, according to court documents, ultimately producing a scathing document in which he said the craft needed more testing and stressed “the potential dangers to passengers of the Titan as the submersible reached extreme depths.”

Two months later, OceanGate faced similarly dire calls from more than three dozen people — industry leaders, deep-sea explorers and oceanographers — who warned in a letter to its chief executive, Stockton Rush, that the company’s “experimental” approach and its decision to forgo a traditional assessment could lead to potentially “catastrophic” problems with the Titanic mission.

A spokesman for OceanGate declined to comment on the five-year-old critiques from Mr. Lochridge and the industry leaders. Nor did Mr. Lochridge respond to a request for comment.

The United States Coast Guard said on Twitter that a debris field was found in the search area by a remote-operated vehicle. Experts are evaluating the information, the Coast Guard said.

The Coast Guard said it would hold a news conference at 3 p..m. Eastern time in Boston to address findings from a remote-operated vehicle deployed by the Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic on the sea floor near the Titanic.

Jenny Gross

Another remotely controlled deep-sea vehicle is en route to the search area.

A remotely operated vehicle that can reach 6,000 meters (about 19,700 feet) below the surface of the ocean was en route to join the search for the missing Titan submersible in the North Atlantic, the Explorers Club, a New York-based organization that counts two of the missing passengers among its members, said on Thursday.

The vehicle, owned by Magellan, a deepwater seabed-mapping company, was being transported from Britain to St. John’s, Newfoundland, where it was expected to land early afternoon local time on Thursday. Two other remotely controlled vehicles are already at the search site around the wreckage of the Titanic. The Titan was on a voyage to visit the shipwreck when it disappeared on Sunday.

Magellan’s vehicle has been to the wreckage of the Titanic — which sits at a depth of about 12,500 feet — more than any other vehicle and has mapped the site , including the surrounding debris, Richard Garriott de Cayeux, president of the Explorers Club, said in a statement. It has manipulator arms that can attach lifting cables directly to a submersible, and “may prove invaluable” to the ongoing search and rescue efforts, Mr. Garriott de Cayeux said. Magellan did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Garriott de Cayeux said that other club members with experience diving to similar depths had a sense of what the passengers on the Titan may be facing.

“While the planned life support supply depletes, we believe crew conservation and the near freezing temperatures could prolong life support by some time and the crew knows this,” he said in the statement.

“While the situation is very difficult, we can all be grateful and hopeful as the very best people are on the job,” Mr. Garriott de Cayeux said.

Derrick Bryson Taylor

The University of Strathclyde in Glasgow confirmed on Thursday that Suleman Dawood, the 19-year-old man who is on board the missing submersible along with his father, is a business student at the school. He recently completed his first year, a spokesman for the university said.

“We are deeply concerned about Suleman, his father and the others involved in this incident,” the spokesman said. “Our thoughts are with their families and loved ones and we continue to hope for a positive outcome.”

In discussing the amount of oxygen left on the Titan, Rear Adm. John Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard said on Thursday that “people’s will to live really needs to be accounted for, as well.”

Rear Adm. John Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard speaks to TODAY about the latest efforts to rescue the five people on board the missing submersible Titan as it runs low on oxygen. “People’s will to live really needs to be accounted for, as well,” he says. pic.twitter.com/6FJ3w1Z0Ty — TODAY (@TODAYshow) June 22, 2023

The search for the missing submersible was well underway as of Thursday morning. The Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic has deployed a remotely operated vehicle that has reached the sea floor, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Twitter.

The French vessel Atalante is also preparing to deploy its remotely operated vehicle.

Stephen Castle

A senior British naval submariner, Richard Kantharia, has been assigned to the search-and-rescue mission, Downing Street said. The lieutenant commander was already working with the United States’ Atlantic submarine fleet and was deployed to the search mission on Tuesday night. Britain is also providing a C17 aircraft to transport specialist equipment, the British government said.

Judson Jones

After a day of undesirable weather conditions yesterday, fair weather is expected in the search area on Thursday. Winds may still gust to over 20 miles per hour, but mostly clear skies and wave heights of only about four to six feet are expected.

Victoria Kim

Photos from an early test of the Titan show how the submersible is deployed.

OceanGate Expeditions , the company behind the Titan submersible missing in a remote part of the North Atlantic since Sunday, conducted tests of its craft in early 2018 outside a marina at its headquarters in Everett, Wash.

It was one of the first saltwater test dives of the vessel, made of carbon fiber and titanium, that was billed as the largest submersible of its type in the world. The company said at the time that the Titan was meant to dive far deeper than its earlier submersibles, and was made out of different material.

The company announced plans to take visitors to the Titanic wreckage in 2017, as its co-founder and chief executive Stockton Rush emphasized the rarefied nature of the experience. “Since her sinking 105 years ago, fewer than 200 people have ever visited the wreck, far fewer than have flown to space or climbed Mount Everest,” he said in a news release at the time. Mr. Rush is on board the missing submersible.

The Titan’s lighter weight and launch and recovery platform would make it “a more financially viable option for individuals interested in exploring the deep,” the company said in a 2018 news release.

But even before the April 2018 saltwater test, experts inside and outside the company had begun warning of potentially “catastrophic” problems that could result from what they said was the company’s “experimental” approach.

Another manned submersible trip to the Titanic is being planned. A year after the fatal implosion, just how safe are today’s vessels?

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It would be the first deep-sea mission to the Titanic wreckage since the OceanGate submersible tragedy on June 18, 2023.

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Nearly a year after a submersible carrying five passengers imploded en route to the wreckage of the Titanic, another manned deep dive in the North Atlantic is reportedly in the works. 

The billionaire-funded trip would take two men — Larry Connor, a real estate investor, and Patrick Lahey , co-founder of Triton Submarines — down some 12,500 feet in the summer of 2026 on a vessel that Triton is designing, according to the New York Times . 

It would be the first manned mission to the wreckage since the OceanGate submersible tragedy on June 18, 2023, an incident that shook the industry and garnered international attention. 

The pair say the acrylic-hubbed vessel would be the first of its kind to achieve such depths, and that they hope the trip would demonstrate that deep sea expeditions can be safely carried out. 

But just how safe are today’s vessels, and who signs off on them? Northeastern Global News asked Hanumant Singh , a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northeastern, who has overseen the design of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), to shed some light on the kind of tech needed to sustain a vessel at such depths. 

Singh has personally traveled down to similar depths on the DSV Alvin, a deep-sea research vessel that he says is “the most successful submersible” ever built. 

Singh’s comments have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Given the risks involved, why are people interested in these deep-sea missions?

There is something to be said about putting a person down in so that they can have his first-person view. Having said that, you can pretty much do anything you want with robotic vehicles. They can go just as deep, and they’re way safer. 

Take the analog of space. The James Webb Telescope can give you so much information about the outer world. Meanwhile, we’re actually going up into space, whether it’s Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin vehicles, or other space shuttles — even though a lot of that work can be done remotely. 

But there are reasons to put people up because, frankly, it’s a better story to tell. There’s a lot of fun in actually going out and doing it yourself.

How are these vessels certified, and who certifies them?

It’s another interesting question to ask. How do you certify a manned submersible? We build so few of them. It’s like, how do you certify a space shuttle? You’ve got all of NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] working on that problem — and it’s a big deal. 

But, when it comes to underwater vessels, the NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] doesn’t do this. There’s no one agency that certifies such vehicles. In fact, when you talk about certification for submersibles, usually it’s something called the American Bureau of Shipping. They’re used to certifying ships, but not manned submersibles. 

The other option might be the Navy. But simply, we haven’t built enough manned submersibles to know what’s right and what’s wrong, especially when we look at new materials. When you look at titanium, that’s one issue; but when you look at these huge glass domes that these guys are talking about — that’s a whole separate problem.

So how is it determined whether they are safe?

We know how aluminum and titanium — the two metals of choice — work underwater. The reason we like both is because they’re the lightest metals, and they have good strength. We want them to be light, but they’ve still got to be heavier than water because we have to float them; we have to add something called syntactic foam so that, overall, the system is neutrally buoyant. 

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Think about what we do with our housing. We design our houses to 150% of pressure-rated depth, and then we test it to 125%, and we have a test protocol that we would use for certain systems. 

But these are systems that we know very well. What we would do with a submersible is we would take it into a pressure chamber, cycle it to 125% some number of times, and then we would hold it at that depth for a period of time — four, six or 10 hours. Then we’d have a record that says this thing has been pressure-certified. 

People build these chambers — there’s one in Woods Hole; there are bigger ones elsewhere — and you put it inside and use hydraulic pressure to pump down to those pressure. (All of this is happening inside a concrete-reinforced building, because if something fails during a pressure test, it’s a lot of energy that is released.) That’s how we do pressure testing. 

When you look at a big submersible — think, again, about the big glass dome of a submersible — there might be one place in the world where we can fit the whole thing in there and take it to pressure.

Are the design considerations different for manned vessels compared with unmanned?

Oh yes. If an AUV is designed and you lose it, you lose a million dollars, but nobody gets hurt. You can take a lot more risk in your design than you would if it were a manned submersible. If there is a person on board — I don’t care what you’re going to do, you better not hurt them. You’re not allowed to do that; it’s absolutely forbidden. So there’s a huge incentive to make the unmanned vehicles — you can take risks with them; you can be a little more forward with your thinking.

What happened to the industry after last year’s tragedy?

In short, nothing. That guy [Stockton Rush] was a renegade; he was not part of the standard industry, and wasn’t going to change how things worked. We have vehicles that are built out of carbon fiber — underwater gliders, and so on. He was so far out in left field that it just didn’t make sense. 

For one, if you look at Alvin, it has a dedicated ship with it. You look at the Japanese Shinkai 6500, it has a dedicated ship that accompanies it. It’s a huge and heavy vehicle; to get it out of the water, that lift has to be human-certified because you’re picking up a vehicle with a human in it. Not only is there a vessel, but that very vehicle has to dictate the shape of the ship. What this guy did … was take some random ship, float it behind him and tow it out. 

Well, that was probably contributing to the cycle time failure, because you’re towing it up and down on the waves as opposed to keeping it stable. It’s not just the submersible, it’s the ship. It’s the operations and maintenance; it’s how often you’re doing inspections; it’s the crew. All of that is important in conducting safe dives.

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Billionaire explains why he's planning voyage to Titanic a year after sub implosion

Nearly a year after five people died aboard the OceanGate "Titan" submersible while on a deep-sea voyage to the site of the Titanic, a billionaire has announced plans to go to the infamous wreck.

Entrepreneur and real estate investor Larry Connor said this week that he and Triton Submarines CEO Patrick Lahey are planning their own deep-sea expedition in a submersible.

Asked why, Connor told "Good Morning America" correspondent Will Reeve that the purpose of the voyage is to "demonstrate safety" of certified submersibles.

"If you look at submersibles that have been DNV certified ... there's never been an accident," he said. "The OceanGate vessel was not certified and never would have been."

While on a tour of the Titanic wreckage off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, in June 2023, the OceanGate submersible imploded underwater, killing all five people on board, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush. Following a dayslong search, the remnants of the missing submersible were found on the ocean floor about 1,600 feet from the bow of the wrecked Titanic.

Experts called the carbon fiber construction of the Titan fundamentally flawed and a whistleblower who worked on a predecessor to the Titan vessel raised concerns about the inefficiency of the hull design. Rush had previously defended the decision to manufacture the submersible with carbon fiber, saying he believed it would have a better strength-to-buoyancy ratio than titanium. The exact cause of the implosion remains under investigation by federal authorities.

OceanGate, which suspended all exploration and commercial operations after the deadly implosion, could not be reached for comment.

Connor said he and Lahey are designing a new, safer and certified submersible, known as the Explorer, that could take two people to the Titanic site. The submersible will cost $13 million to $15 million and have an acrylic hull and offer a near-panoramic view.

Connor said he is "very confident" about the plan and would not do a dive if he was not "100% convinced" that the submersible was safe.

"The moment we don't meet one standard, the project is done," he said. "We will not compromise safety."

In addition to proving safety, he said continued deep-sea dives carry scientific benefits.

"Almost three-quarters of the earth is covered in water. Isn't doing research important and worthwhile, given that fact?" he said.

Hakeem Oluseyi, a physicist and ABC News contributor, said he doesn't think deep-sea submersibles "should be abandoned for a single accident."

"If you think about the early days of space travel, we lost an entire crew," he said. "But that tells us what we've done wrong in the past and how to get it right in the future."