What Really Happened

Its limited speaking capabilities bathe still found himself drawn to the project I'm no engineer he said if the reality of this submersible does not correspond to what is promised then it's not my problem that's his responsibility.

the French government gave him a lot of support however and even organized a concert in Monaco to raise funds for OceanGate although Mr Flaubert had doubts about the

using components bought from Camping

World and there were questions about its

safety rating.

just seemed a bit shoddy ocean gauge

shouldn't have been doing what it was

doing.

This is really focused on one orbits engineers according to Mr Pull on the voyage he'd taken with ocean Gate previously.

Had been plagued by technical issues and he was concerned that if anything went wrong the sub wouldn't be able to surface The tragedy of the Titan.

It has been devastating for the families of its passengers and crew but it has also highlighted a lack of clear regulation in an industry where innovation is pushed.

The pressure vessel and

making sure that that component which is

clearly the most critical component of

the sub is safe but five Titanic.

Tourists paid hundreds of thousands of

dollars to descend twelve thousand five

hundred feet in the Titan submarine

now the remains of the sub have been

found.

Questions are being asked why

experts who raise safety concerns about

the Ocean Gate vessel were apparently

ignored.

One of the engineers was fired

after voicing his concerns.

one man refused to ride the sub after

seeing how it was built and one man who

actually did ride it described his

voyage to a newspaper as suicide

these are all the potential concerns

that could have led to disaster

Ocean Gate the company which owned the

sub said on its website that it was a

mixture of bespoke engineering and

off-the-shelf parts.

They said this made the sub easy to fix

but the decision to use these components

has now been called into question David

Pogue a reporter who took a ride on the

sub last year reported it used lighting

and handles bought from Camping World.

Rusted scaffolding was used as

ballast

there and then you start seeing this

stuff and now your your mood crashes and

you get a little worried like is this

the level of

polish and sophistication.

Talking about a previous passenger described how

to release the ballast passengers all

had to move to one side of the vessel

Mr Pogue described the craft.

Jerry rigged macgyvered and said a lot of the

parts were less sophisticated than he

expected like the knockoff PlayStation

controller used for steering.

Mr Pogue challenged owner Stockton

rush over this the Ocean Gate CEO is

said to have hit back saying the

pressurized container where the

passengers sit was state of the art.

Made of carbon fiber and titanium he

claimed that NASA Boeing and Washington

University had assisted in the design.

Mr Rush said that all of the other

components could fail and the sub would

still be safe but he did admit on The

Unsung science podcast that his biggest

fear was getting stuck and being unable

to surface fears.

the communications at least once before

after Titan went missing while Mr Pogue

was taking his voyage.

The sub stopped responding to its

support ship got lost was unable to find

a Titanic wreck and then went missing

for five hours afterwards.

Mr post said that there was talk at the

time of adding an emergency Beacon to

the sub but it seems this didn't happen

the sub is constantly plagued by

mechanical problems he added in TV

interviews after the tragedy

The Titan operated in international

waters meaning it was outside the remit

of government agencies.

Mr Pogue had to sign a waiver before

getting on board which said that the

craft was experimental and had not been

approved by any regulator.

Ocean Gate said the sub could not be

classified because it used technology

that was so new it fell outside existing

industry paradigms getting certification

for the sub.

the company said would be a

multi-year process that was

unnecessarily slow because of a lack of

pre-existing standards.

Ocean Gate said the approval process was

anathema to Rapid innovation

by itself the company argued

classification is not sufficient to

ensure safety.

CEO Stockton Rush was skeptical of

safety standards telling the Smithsonian

that laws governing undersea craft

needlessly.

Prioritized passenger safety over innovation

Titan was not his first sub made in this

fashion but it was the first designed to

handle tourists.

As well as exploring the Titanic he

planned to venture to thermal vents and

undersea battlegrounds.

Mr Rush described the submarine industry

as obscenely safe saying there hadn't

been an accident in 35 years

but the industry also hasn't grown or

innovated.

the regulations he added

if you want to be safe he told CBS News

just last year don't get out of bed

Mr Rush may have dismissed the

danger in what he was doing others did

not and raised concerns for years.

David Lockridge who was hired by Mr rush to work on the sub

was embroiled in a lawsuit with Ocean

Gate in 2018 after being sacked.

the company accused the former Royal Navy

Marine engineer of trying to get fired

after he penned a report criticizing.

Their safety standards according to

court documents Mr Lockridge had raised

concerns over the Integrity of the sub's

hull its viewing window which was only

certified to four thousand feet.

The craft certified and warned they would be

otherwise subjecting passengers to

extreme danger and he was not the only

one a letter sent to Mr Rush.

The submersible industry

around the same time warned that his

experimental approach was risking

accidents that could be catastrophic

there are only 10 vehicles in the whole

world that can go 4 000 meters or deeper

and all of them are certified except the

Titan Chris Brown was one of ocean

Gate's early customers and bought a

ticket for eighty thousand pounds after

having a few beers with a friend who

knew about it but when Brown began

asking questions he quickly decided the

voyage wasn't worth the risk parts of

the submarine that I'd seen in the

testing in the Bahamas just seemed a bit

sorry

be using industrial piping for ballast

they're using an Xbox controller for the

steering

the strip lightings something you get a

DIY Shop the sub was beset by delays and

technical issues and when Mr Brown

finally got to inspect it he came away

with the impression that designers had

been cutting Corners well what really

did it for me was

um they flatly refused to get any

problem certification Arthur Lobel a

German man who did take a voyage on the

Titan described it to build as a suicide

mission and said he was lucky to survive

at first Lobel said the

submersible

didn't work then the dive had to be

abandoned when a part fell off and was

reattached with zip ties and finally it

was hit by electrical issues I was

nervous that we have to go return to go

back because we got some problems like

in the other Dives with the Battery

Systems even pull on re angle perhaps.

the world's most experienced Titanic

Explorer had doubts in an interview with

media in his home country of France he

admitted that he did not trust the

submersibles composite material design