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CHILLING footage shows the wreckage of the doomed Titan sub nestled on the ocean floor after suffering a deadly implosion.
The mangled tail cone, with OceanGate‘s logo emblazoned on the side, can be seen pointing up with dozens of cables poking out.
Footage shows the sub wreck on the ocean floor with cables poking out
OceanGate’s logo can be seen on the side of the debris
The mangled wreck was found days after the sub went missing
AP
It is the first time footage of the underwater debris has been released since five passengers were killed when the sub imploded last June.
The haunting clip was taken by a remotely operated vehicle during a search of the ocean floor days after the horror dive shocked the world.
But it has only now been shared by the US Coast Guard as part of a two week hearing into the tragedy.
Titan – which was steered with a gaming controller – vanished from radars on June 18, 2023, and failed to resurface from the £195,000-a-head voyage 12,500ft down to the Titanic wreckage.
Hopes of a miracle faded by the hour, and then the day, as desperate rescue crews worked around the clock to find any signs of life.
Five days after the sub was supposed to return, debris was found on the ocean floor.
OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush, 61, British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, 19, all died on board.
Now, more than a year on, former employees and experts have been called to Charlestown, South Carolina, to give testimonies over what lead to the deadly implosion.
The hearing – which began on Monday – is investigating alleged negligence of OceanGate before the tragic dive and the reasons behind the failings in the search.
Heartbreaking details have already come to light – including the final words of the Titan passengers.
They told support ship Polar Prince “all good here” before audio became more spotty as it descended.
Crew on the Polar Prince then asked if the Titan could see the Titanic on its display.
Titan passengers were still able to send one message when the submersible was 3,341m deep – an hour-and-a-half after it began its journey.
The message read: “dropped two wts” and was sent at 10.47am.
Six seconds after the message was sent the Titan was pinged for the final time at a depth of 3,346m.
There was no communications between it and the Polar Prince mother ship the indicated any trouble or emergency on board the sub.
The Polar Prince began to there was a major issue when it sent a message to the Titan at 10.49am saying it had “lost tracking”.
They continued to message the doomed sub every two to three minutes, but by 11.15am they told the Polar Prince’s master there had been a loss of communication.
US authorities said a “catastrophic implosion” occurred, killing all on board instantly.
The coast guard was eventually called at 6.27pm after the Polar Prince had spent three hours searching.
Former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge yesterday branded the sub an “abomination”.
Lochridge was fired from the company after raising concerns about the sub, including over the materials it was made of.
AP
AFP
AP
Reuters
AFPHe told investigators on Tuesday it was “inevitable” something would eventually go wrong and that OceanGate “bypassed” standardised rules and regulations.
Lochridge also recalled how Rush threw a Playstation controller at him during a heated disagreement after a sub crash.
Speaking at the hearing, Lochridge claimed that Rush had insisted on piloting an earlier vessel dubbed Cyclops 1 down to the Andrea Doria shipwreck in 2016.
Lochridge said he watched warily as Rush deployed the submersible and ignored his warnings to keep his distance from the deteriorating shipwreck about 250 feet under the Atlantic Ocean.
According to Lochridge, Rush drove the sub “full speed into the port side” of the wreck’s bow and refused to listen to guidance.
He said: “It was an absolute mess.”
Lochridge added that he repeatedly tried to retrieve the controls from Rush, who refused until a paying client shouted at him.
Rush then threw the PlayStation controller at Lochridge’s head.
Lochridge later told the hearing that he compiled a report on the “abomination” Titan sub after he first inspected the Titan hull.
He said: “For me, this was my opportunity, being asked to do it prior to the sub being handed over, an abomination of a sub, this was my opportunity to raise everything that I had seen during the build and the final build of Titan.”
He said the viewport and elements of the dome ceilings deviated from standard design processes.
Lochridge claimed said he was “appalled” by the O-ring – a type of seal.
He continued: “There was so many laminations, so many voids. The imperfections were incredible. There was glue runs everywhere. And that’s a red flag.”
The former employee described the hull as “porous paper. It was disgusting”.
He added: “Everything was reused.
“They reused these domes. They reused these ceiling faces. They reused the acrylic. They reused the interior. Everything was reused. It’s all cost.”
The hearing is set to continue on Thursday.
How did the Titan tragedy unfolded?
by Katie Davis, Chief Foreign Reporter (Digital)
FIVE men plunged beneath the surface of the North Atlantic in a homemade sub in the hopes of exploring the Titanic wreckage last year.
Four passengers paid £195,000 to go on the sub, with the fifth member of the trip being a crew member.
But what was supposed to be a short trip spiralled into days of agony as the doomed Titan vanished without a trace on June 18, 2023.
The daring mission had been months in the making – and almost didn’t happen at the hands of harsh weather conditions in Newfoundland, Canada.
In a now chilling Facebook post, passenger Hamish Harding wrote: “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023.
“A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.”
It would be his final Facebook post.
The following morning, he and four others – led by Stockton Rush – began the 12,5000ft descent towards the bottom of the Atlantic.
But as it made its way down into the depths, the vessel lost all contact with its mother ship of the surface, the Polar Prince.
It sparked a frantic four day search for signs of life, with the hunt gripping the entire world.
There was hope that by some miracle, the crew was alive and desperately waiting to be saved.
But that sparked fears rescue teams were in a race against time as the sub only had a 96-hour oxygen supply when they set out, which would be quickly dwindling.
Then, when audio of banging sounds were detected under the water, it inspired hope that the victims were trapped and signalling to be rescued.
It heartbreakingly turned out that the banging noises were likely either ocean noises or from other search ships, the US Navy determined.
Countries around the world deployed their resources to aid the search, and within days the Odysseus remote-operated vehicle (ROV) was sent down to where the ghostly wreck of the Titanic sits.
The plan was for the ROV to hook onto the sub and bring it up 10,000ft, where it would meet another ROV before heading to the surface.
But any hopes of a phenomenal rescue were dashed when Odysseus came across a piece of debris from the sub around 1,600ft from the Titanic.
The rescue mission tragically then became a salvage task, and the heartbroken families of those on board were told the devastating news.
It was confirmed by the US Coast Guard that the sub has suffered a “catastrophic implosion”.
English (US)