UPDATE July 5, 2023: Added account of letter imploring OceanGate for further testing that was not sent.
In a rush to be the SpaceX of the ocean, OceanGate seems to have foregone the tests normally done on submersibles to prove their seaworthiness—deemed especially necessary for the Titan, which used an experimental design with carbon fiber in the hull.
But the company insisted that because the Titan craft was so innovative, it could take years to get it certified. “Bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing [emphasis ours] is anathema to rapid innovation,” the company wrote, according to the New York Times.
The “real-world testing” referred to speaks to the company’s habit of taking its new designs, effectively prototypes, to dangerous depths with passengers aboard.
What Happened?
It was on Sunday, June 18 at 8 a.m. Eastern Standard Time that the Titan submersible was lowered into the North Atlantic. Aboard was OceanGate’s founder, Stockton Rush, who was also its pilot. Rush was going to take four passengers, each of whom had paid $250,000, to the ocean floor to see the Titanic shipwreck.
About an hour and 45 minutes later, communication to the launch vessel was lost. A frantic search ensued. The vessel had "life support for 96 hours." according to a OceanGate pamphlet. For the next 4 days, the world watched, mesmerized as ships and aircraft scanned an area the size of Connecticut, hoping against hope that the Titan would be found bobbing on the surface and its occupants heroically saved from a slow asphyxiation.
Many days after the submersible went missing, the world would learn that the U.S. Navy, which had been monitoring the Titan since it was launched, had detected a sound consistent with an implosion using a top-secret submarine detection system known as Sound Surveillance System, or SOSUS, at the same time that communication was lost. A secret communique to the U.S. Coast Guard may have directed remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs) to the ocean floor below the Titan’s launch site. There, strewn next to the wreck of the Titanic, were enough parts of the Titan to confirm all was indeed lost.
Untested New Design
The Titan submersible is basically a cylinder constructed with carbon fiber capped by titanium hemispheric domes on each end. One dome swings away to allow entry and has a clear, acrylic porthole that resembles a huge eyeball. Indeed, an OceanGate submersible of the same shape had once been called Cyclops and was painted to look like an eyeball.
But the Cyclops could only descend to 500 meters. There was real money ($250,00 per passenger) to be had with a submersible that could take passengers to see the wreck of the Titanic, which lay on the ocean floor at a depth of nearly 4,000 meters.
Clearly, a new design—or different materials—were needed. One of OceanGate’s founders, CEO Stockton Rush, was a passenger aircraft pilot and an aerospace engineer. The aerospace industry prizes carbon fiber for its strength-to-weight ratio, using it wherever possible to save weight. Rush was determined to use carbon fiber for the main cylinder of his submersible. Cyclops Two’s (which would later be renamed Titan) cylinder would be 5 inches thick and made with the miracle material: carbon fiber composite. There was only one problem: carbon fiber hulls for deep ocean craft had never been adequately tested, and consequently, never certified.
Test, I Beg of You
"Our apprehension is that the current experimental approach adopted by OceanGate could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry," says Kohnen in the letter.
Regrettably, the MTS board declined to send the letter. Kohnen was not about to let the matter drop, however, and decided to confront Rush himself and discuss the letter.
"There was a frank conversation. It was an adult conversation. And we agreed to disagree," Kohnen told Reuters on Wednesday interview.
Titan Not Certified
"New Zealander Rob McCallum, who organizes extreme expeditions, such as diving to the Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench, with the deepest depth at 10,908 meters, gives two reasons why the Titan was unsafe, one of which is the lack of certification, (which involves testing). Titan was the only submersible doing commercial work that was “unclassed,” that is, uncertified, according to McCallum. The other reason is that “carbon fiber is not an acceptable material." (More on that in our next article)
David Lochridge, once director of marine operations at OceanGate, feuded with the company after being fired, and in documents from a 2018 court case uncovered by the New York Times states that the Titan needed more testing and warned of the “potential dangers to passengers as the submersible reached certain depths.”
OceanGate sued Lochridge for breach of contract. Lochridge fought back with a whistle-blower lawsuit, contending that OceanGate was, in effect, testing the Titan with each dive while carrying people on board.
In his counterclaim, Lochridge says he met with engineering staff at OceanGate’s Everett, Wash., facility, where he was among “several individuals” who had safety concerns and was asked by Rush to perform a “quality inspection” of the vessel, according to The New Republic. However, his requests for information about the viewport design and viewport pressure tests were denied.
LocLochridge was also concerned about the nondestructive testing performed on the hull of the Titan, but was “repeatedly told that no scan of the hull or bond line could be done” and that there was no way to test for “delaminations, porosity and voids of sufficient adhesion of the glue being used due to the thickness of the hull.” He was also told there was no such equipment that could conduct a test like that.
According to The New Republic’s examination of court documents: “Given the prevalent flaws in the previously tested 1/3 scale model, and the visible flaws in the carbon end samples for the Titan, Lochridge again stressed the potential danger to passengers of the Titan as the submersible reached extreme depths. The constant pressure cycling weakens existing flaws resulting in large tears of the carbon. Non-destructive testing was critical to detect such potentially existing flaws in order to ensure a solid and safe product for the safety of the passengers and crew.”
Next: A Deep Dive Into Carbon Fiber, Used for the First Time in a Submersible>