Thorough investigation reveals horrifying details of OceanGate Titan disaster » Explorersweb

When troubled deep-sea tourism startup OceanGate lost its only submersible and its CEO in a disastrous dive last June, reactions were mixed.

Most of the world watched with bated breath as rescue teams attempted to locate the lost ship and save its five-man crew. Media coverage ranged from tragic and personal to skeptical – repeated safety problems and setbacks had titanium throughout development. Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate and pilot of the submersible, had made explosive comments about regulations and safety in the deep-sea exploration industry.

To put it mildly: titanium was a special case in design. The pilot’s interface was a video game controller. The only interior features were two screens and a porthole at the front. And the crew squatted on the floor for the entire journey, sitting on a simple rubber mat.

Not to mention its carbon fiber hull – a unique move that will now likely never be attempted again.

The search for the titanium and its crew when remote-controlled vehicles found it in pieces on the sea floor. The US Coast Guard described the incident as a “catastrophic loss of pressure” in the cabin. Official investigations began and OceanGate immediately ceased operations.

James Cameron speaks out

Some experts, including experienced deep-sea submersible pilot and film director James Cameron, later said Rush had been on a dangerous crash course the whole time.

“You don’t move fast and break things when you’re in the thing you want to break,” the director recently said 60 Minutes Australia.

While the Coast Guard and other authorities continue their investigations, Wired recently announced the results of its own years-long investigation, which involved “tens of thousands” of OceanGate documents and internal communications data.

The investigation goes back to the early days of the company in 2013 and chronicles the decisions made by Rush and other key people who led to titanium Catastrophe.

This timeline shows the complicated evolution of the doomed submersible.

2009

OceanGate opens with plans to charter deep-sea voyages for tourism and research. Initially, older steel-hulled vessels will be used for this purpose.

2013

CEO Stockton Rush announces plans for a new submersible made of carbon fiber. According to Rush, the lightweight material allows for a cylindrical construction that offers more space for passengers than conventional spherical designs.

2015

OceanGate is initially testing the concept with a steel prototype called Cyclops 1. Warning signals appear immediately. New scientistInvestigative reporter Mark Harris dives with Rush during an early test. He reports that the Cyclops is already experiencing severe interference at 130 meters.

“I scared the hell out of everyone”

2016

Designs continue to vary, with numerous experiments using different materials for critical components failing. Wired It later turns out that OceanGate’s test protocols contradict the engineers’ recommendations.

Accordingly Wired:

• During a pressure test in a laboratory at the University of Washington, a scale model of the Cyclops 2 imploded at about 6,500 psi – close to the water pressure at 3,800 meters, the depth of the Titanic, but thousands of meters below OceanGate’s intended safety margin. “The building shook, my ears were ringing for a long time,” says an employee in an email. “I scared the hell out of everyone.”
• Cyclops 2 Prototypes never survive the intended safety pressure during testing, and the company never tests the titanium components the final submarine will use in conjunction with the fiber. Instead, the company strengthens the hull specifications from 4.5 to 5 inches and hires a contractor to produce the final design.
• When it arrives, it is too thick for portable ultrasonic testing equipment. Ultrasonic testing can detect tiny flaws or weak spots in the final product without destroying it. Tests would have been possible with a stationary ultrasound system. Instead, Rush concludes that transporting and testing the Titan is too expensive. Ultrasound tests never take place.
• Finally, the ship has an acrylic viewing window that falls far short of pressure safety targets. Will Kohnen, the designer of the nine-inch-thick unit, later tells Wired that OceanGate fell far short of meeting a rigorous testing protocol for the unit, claiming he only designed the window to be 650 meters. When he urged Rush to reconsider the component, the CEO reportedly refused.

“You’re going to kill someone”

2018

Accordingly Wired:

• Rush fires Marine Operations Manager David Lochridge after he refuses to approve the final submarine, citing 27 safety issues, from flammable materials to missing bolts and other concerns about the carbon fiber hull. Lochridge files a whistleblower report with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), but Rush sues him for breach of contract, prompting Lochridge to drop the suit.
• “titanium and its security systems are far better than anything currently in use … I am tired of industry players trying to use the security argument to prevent innovation and new entrants from entering their small existing market,” Rush wrote to McCallum in one of the Wired Documents. “Since (the beginning of) OceanGate, we have heard the baseless cries of ‘You are going to kill someone’ far too often.”
  
• Deep-sea researcher Rob McCallum is also trying to dissuade Rush from continuing his project in a petition written by Kohnen.
• One safety system relies on acoustic feedback from the carbon-fiber hull as it crackles and pops under pressure. OceanGate describes it as an early warning system that can signal the crew to surface when a certain threshold of “micro-kinks” is reached. A safety consultant who specializes in material acoustics says the sounds actually indicate “irreversible” damage to the hull.
• Real-world testing began, but went poorly. The submersible with Rush inside almost broke apart in shallow, choppy water at one point. And when the titanium When the ship reached an altitude of 4,000 meters for the first time, the hull warped alarmingly – according to engineers, by up to 37 percent more than intended.
• Rush becomes concerned about noises coming from below. Eventually, a pilot examining the hull with a flashlight notices a crack. OceanGate later discovers that 11 square meters of carbon fiber have delaminated – that is, the layers of material have separated.

A successful dive

2021

Accordingly Wired:

• Contractors restore the carbon hull using state-of-the-art techniques. It passes pressure tests in a University of Maryland lab, but OceanGate decides to salvage the old titanium rings from the damaged submarine because Rush doesn’t want to incur additional costs and delays.
• An employee spots new lifting points attached to the two titanium rings. They are newly added, and a representative of the original equipment manufacturer had already warned OceanGate in 2017 to only lift and lower the vehicle using nylon slings: “The titanium cannot bear any load/tension,” the employee said.
• July 13 – OceanGate completes its first successful visit to Titanic with tourists.

2022-23

But the problems remain, from silly to scary. OceanGate cancels a 2022 mission with Intelligencer Reporter David Pogue was on board when two rubber floats partially detach from the submarine’s launch platform 11 meters below the surface.

‘MacGyvered’

The event occurs one year after a crew on board the titaniumInstead of the planned six hours, the expedition lasts 27 hours, which is much closer to the cabin’s oxygen limit of 96 hours.

When Pogue inspects the craft before his failed excursion, he tells Rush that the submarine feels “MacGyvered.” When Rush confirms the comment, Pogue asks if this has bothered anyone else in the offshore industry.

Rush says to Pogue:

Oh yeah! Oh yeah. Yeah, no, I’m definitely an outsider. There were more fascinating things about that than I can describe here. There were a lot of rules that didn’t make sense to me from a technical standpoint. Back in the ’60s and ’70s, they made sense. But you know, there’s a limit. You know, at a certain point, safety is a waste. I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get up, don’t get in your car, don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it’s really a question of risk and reward. I said, “I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules.”

June 18, 2023 – titanium dives toward its famous target but never returns. The US Navy eventually announces that shortly after the explosion it “detected an acoustic anomaly consistent with an implosion.” titanium According to CBS, the surface crew lost contact with him.

The US Coast Guard launched an investigation that continues to this day.