OceanGate Titan imploded a year ago on the way to the Titanic

Tuesday marks one year since the Titan disappeared en route to the historic wreck site. After a five-day search that drew worldwide attention, officials declared the ship destroyed and all five people on board killed.

The U.S. Coast Guard immediately launched a high-level investigation into the incident. Concerns leading up to the investigation included the Titan’s unconventional design and its builder’s decision to forego standard independent inspections.

A look at the first anniversary of the Titan tragedy:

The investigation is taking longer than expected

Coast Guard officials said in a statement last week that they would not release the results of their investigation until the anniversary, and a public hearing to discuss the findings would not be held for two months, they said.

Investigators are “working closely with our domestic and foreign partners to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the incident,” said Marine Board of Investigation Chairman Jason Neubauer, describing the investigation as a “complex and ongoing effort.”

The Titan was owned by a company called OceanGate, which ceased operations last July, shortly after the tragedy. OceanGate declined to comment.

The Titan made its last dive on June 18, 2023, a Sunday morning, and lost contact with its escort vessel about two hours later. When the delay was reported in the afternoon, rescue workers sent ships, aircraft and other equipment to the area, about 700 kilometers south of St. John’s, Newfoundland. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said Monday that other submersibles were operating in Canadian waters, some of which are not registered in any country.

In addition to OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush, two members of a prominent Pakistani family were killed in the implosion: Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, British adventurer Hamish Harding and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

Remembering the dead

David Concannon, a former OceanGate adviser, said he would mark the anniversary privately with a group of people who have been involved with the company or the submersible’s expeditions over the years, including scientists, volunteers and mission specialists.

Harding and Nargeolet were members of the Explorers Club, a professional association dedicated to research, exploration and resource conservation.

“Then, as now, it affected us deeply on a personal level,” the group’s president, Richard Garriott, said in an interview last week.

Garriott said there would be a memorial service for the victims of the Titan disaster at the annual Global Exploration Summit in Portugal this week.

The tragedy will not stop deep-sea research

The Georgia-based company that owns the salvage rights to the Titanic plans to visit the sunken ocean liner in July using remote-operated vehicles, and an Ohio real estate billionaire has announced he plans to travel to the shipwreck in 2026 in a two-person submersible.

Several deep-sea researchers told the Associated Press that the Titan disaster has shaken the global research community, but that they remain committed to their missions to expand scientific understanding of the oceans.

Garriott believes the world is entering a new golden age of underwater exploration. Technological advances have opened frontiers and provided new tools to more thoroughly investigate places already visited. The Titan tragedy has not dimmed that prospect, he said.

“Progress continues,” he said. “I actually feel very good and confident that we can move forward now.”

Veteran deep-sea explorer Katy Croff Bell said the Titan implosion underscored the importance of adhering to industry standards and conducting rigorous testing. But in the industry as a whole, “the safety record in this area has been very good for decades,” said Bell, president of the nonprofit Ocean Discovery League.