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Mistakes That Led To The Titanic Submarine Tragedy

What a Tragedy!

The five passengers were British billionaire Hamish Harding, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, PH Nargeolet, a French navy veteran, and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman who paid to go on the vessel heading towards NewFound Land, Canada to see the Titanic.

Wreck of the Titanic - Wikipedia

These are the mistakes that led to this unfortunate end for the passengers: 

 

Delay before sounding the alarm: 

 

“At 2:45pm – an hour and 45 minutes into their journey the submarine lost contact with its mothership and was reported missing 8 hours later to the American coast guard, and the Canadian coast guard was advised on Monday 1am”.  

 

The company has not explained why it took so long to alert the coast guard. 

 

 

Unstable Submarine with shop-bought parts: 

 

Chris Parry (a former royal navy rear admiral) called it “very flimsy and fragile”. While CBS respondent said “I couldn’t help but notice how many pieces of this sub seemed improvised with off the shelf components”. 

 

 

Repeated warnings from experts: 

 

 The New York Times acquired a letter in which the Manned Underwater Vehicles committee of the Marine Technology Society informed Mr. Rush about the future dives were at serious risk of “disaster”. 

 

Passengers were required to sign a form that explained that “this experimental vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body and could result in physical injury, emotional trauma, or death”. 

 

Previous Incidents:  

 

In 2021, Arthur Loibl said “I was incredibly lucky to survive the voyage”. 

 

John Gates added “‘To those asking, Titan did not perform well on my dive. Ultimately, I walked away from a huge opportunity to film Titanic due to my safety concerns with OceanGate. ‘There’s more to the history and design of Titan that has not been made public – much of it concerning.’ 

 

Passenger Hamish Harding’s friend withdrew due to safety concerns:

 

Despite having initially paid the deposit for the ill-fated expedition, 61-year-old Chris Brown ultimately decided against joining the voyage.  

 

His change of heart stemmed from concerns regarding the vessel’s technology and materials, which he deemed of questionable quality.  

 

Brown expressed worries over OceanGate’s utilization of “old scaffolding poles” for ballast purposes and the use of a game controller. 

 

He told The Sun that despite being ‘one of the first people to sign up for this trip’, he  fortunately decided the ‘risks were too high’. 

 

Worker fired after exposing safety issues:

 

Director of Marine Operations David Lochridge urged OceanGate to provide more rigorous safety checks but was fired in a disagreement about safety checks on the craft. 

 

Mr. Lochridge objected to OceanGate’s decision to dive the submarine without conducting any non-destructive testing to ensure its safety. He also expressed his concern about the potential extreme danger passengers could face in an experimental submersible.