Titan submersible in June 2023 was the result of poor engineering and inadequate safety testing, according to a damning report released by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
The incident, which killed all five people aboard including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush—occurred as the vessel attempted a deep-sea dive to the wreckage of the RMS Titanic, 372 miles off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
The NTSB’s findings point to a deeply flawed design and safety process at OceanGate. Investigators concluded that the Titan submersible failed to meet critical strength and durability requirements due to “inadequate” engineering. The company also did not properly test the vessel, meaning it was unaware of its true structural integrity—or the fact it had already sustained damage prior to the fatal dive.
Further exacerbating concerns, the report revealed a fractured safety culture within OceanGate. While some staff claimed safety was a company priority, others including a former director of marine operations described a workplace where serious design flaws and safety concerns were routinely ignored.
One OceanGate technician raised alarm about the company’s practice of rebranding paying passengers as “mission specialists” in order to skirt U.S. regulations that prohibit the transport of passengers in experimental submersibles.
That same technician claimed that when he raised legal concerns, Rush allegedly responded: “If the [U.S.] Coast Guard became a problem … he would buy himself a congressman and make it go away.”
The NTSB report follows a similar conclusion from the U.S. Coast Guard in August, which found the incident was “entirely preventable” and criticized OceanGate’s “critically flawed” safety practices.
The five who died in the implosion included:
Stockton Rush, OceanGate CEO and pilot
Paul-Henri Nargeolet, renowned deep-sea explorer
Hamish Harding, British billionaire and adventurer
Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood, members of a prominent Pakistani business family
Each had paid up to $250,000 to join the ill-fated expedition.
With both the NTSB and Coast Guard reports now public, pressure is mounting for regulatory reform in the burgeoning field of private deep-sea exploration. Legal experts say OceanGate could face posthumous civil liability, and surviving family members may pursue legal action against the company.
Regulators have also raised calls for stricter oversight of experimental vessels, especially those involving paying participants.
