6 revelations about the Titan sub disaster and its ill-fated dive
How Stockton Rush pushed his luck — and his sub — one too many times
The implosion of OceanGate's Titan submersible stunned the world. On June 18, 2023, five people were lost in the deep Atlantic, more than 3,000 metres below the surface: OceanGate CEO and founder Stockton Rush, Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and Dawood's 19-year-old son, Suleman.
But while the incident captivated global attention and sparked a media frenzy, many key details remained obscured beneath speculation and sensational headlines.
In the days that followed, questions multiplied: How could such a tragedy happen on a high-profile expedition? What safety protocols were in place? Was the design of Titan intrinsically unsafe?
The real story of what happened was revealed months later in the United States Coast Guard's public hearing, part of an extensive investigation that included testimony from witnesses, former OceanGate employees and submersible experts.
The hearing painted a sobering picture of the events leading up to the disaster, highlighting a series of decisions and oversights that made the tragedy seem not just possible, but predictable. Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster, a documentary from The Nature of Things, follows the investigation.
Titan's carbon-fibre hull wasn't fully proven
Titan flew in the face of industry convention, featuring a 6.7-metre-long carbon-fibre hull. The material isn't approved for certified deep-diving submersibles, but this didn't stop OceanGate from testing its unconventional design — and Rush from touting its strength.
"Carbon fibre in subsea vehicles is really the right substance to use," he says in archival footage featured in Implosion. "It's three times better on a strength to buoyancy basis than titanium — the next best thing. So our hull is going to be positively buoyant, which is what you want in a submersible."
Between 2021 and 2021, the sub reached nearly 4,000 metres below the surface multiple times. "Stockton Rush had 13 successful dives down to the Titanic depth. So, in theory, he did prove his concept," says U.S. Coast Guard investigator Kate Williams in the documentary.
But while the sub's initial performance may have contributed to a sense of security both within the company and among those eager to be a part of this new frontier, not everyone was convinced.
Contractor Tym Catterson, who served as a safety diver for OceanGate, is one industry expert who disagreed with Rush's choice of material over the usual titanium or steel.
"Hardly anybody in the public is familiar with carbon fibre. It's stable — all the way up until this magic point that it is not," he says in the film.
"When it finally pops, it will catastrophically fail."
Early test dives were concerning
In 2019, OceanGate chose Great Abaco island in the Bahamas as a site for early full-depth test dives. The Bahamian continental shelf plunges rapidly into deep ocean, making it one of the few places in the world where Titanic-depth waters are relatively close to shore.
This strategy allowed the team to test the submersible in deep conditions without the cost and logistical burden of travelling far out to sea.
However, these early dives revealed significant structural concerns. "When the first hull failed," Catterson says, "they went through and sanded it all out, and saw that there was a crack that went all the way. It went virtually the whole length of the hull."
Reconstruction began in 2020, but despite the catastrophic failure, the hull was once again built out of carbon fibre.
Hull warnings were ignored
During a dive in July 2022, the sub's occupants heard a loud bang as Titan surfaced from the depths. The acoustic data suggested there had been a structural change happening deep inside the carbon-fibre cylinder.
"I brought up the possibility of delamination," says Antonella Wilby, a remote operated vehicle–expert and former OceanGate contractor featured in Implosion. "I asked [Rush], 'Are you going to keep diving the sub?' And he said, 'Yeah, we'll do the next mission, and then we'll visually inspect it when we get back.'"
"A delamination is essentially a parting of the carbon fibre," Williams explains. "When they heard this loud bang, there should have been, 'All stop, do not continue, investigate further.'"
Instead, three more dives took place during the 2022 season.
Titan was 'off the regulatory radar'
Unlike most conventional submersibles, Titan was not registered or certified in any country to make sure it met safety standards.
According to reporting from CBC News, OceanGate explained why it did not submit its vessels to a certification process in a 2019 blog post, which has since been removed.
"Bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing is anathema to rapid innovation," the post read.
But rapid innovation may not have been OceanGate's sole motivation.
"One reason to not register is to make sure that no one, from a regulatory standpoint, is monitoring your operations," says U.S. Coast Guard chief investigator Jason Neubauer in the documentary.
"How can somebody operate in a public manner yet still be off the regulatory radar? … that is definitely part of the investigation."
'Mission specialists' not passengers
One of the more revealing details to emerge from the hearing was that OceanGate called its clients "mission specialists" rather than passengers.
These individuals — paying $250,000 US per dive — were said to be playing a role in OceanGate's underwater exploration. But according to people involved in past operations, they were only given minor tasks to complete before and during dives.
"I didn't do any of the, what I would say critical items," says past mission specialist and businessman Alfred Hagen in testimony shown in the film.
"A 'mission specialist' was definitely something that was created by OceanGate to give the perception … that these were really crew members, when in fact they were paying passengers," says Neubauer.
Submersible pilot and designer Karl Stanley, who went on one of Titan's first crewed deep-water dives, testified that framing customers as part of the operational team allowed OceanGate to avoid the more stringent safety requirements that would have applied if they were recognized as fare-paying passengers.
Pushing boundaries became the norm
The U.S. Coast Guard's public hearing not only provided insight into what happened on Titan's final dive, it also exposed a pattern of risk-taking at OceanGate that, over time, became normalized.
In archival footage featured in Implosion, Rush positions himself as a fearless disruptor. "When you're trying something outside the box, people inside the box think you're nuts," he says in one clip. "Same thing when Elon Musk was doing SpaceX inside the box. Everything's scary."
In some ways, OceanGate's model was a reflection of the broader tech world ethos: move fast and redefine boundaries. But in the unforgiving world of deep-sea exploration, nature doesn't compromise. Pressure at Titanic depths is absolute and the margin for error is zero. Innovation in this domain requires not just boldness, but rigorous checks, third-party accountability, and a culture of safety embedded at every level.
The final report from the investigation is still pending, but the emerging picture is clear: when ambition outpaces oversight, even the most promising visions can descend into catastrophe.
Watch Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster on CBC Gem and the Nature of Things YouTube channel.
Adam Wanderer is a writer and producer from Montreal, and is a member of the 2SLGBTQ+ community. He has worked on numerous productions across Canada and has a love for all things natural history, science and technology.
