Titan submersible, from OceanGate Expeditions. Source: OceanGate Expeditions
Fri 07 July 2023:
The Titanic submersible’s maker, OceanGate, has announced that it will stop operations in the wake of last month’s tragic implosion.
On Thursday, a red banner reading “OceanGate has suspended all exploration and commercial operations” appeared at the top of its website. No other information was offered.
An advertisement for an expedition to the Titanic is visible just below the message, inviting readers to “explore the world’s most famous shipwreck”.
OceanGate has come under scrutiny since its Titan submersible imploded undersea, killing all five people on board, including the company’s CEO Stockton Rush.
Regulating bodies in the US and Canada are currently looking into what caused Titan to implode. As part of the global investigation, the US Coast Guard this week pulled potential human remains and wreckage from the sub to land.
On June 18, the submersible initially vanished, sparking a four-day search and rescue operation. Authorities ultimately came to the conclusion that the vehicle had experienced a “catastrophic implosion” the day it vanished.
Parts of the sub were discovered 488 metres (1,600 feet) from the bow of the Titanic.
OceanGate had previously been criticized for what some saw as inadequate safety measures and a readiness to experiment with submersible designs in the name of innovation and cost-cutting.
ALL ON BOARD PRESUMED DEAD AFTER TITAN DEBRIS IS FOUND, COAST GUARD SAYS
James Cameron — director of the film, Titanic, and himself a deep-sea researcher — called the decision to build the submarine out of carbon fibre “fundamentally flawed”. The material, while lightweight, has little ability to withstand the water pressure of the ocean deep, Cameron explained.
Contact with the submersible had also been lost on numerous expeditions in the past.
SEARCH FOR MISSING TITANIC TOURIST SUB CONTINUES IN ATLANTIC
“Many people in the community were very concerned about this sub,” Cameron said.
“And a number of the top players in the deep-submergence engineering community even wrote letters to the company saying that what they were doing was too experimental to carry passengers and it needed to be certified and so on.”
OceanGate representatives have defended the company’s practices, with Guillermo Sohnlein, the company’s co-founder, stating that Stockton was “very risk-averse” and “committed to safety”.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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