New YorkThe U.S. Coast Guard on Wednesday released underwater video and photos of the Titan, an experimental submersible that imploded in June 2023 with five occupants heading to the wreck of the Titanic at the bottom of the North Atlantic.
Technical hearings by a Coast Guard commission of inquiry into the highly-reported accident 15 months ago began Monday in Charleston, South Carolina, and will continue in public until Sept. 27.
The one-minute video, dated June 22, 2023, at a depth of 3,775 meters, shows the remains of the rear of the submersible lying vertically on the ocean floor, with cables and parts of the device.
The logo of the US operating company, OceanGate Expeditions, appears on the images of the submersible’s tail.
Measuring 6.5 metres in length, it dived on 18 June 2023 to observe the ruins of the Titanic and was due to return to the surface seven hours later, but lost contact less than two hours after its departure.
Rescue operations were unsuccessful. Shortly after its submersion, the submarine was destroyed by a “catastrophic implosion” that killed all five occupants, including 77-year-old French scientist Pierre-Henri Nargeolet, nicknamed “Mr. Titanic”.
The other dead in the crash were Stockton Rush, 61, director of OceanGate Expeditions, Shahzada Dawood, a 48-year-old British-Pakistani businessman and his son Suleman, 19, and British explorer Hamish Harding, 68.
The “presumed human remains” were discovered a few days later among the wreckage of the Titan, 500 metres from the Titanic, according to the US Coast Guard.
The commission’s hearings, which are technical and not judicial, seek to “identify all evidence of material errors (in construction or design) that could have caused the accident in order to draw appropriate recommendations and prevent such accidents from recurring.”
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– 2024-09-19 23:28:24
