Report Reveals Why OceanGate Titan Submersible Exploded in Atlantic Ocean

An official investigation has concluded that OceanGate’s Titan submersible imploded during its 2023 expedition to the Titanic wreck because of flawed engineering and a lack of proper testing.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reported that the vessel’s design and development were “inadequate,” failing to meet basic strength and durability standards. The agency found that Titan was never properly tested.

The submersible imploded in June 2023 in the North Atlantic while descending toward the Titanic wreck, located roughly 372 miles from St. John’s, Newfoundland. All five people on board were killed, including OceanGate’s CEO, Stockton Rush, and passengers Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and Shahzada Dawood with his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood.

According to the report, Titan’s carbon-fiber hull and titanium components were not built to withstand the extreme underwater pressure at the Titanic’s depth — approximately 3,800 meters (12,500 feet). The craft imploded at around 3,363 meters (11,033 feet), only slightly shallower than the wreck site.

Earlier in August, the U.S. Coast Guard released its own findings, calling the disaster “preventable” and condemning OceanGate’s “critically flawed” safety procedures.

Former employees told investigators that safety concerns were routinely ignored at the company. One technician said OceanGate’s business model was risky because it treated paying passengers as “mission specialists” — a title that tried to bypass U.S. regulations prohibiting the transport of paying customers in experimental submersibles.

The same technician claimed Stockton Rush dismissed legal concerns, allegedly saying that if the U.S. Coast Guard intervened, “he would buy himself a congressman and make it go away.”

Following the tragedy, OceanGate shut down its operations permanently. The NTSB concluded that weak U.S. and international safety regulations contributed to the disaster and recommended that the U.S. Coast Guard conduct a comprehensive review of safety standards for crewed deep-sea pressure vessels and update regulations where necessary.