On June 18, five explorers boarded the OceanGate Titan submersible for the adventure of a lifetime. The men had a zest for adventure and bought pricey tickets for a mission to the bottom of the ocean to see the wreckage of the RMS Titanic. Sadly, they never reached their final destination, as all five men died when the submersible imploded less than two hours into its descent.
A new theory on the demise of the Titan submersible gives grim insight into the final moments of the five explorers onboard. Spanish submarine expert José Luis Martín says the Titan likely experienced an electric failure during its mission to the RMS Titanic wreckage at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. If this is the case, the men onboard likely knew there was tragedy ahead.
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According to Martín, the submersible would have been plummeting rapidly.
Per Fox Illinois, Martín told the Spanish newspaper Nius that an electrical failure would have caused the Titan to sink quickly with its porthole facing down, meaning the men would have been in complete darkness piled on top of each other for 48 to 71 seconds during the descent.
"They all rushed and crowded on top of each other. Imagine the horror, the fear and the agony. It must have been like a horror movie," he said, according to the news outlet.
The 'Titan' began its free fall at a depth of 5,600 feet.
According to Martín, the Titan "popped like a balloon" near 8,600 feet below sea level, where there is tremendous pressure.
"The starting point is that the submarine is descending without any incident and in a horizontal plane until it reached about 1,700 meters (5,500 feet)," Martín told Nius. "At that point, there was an electrical failure. It was left without an engine and without propulsion. That's when it lost communication with the Polar Prince."
Human remains were discovered in the 'Titan' wreckage.
Debris from the submersible was discovered June 22, and the five explorers onboard were presumed dead: OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61; Hamish Harding, 58; Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77; Shahzada Dawood, 48; and his son, Suleman Dawood, 19.
In late June, the wreckage arrived at the Canadian Coast Guard pier in St. John's, Newfoundland, on the Horizon Arctic. The remains of the five explorers were sent to the United States for further testing.
Investigators still hope to find the actual cause of the deadly implosion.
The US Coast Guard issued a release on June 28, announcing its plans to investigate the Titan debris and to prevent further submersible catastrophes.
"I am grateful for the coordinated international and interagency support to recover and preserve this vital evidence at extreme offshore distances and depths," MBI Chairman Capt. Jason Neubauer stated in the release. "The evidence will provide investigators from several international jurisdictions with critical insights into the cause of this tragedy. There is still a substantial amount of work to be done to understand the factors that led to the catastrophic loss of the TITAN and help ensure a similar tragedy does not occur again."
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A video simulation of the implosion went viral on YouTube.
A six-minute video of what may have happened in the last moments of the Titan's mission has many convinced it was doomed from the start.
"Who in their right mind would consider going into one of those things? No matter how safe … you have to be pretty brave ?!" one comment reads.
"This submersible looks like one of those household garage engineering projects, that some people or youtubers make by just welding stuff together and hoping it comes together because their math and physics never fail in their heads. Another thing, that person who thought that carbon fiber hull was a good idea for a submersible needs to get the same experience as those victims went through," someone else wrote. "Crush depth is no joke. All in all this whole submersible design is very uncanny for me. Like no way this was going to work at all."
