The doomed Titan sub before it imploded in June, 2023. Photo: OceanGate
When the Titan submersible imploded on its way down to visit the wreck of the Titanic in June of 2023, it was a very public tragedy. The world waited in horror as the crew’s inevitable fate was revealed, and now the family of one of the explorers aboard has filed a $50 million lawsuit against the sub’s operator, OceanGate and others. The suit claims that the crew went through “terror and mental anguish” and accused the defendants of gross negligence.
A quick refresher from The Inertia ten days after the disaster for those who may not remember the details:
“The Titan, which disappeared on Sunday, June 18, was on its way to explore the wreck of the Titanic. The ill-fated Titanic sank 111 years ago, nearly 1,000 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Those onboard the Titan submersible paid upwards of $250,000 to attempt to dive to 12,500 feet and have an up-close-and-personal look at the most famous shipwreck in the world.
The 21-foot Titan began its dive at 9 a.m. ADT, but within two hours, it lost contact with its mothership. Submersibles, unlike submarines, require a mothership to operate properly. The crew on the mothership is responsible for sealing the Titan submersible with a series of bolts, effectively locking the tourists inside. The Titan also needed the mothership for launch and retrieval, and since GPS doesn’t work underwater, it was guided via text message from above. The final contact from Titan came at 11:47 a.m.
When the Titan failed to resurface at its scheduled time of 6 p.m., the crew on the mothership alerted authorities and the hunt was on. The Titan had four days of emergency air, which gave hopeful rescuers a timeline to work with. For the next 96 hours, international teams searched the vast area the sub went missing in, but weren’t able to find a thing. There were a series of curious knocking sounds that buoyed spirits temporarily, but those hopes were dashed when the clock ran out.”
Paul-Henri Nargeolet, known also as “Mr. Titanic,” was one of the five people who died in the implosion. He’d already been down to the Titanic a record 37 times, and according to reports, he was “regarded as one of the world’s most knowledgeable people about the famous wreck.”
The lawsuit states that about an hour-and-a-half into its dive, it dropped weights, which likely meant that they knew there was an issue and tried to abort the mission. Due to the dramatic implosion, though, it’s nearly impossible to tell exactly what happened to cause the accident.
“While the exact cause of failure may never be determined, experts agree that the Titan’s crew would have realized exactly what was happening,” the lawsuit states. “Common sense dictates that the crew were well aware they were going to die, before dying.”
The Titan submersible was widely panned by those working the submersible field. It was built partially fro carbon fiber and titanium, and was controlled by a cheap video game controller. The material the sub was made from, according to its critics, hadn’t been tested properly at the extreme depths that the Titanic lies in. OceanGate has since suspended all operations.
It has been theorized that the knocking sounds mentioned above might have been the carbon fiber cracking as the sub sank deeper, which is mentioned in the lawsuit.
“The crew may well have heard the carbon fiber’s crackling noise grow more intense as the weight of the water pressed on Titan’s hull,” it reads. “The crew lost communications and perhaps power as well. By experts’ reckoning, they would have continued to descend, in full knowledge of the vessel’s irreversible failures, experiencing terror and mental anguish prior to the Titan ultimately imploding.”
The lawsuit was filed on August 6 in King County, Washington, and OceanGate is required to respond to the complaint within a few weeks.
Tony Buzbee, an attorney working for the plaintiffs, told the Associated Press that one of their goals aside from monetary compensation, is to “get answers for the family as to exactly how this happened, who all were involved, and how those involved could allow this to happen.”
“Decedent Nargeolet may have died doing what he loved to do,” the lawsuit states, “but his death — and the deaths of the other Titan crew members — was wrongful.”
