BBC”I saw five people smiling, looking forward to their journey.”That was Renata Rojas’ recollection of her time on a support ship with five people bound for the Titanic wreck. They were about to climb into a submersible made by Oceangate.Just 90 minutes later, these five would become the victims of a deep sea disaster: an implosion. Images from the depths of the Atlantic show the wreckage of the sub crushed, mangled, and scattered across the sea floor.The photos were released by the US Coast Guard during an inquiry to establish what led to its catastrophic failure in June 2023.The inquiry finished on Friday and over the past two weeks of hearings, a picture has emerged of ignored safety warnings and a history of technical problems. We have also gained new insight into the final hours of those on board. It has shown us that this story won’t go away any time soon.Passengers unaware of impending disasterBritish explorer Hamish Harding and British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, who’d brought his 19-year-old son Suleman along, had paid Oceangate for a dive to see the Titanic which lies 3,800m down.The sub was piloted by the company’s CEO Stockton Rush with French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet as co-pilot.Once the craft had slipped beneath the waves, it could send short text messages to the surface. A message sent from about 2,300m said “All good here”.Supplied via Reuters / AFPAbout an hour and a half into the dive, from 3,346m, Titan’s final message reported it had released two weights to slow its descent as it neared the sea floor.Communications were then lost – the sub had imploded.The US Coast Guard said nothing in the messages that indicated that the passengers knew their craft was failing.The implosion was instantaneous. There would have been no time to even register what was happening.Unorthodox sub was flawed from the startMr Rush proudly described the Titan as “experimental”. But others had voiced their concerns to him about its unconventional design in the years prior to the dive.At the hearing David Lochridge, Oceangate’s former director of marine operations, described Titan as an “abomination”.In 2018, he’d compiled a report highlighting multiple safety issues, but said these concerns were dismissed and he was fired.Titan had several unusual features.The shape of its hull – the part where the passengers were – was cylindrical rather than spherical so the effects of the pressure were not distributed evenly.A window was installed but only considered safe down to 1,300m. The US Coast Guard also heard about problems wit …
