US Coast Guard Releases Final Report On Titan Disaster & It’s Even More Grim Than You’d Imagine

ByMF Jones

It’s been over two years since the Titan submersible, owned and operated by OceanGate, went missing with all five passengers and crew on board while visiting the wreck of the Titanic.

Today, the US Coast Guard has officially completed their investigation into the tragedy, and have found that it was completely preventable and only occured because OceanGate co-founder, Stockton Rush, was an absolute moron who ignored every warning and cut every corner when planning the expedition.

Via CBS News:

The U.S. exploration company OceanGate used “intimidation tactics” to “evade regulatory scrutiny” in the years leading up to the June 2023 Titan submersible tragedy, according to findings released by the U.S. Coast Guard Tuesday. 

Those conclusions are part of an over 300-page report released by officials into the incident, which killed five people onboard when the sub imploded underwater while on an expedition to see the wreckage of the Titanic. 

“This marine casualty and the loss of five lives was preventable,” Jason Neubauer, who led the Coast Guard’s investigation into the incident, said in a statement Tuesday.

“For several years preceding the incident, OceanGate leveraged intimidation tactics, allowances for scientific operations, and the company’s favorable reputation to evade regulatory scrutiny,” the Coast Guard report said. “By strategically creating and exploiting regulatory confusion and oversight challenges, OceanGate was ultimately able to operate TITAN completely outside of the established deep-sea protocols.”

The Coast Guard report also found that OceanGate had a “toxic” safety culture and corporate structure, and that its operational practices were “critically flawed.”

That included a workplace environment which “used firings of senior staff members and the looming threat of being fired to dissuade employees and contractors from expressing safety concerns.” 

In February 2018, OceanGate’s former director of marine operations filed a whistleblower complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, alleging he was dismissed because he voiced safety concerns about the “first TITAN hull’s development and testing plans.”

In response to the complaint, OceanGate filed a lawsuit against the former employee, accusing him of violating a confidentiality agreement he had signed with the company. …

Among those killed aboard the doomed vessel was Stockton Rush, co-founder of OceanGate, the Washington state company that owned the Titan. The implosion also killed veteran Titanic explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet; two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood; and British adventurer Hamish Harding. 

The Coast Guard’s findings pointed the finger of blame largely at Rush, who investigators said ignored warnings about the hull damage that had been identified during a previous exploration in 2022. 

“Mr. Rush’s overconfidence influenced OceanGate’s personnel, contractors, and mission specialists, creating an environment where safety concerns were ignored or underemphasized in favor of operational continuity,” the Coast Guard’s analysis found. 

Had Rush survived the tragedy, the Coast Guard said that it would have recommended the U.S. Department of Justice to consider pursuing a criminal investigation into his actions, which the report said “exhibited negligence that contributed to the deaths of four individuals.”

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I like the part where they say they “would have charged them with negligence had they survived”. Gee – thanks.

Apparently the report features the word “failure” 99 times, which is more than three times a page and just goes to show how many corners were cut by Stockton Rush.

He really had no excuse, either. Rush got plenty of warning from deep sea experts and members of his own team, one of whom he fired after he expressed concerns about the safety of the submersible as early as 2018.

He was literally told that the carbon fibre material of the submarine would not be able to withstand the immense pressure 12,500 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. They told him there would be a “catastrophic failure”, and they were right.

And so, 5 people are now dead and have joined the 1,500 souls who perished on the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean. If it’s any consolation, the 5 people on board the Titan would have been killed in a split second, before they even knew what was happening. Turned into human salsa in an instant, with any tiny little trace of them being gobbled up by sea life.

All because of a guy named Stockton Rush. Would you trust a guy with a name like that? I wouldn’t.

For the ‘Iron Lung’ horror game that saw a dramatic rise in sales when the Titan sub story broke, click HERE.

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