Global Courant
The company behind the missing Titanic tourist submarine exaggerated the details of the industrial partnerships behind the development and engineering of its Titan submarine.
The submarine likely suffered a “catastrophic implosion” based on debris 500 meters from the Titanic’s wreckage, the Coast Guard said Thursday. The five passengers aboard the experimental deep-sea vessel “were sadly lost,” according to submarine company OceanGate Inc.
The deadly implosion of the Titan submarine, a ship that OceanGate once said would mark the “beginning of a new era of exploration,” leaves open questions about how the startup company could not only operate the ship, but also pay customers. convince to travel on board.
In some public statements, the company suggested that its Titan submarine — the company’s only vessel capable of reaching the depths of the Titanic, which lies 4,400 feet below the ocean’s surface — was designed and built with the help of entities such as Boeing, the University of Washington and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In statements to ABC News, each entity described its role in the Titan submarine, or lack thereof, as more limited than sometimes claimed by OceanGate.
When asked about these exaggerations about the role of partnerships in the development of the Titan submarine, an OceanGate representative declined to comment on the matter.
“The state-of-the-art vessel, designed and developed by OceanGate Inc. in collaboration with experts from NASA, Boeing and the University of Washington, made its submarine debut in 2018,” OceanGate Expeditions — the Bahamas company that owns US-based OceanGate Inc. operates submarines, said of the Titan submarine on its now inaccessible website.
OceanGate’s founder and CEO Stockton Rush — who was aboard the missing ship — made similar statements about his company’s partnerships during an interview with CBS News correspondent David Pogue in 2022, who asked about the construction of the Titan submarine, which bought some small parts from consumer stores like Camping World, according to Rush.
These are the five people aboard a submarine that went missing near the wreckage of the Titanic.
ABC News Photo Illustration
“The pressure vessel is not MacGyvered at all because we’ve worked there with Boeing and NASA, (and) the University of Washington,” Rush said. “Everything else can malfunction. Your thrusters can do it, your lights can do it. You’ll still be safe.’
Kevin Williams, the executive director of the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory, told ABC News that the school and lab were also not involved in the “design, engineering or testing” of the Titan submarine.
Victor Balta, a spokesperson for UW, added that OceanGate and UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory initially signed a $5 million research collaboration agreement, but that the two entities “parted ways” after only $650,000 worth of work was completed. That research only resulted in the development of another OceanGate submarine, the shallow-diving Cyclops I submarine, according to Balta.
The steel-hulled Cyclops I can only go 500 meters deep, compared to the Titan, which is made of carbon fiber and titanium to reach depths of 4,000 meters, the company said.
“The university and laboratory’s technical collaboration with OceanGate ended with the completion of the shallow water vessel CYCLOPS, which has served as the test platform for OceanGate since 2015,” said Williams. “Because APL-UW expertise only covered shallow water deployment, the lab was not involved in the design, engineering or testing of the TITAN submarine used in the RMS TITANIC expedition.”
Balta added that OceanGate has signed a contract with the school to use test tanks on a contract basis for nine tests between 2016 and 2022.
“No UW researchers were involved in any of those tests and UW personnel did not provide any verification or validation of OceanGate equipment as a result of those tests,” Balta said in a statement.
When asked about the details of those relationships with OceanGate, a Boeing representative told ABC News that the aerospace company was not involved in the design or construction of the deep-sea submarine.
“Boeing was not a partner of the Titan and did not design or build it,” a Boeing spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News.
In a 2021 press release, OceanGate thanked “industry partner” Boeing for their “design and technical support” regarding the Titan submarine.
OceanGate also made repeated statements in press releases about its involvement with NASA, including thanking the entity for design and technical support.
Tourist submarine Titanic missing.
ABC news
“NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will serve as the facility where development and production of a new aerospace-grade fuselage will be completed,” the company wrote in a 2020 press release. It also said NASA would be involved in the testing the “new carbon fiber pressure vessels”.
A 2022 press release backtracked on the description of NASA’s involvement, saying that a team of NASA engineers only consulted during the development and engineering of the project.
In a statement to ABC News, NASA confirmed it had consulted on materials and fabrication for the Titan submarine under an agreement with OceanGate.
“NASA did not conduct testing and manufacturing through its personnel or facilities, which OceanGate did elsewhere,” the statement said.
The power of OceanGate’s purported industrial partnerships was used to build credibility with industry groups such as the Marine Technology Society and with the public who would purchase tickets for OceanGate’s expeditions.
“(OceanGate) has spent six years designing and testing this pressure vessel design in collaboration with technology organizations such as the University of Washington Applied Physics Lab and the Boeing Company,” the Marine Technology Society noted in its 2017-18 global industry review of manned underwater vehicles. “OceanGate reports that this has given the company full confidence in their new approach…”
According to a 2018 letter, members of an MTS committee that specializes in submarines later expressed concern that OceanGate was evading industry-wide safety standards. The letter itself, which was never approved to be sent to OceanGate, was leaked to Rush, according to committee chairman William Kohnen.
“Your statement is, to say the least, misleading the public and violates an industry-wide code of professional conduct that we all try to uphold,” the letter said on OceanGate’s marketing materials about the safety of Titan’s design.
“The company had indicated that their state of innovation was beyond what was allowed within the regulatory standards we have today and that they would continue without certification,” Kohnen told ABC News, adding that the company was complying with some of the the comments in the 2018 Letter.
Sam Sweeney, Amanda Maile, Victor Ordonez and Gina Sunseri of ABC News contributed to this report.
