Faulty engineering led to the implosion of an experimental submersible that killed five people on the method to the wreck of the Titanic, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded in a report Wednesday.
The NTSB made the statement in its final report on the hull failure and implosion of the Titan submersible in June 2023.
Everyone on board the submersible died immediately within the North Atlantic when Titan suffered a catastrophic implosion because it descended to the wreck.
The NTSB report states that the faulty engineering of the Titan “resulted in the development of a carbon fiber composite pressure vessel that contained multiple anomalies and failed to satisfy mandatory strength and sturdiness requirements.” It also stated that OceanGate, the owner of the Titan, didn’t adequately test the Titan and was unaware of its true durability.
The report also said the Titan likely would have been found sooner had OceanGate followed standard guidance for emergency response, and that may have saved “time and resources though a rescue was impossible on this case.”
The NTSB report dovetails with a Coast Guard report released in August that described the Titan implosion as preventable. The Coast Guard determined that safety procedures at OceanGate, a personal company based in Washington state, were “critically flawed” and located “glaring disparities” between safety protocols and actual practices.
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OceanGate suspended operations in July 2023 and wound down. Representatives for the corporate didn’t reply to a request for comment Wednesday. An organization spokesperson offered condolences to the families of those that died after the Coast Guard report was released in August.
The implosion of the Titan killed OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush and led to lawsuits and calls for tighter regulation of personal deep sea expeditions. The implosion also killed French underwater explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, referred to as “Mr. Titanic”; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and two members of a outstanding Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood.
The NTSB report recommends the Coast Guard commission a panel of experts to review submersibles and other pressure vehicles for human occupancy. It also recommends that the Coast Guard implement regulations for the vehicles which can be informed by that study.
It also called on the Coast Guard to “disseminate findings of the study to the industry,” which has grown lately as privately financed exploration has grown.
The vessel had been making voyages to the Titanic site since 2021. Its final dive got here the morning of June 18, 2023. The submersible lost contact with its support vessel about two hours later and was reported overdue that afternoon. Ships, planes and equipment were rushed to the scene about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland.
A multiday seek for survivors off Canada made international headlines. It soon became clear there could be no survivors, and the Coast Guard and other authorities began lengthy investigations into what happened.
© 2025 The Canadian Press