A Coast Guard board of inquiry is trying to shed light on the circumstances surrounding the implosion of the Titan submersible in June 2023. The United States Coast Guard has released the first images of the submarine’s wreckage.
More than a year after the disaster of the Titan submarine, which imploded while exploring the Titanic, the first images of the wreck have been made public. The United States Coast Guard (USCG) has published several videos of what remains of the Ocean Gate submersible, with a first excerpt broadcast on X September 17, 2024.
All five passengers who boarded the Titan submarine on June 18, 2023, died in the accident.
Images of the wreck of the Titan submersible on the ocean floor
The video reveals in particular the state of the submarine’s tail, with ” a piece of carbon fiber in the foreground », the coast guards specify. Remains of the hull of the submarine are visible in another videoposted online on September 18. The videos were obtained using a remote-controlled vehicle, filming at about 3,700 meters deep in the Atlantic Ocean.
The videos were presented as the Coast Guard Commission of Inquiry hearings began in an attempt to shed light on the circumstances of the tragedy. The hearings began on Monday, September 16, and will be held in public until Friday, September 27. In an introductory statement, the Commission of Inquiry indicated that the material elements located and filmed were ” conclusive evidence » of the implosion of the Titan, reported CNN.
The submarine’s navigation system was laborious
In addition to these very impressive images, other elements were brought forward during the hearings to begin to understand how the accident could have happened on Friday, September 20. According to The Vergemarine robotics engineer Antonella Wilby, a former Ocean Gate employee, gave an account of the Titan’s navigation system, which seemed complicated to say the least.
The Titan submersible did not have GPS, but used a system called USBL (” Ultra-short baseline acoustic positioning system “). This method allowed the depth and position of the submarine to be determined using sound pulses. Usually, this data is automatically transmitted into mapping software that tracks the position of a submarine. However, according to Antonella Wilby’s testimony, the Titan did not work this way. The coordinates were transmitted by hand into a notebook. They were then entered into Excel, before the spreadsheet was finally loaded into the mapping software.
The process, although scheduled to be carried out every 5 minutes, therefore seemed particularly laborious and slow. Antonella Wilby says she tried to draw attention to the risks, and was excluded from the team for saying that it was ” a dumb way to do navigation ».
The hearings are continuing and are expected to reveal further evidence that will help answer safety questions about the Titan’s implosion.
Source: www.numerama.com
