A submarine expert has said that Titan Five knew they were going to die for a minute before OceanGate submersible imploded. This contradicts the earlier reports that the passengers onboard the vessel did not have time to know or feel anything as the implosion would have ended their lives in less than a fraction of a second.
Spanish Submarine expert Jose Luis Martin told Daily Mail that the submersible might have suffered a power failure that left the vessel without propulsion. As a result — the only form of window through which the passengers could look out into the depths of the ocean — facing down.
Titan Five, as the last passengers of the doomed submersible have been infamously named, included OceanGate’s CEO, Stockton Rush. The other four were British billionaire Hamish Harding, British-Pakistani-British businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, and French pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet. None of them survived the implosion.
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According to Martin’s estimation, the submersible was freefalling at a depth of around 5,600 feet and fell “as if it were a stone and without any control” for about 3.000 feet. At around 8,600, he says that the vessel in all likelihood “popped like a balloon” due to the change in pressure.
Throughout the fall, Martin says that the passengers were piled on top of each other in total darkness – a terrifying experience that could have lasted between 48 to 71 seconds.
After two hours into what was supposed to be a two-hour dive to the Titanic’s wreckage in the North Atlantic, the OceanGate submersible lost touch with the support ship above the water on June 18. After a massive search and rescue mission was deployed, debris belonging to the submersible was recovered as it was said that the five passengers onboard had died in a “catastrophic implosion.”
The US Coast Guard discovered five significant pieces of the 22-foot vessel among the debris, including the tail cone and two parts of the pressure hull. US and Canadian authorities are now focused on figuring out why a submarine transporting tourists to the Titanic site imploded deep in the North Atlantic.
Earlier this month, OceanGate Expeditions announced that it is suspending all explorations and commercial operations related to its business after its Titan submersible imploded.
