One yr after the sinking of the experimental submersible Titan, the U.S. Coast Guard continues to research the reason for the small sub’s implosion, which killed 5 passengers on board. 

In a press release Friday, the Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation for the Titan tragedy mentioned that it was nonetheless working with a number of accomplice businesses and stakeholders to know the reason for the casualty. It plans to carry public hearings someday between August and the tip of December, with the date but to be introduced. 

“We’re grateful for the international and interagency cooperation which has been vital in recovering, preserving and forensically testing evidence from a remote offshore region and extreme depth,” mentioned MBI Chair Capt. Jason Neubauer. “The MBI is committed to ensuring that we fully understand the factors that led to this tragedy in order to prevent similar occurrences in the future.” 

On June 18, 2023, the commercially-operated submersible Titan went lacking close to the RMS Titanic wreck web site within the North Atlantic, about 800 nautical miles off Cape Cod. After a four-day search effort, contractors for the U.S. Coast Guard discovered the particles of the sub on the underside, together with presumed human stays. The sub had suffered a sudden, catastrophic implosion, killing all 5 passengers on board. The victims included Stockton Rush, 61, the sub’s proprietor; explorer Hamish Harding, 58; French subsea adventurer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77; businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48; and his son Suleman Dawood, 19.

A recovered part from the hull of the Titan (Courtesy USCG)

In the aftermath of the sub’s loss, the anchor handler Horizon Arctic and an ROV from Pelagic Research Services scoured the underside for proof and recovered particles from the seafloor. The U.S. Coast Guard took custody of the wreckage and the recovered stays.  A vessel and ROV group from Phoenix International returned later within the yr to get well the remaining particles.

The complexities dealing with the MBI investigation embrace the difficult location, the necessity to analyze the submarine’s uncommon carbon-fiber development, and the jurisdictional questions created by the overlapping pursuits of 5 totally different businesses – the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the U.S. Coast Guard, the Canadian Coast Guard, the Canadian Transportation Safety Board (TSB) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The USCG is the lead company, with help from the U.S. Navy for web site investigation.

Separately, the Coast Guard has confirmed {that a} “transcript” of the Titan’s final voyage that circulated on social media in 2023 is wholly pretend. “I’m confident it’s a false transcript,” Neubauer informed the New York Times. “Somebody did it well enough to make it look plausible.”

The pretend transcript doesn’t correspond to the precise comms data that businesses retrieved from Titan’s mom ship, the Canadian vessel Polar Prince. The professional communications logs are confidential, at the very least till the tip of the MBI’s inquiry.