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The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) said the Titan submersible disaster June 2023 was caused by a combination of engineering faults as well as risk management that was “hindered by the structure and composition of the company,” Oceangate.
The TSB on Wednesday released the details of its analysis of the wreck which claimed the lives of five people who were diving to visit the wreck of the Titanic. The report is based on its own engineering analysis of the materials and components that were recovered from the wreck, combined with other data from the investigation.
On June 18, 2023, the submersible went missing in the northern Atlantic Ocean during an underwater expedition to view the site of the Titanic shipwreck.
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The report determined that the design and structural composition of the submersible was one of the main reasons it ultimately imploded.
“Analysis by the TSB Laboratory determined that the reduced compressive strength of the Titan’s carbon fibre cylinder, as well as defects that were potentially introduced during manufacturing, operations, storage, and transport of the Titan, likely led the cylinder to fail progressively, due to damage accumulating during each dive cycle, until it imploded.”
The report also says the use of carbon fibre for the hull in a human-occupied submersible intended for deep-ocean exploration is “novel,” and that these applications typically mean the submersibles should be in the shape of a sphere, rather than a cylinder, because they can withstand the tremendous water pressure better.
Although the Titan submersible completed dozens of previous dives, including to the Titanic wreck, the TSB says the Titan’s design was never validated and did not follow standard engineering practices. This meant that OceanGate could not determine how long the carbon fibre hull would remain structurally intact after repeated dives.
The report includes a list of six recommendations to “eliminate or reduce safety deficiencies that pose significant risks to the transportation system and require action by regulators and the industry.”
– more to come
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