Titanic submersible implosion: Coast Guard holding September hearing
The U.S. Coast Guard has announced when it will hold a long-awaited public hearing about the deadly Titanic submersible disaster that killed all five people on board in June 2023.
The hearing will begin on Monday, Sept. 16 at 830 a.m. ET and is set to convene over several days, through Sept. 27 if necessary.
The hearing will examine all aspects of the loss of the Titan, including pre-accident historical events, regulatory compliance, crewmember duties and qualifications, mechanical and structural systems, emergency response and the submersible industry, the Coast Guard said.
FILE - The U.S. Coast Guard holding a press conference on June 22, 2023, to announce that a debris field had been located near where the submersible Titan went missing. (Photo by Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
When the experimental Titan submersible was lost and found to later have imploded, the Coast Guard quickly convened a high-level investigation into what happened, but that investigation is taking longer than originally anticipated.
The Coast Guard said a livestream will be made available to watch the hearing.
What happened to the Titan submersible?
The Titan had been chronicling the Titanic’s decay and the underwater ecosystem around the sunken ocean liner in yearly voyages since 2021.
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The craft made its last dive on June 18, 2023, a Sunday morning, and lost contact with its support vessel about two hours later. When it was reported overdue that afternoon, rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to the area, about 435 miles south of St. John’s, Newfoundland.
OceanGate Titan safety concerns
An international group of agencies, including the U.S. Coast Guard, is investigating why the Titanic tourist submersible imploded, killing five people. Victor Vescovo, a Dallas businessman and submersible pilot who was friends with two of the victims onboard the OceanGate Titan, said he declined a previous invitation aboard the submersible, citing safety concerns. "Unfortunately, this operator, OceanGate, had a design and operating procedures that many of us were extremely concerned about and even warned people not to participate in their expeditions," Vescovo said. More LiveNOW from FOX streaming video
The U.S. Navy notified the Coast Guard that day of an anomaly in its acoustic data that was "consistent with an implosion or explosion" at the time communications between the Polar Prince and the Titan were lost, a senior Navy official later told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive technology.
Any sliver of hope that remained for finding the crew alive was wiped away on June 22, when the Coast Guard announced that debris had been found near the Titanic on the ocean floor. Authorities have since recovered the submersible’s intact endcap, debris and presumed human remains from the site.
Who were the victims of the Titan submersible implosion?
The implosion killed the submersible's operator, Stockton Rush, and four others. Rush also co-founded OceanGate, the company that owned the submersible.
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In addition to Rush, the implosion killed two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
Titanic submarine search: Who are passengers?
Who are the five passengers onboard the missing submersible that was headed to the wreckage of the Titanic? Ashley Webster with FOX Business joined LiveNOW from FOX's Josh Breslow to explain what we know about Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, Stockton Rush and Paul-Henry Nargeolet.
Harding and Nargeolet were members of The Explorers Club, a professional society dedicated to research, exploration and resource conservation.
What happened to the Titanic?
The ocean liner Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in April 1912, killing all but about 700 of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew. Since the wreckage’s discovery in 1985, it has been slowly succumbing to metal-eating bacteria. Some have predicted the ship could vanish in a matter of decades as holes yawn in the hull and sections disintegrate.
Where is the Titanic wreck?
The Titanic wreck site is located 963 miles northeast of New York and 453 miles southeast of the Newfoundland coastline, sitting 12,000 feet below sea level.
How many people have visited the Titanic wreckage site?
Fewer than 250 people in the world have personally viewed the Titanic wreckage, which sits about 2.5 miles below the ocean’s surface, according to OceanGate.
Famous filmmaker James Cameron famously made the 1997 film "Titanic," which became the highest-grossing film in history at the time, as well as earning 11 Academy Awards.
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His interest in shipwrecks served as a motivation to make the film.
"I made Titanic because I wanted to dive to the shipwreck, not because I particularly wanted to make the movie," Cameron told Playboy Magazine in 2010. "The Titanic was the Mount Everest of shipwrecks, and as a diver I wanted to do it right."
Cameron made several submersible dives to the wreck itself prior to the movie’s release. He later formed Earthship Productions to make documentary films about ocean exploration and conservation.
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In total, he has done 33 dives to the Titanic wreckage site since the film’s release, according to National Geographic.
Kelly Hayes, Chris Williams and The Associated Press contributed to this report. This story was reported from Detroit.