Latest news with #implosion
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Was THIS the fatal flaw that doomed Titan? How 'peanut butter' glue used to join 22ft sub together was never certified to work in deep seawater
Glue used to hold the doomed Titan submersible together was never certified to work in deep seawater, it can be revealed today. Henkel, the German adhesive giant which manufactured the resin in question, said it was only ever marketed for the aerospace sector. Although it admits the glue can safely be used 'in other applications', Henkel 'does not certify its products for various uses'. A spokesperson said: 'It is the end user's responsibility to test their design to ensure proper performance.' Sources from inside Henkel had no idea their glue was even used on Titan until MailOnline told them, and confirmed it was 'not specified for usage under water'. Questions are now being asked as to whether the choice of glue was partly to blame for the 22ft sub's catastrophic implosion on June 18, 2023. All five passengers onboard were killed near instantaneously when the vessel caved in on itself. Cruising 12,500ft beneath the Atlantic Ocean, they were just minutes away from getting a glimpse of the Titanic's wreck. One world leading expert said he would never have advised OceanGate, the firm which operated Titan, used the Loctite EA 9394 Aero resin to bond the carbon fibre hull and titanium sections of the submersible together. Loughborough University's Dr Christian Stone, who specialises in corrosion, said it effectively turned the sub into a giant battery. The paste, listed online as possessing 'excellent strength' and having 'improved wet properties', contains between 30 and 40 per cent powdered aluminium. By using the metallic-based glue, OceanGate's CEO Stockton Rush, who died in the implosion, may have introduced a fatal flaw into his 'experimental' submersible. Titan's maintenance log noted on June 17 a problem with 'unsightly' sealant joining the titanium to the carbon fibre. The crew 'ground off bumps' to make a 'smooth surface'. Dr Stone, whose expertise is in galvanic corrosion – an electrochemical process where one metal will, when placed in certain environments such as seawater, sacrifice itself on behalf of another, said this should have been seen as a major red flag. He told MailOnline: 'If you put two metals together and they're connected electrically to a media which conducts electricity like seawater you make a battery. 'One side of that battery will corrode and give up ions. The other side will actually be protected. 'At the corroding side, we call this the anode and that makes acid. The other side is the cathode in which case in our case that will be carbon fibre or titanium and that will make alkaline. 'How quickly that anode side, the corroding side, corrodes depends in part on how conductive the environment is.' The wreckage of Titan showed that much of the five-inch thick carbon fibre hull delaminated and pulled apart into different layers as well as losing its bonding to the crucial titanium ceal Dr Stone said the 'unsightly' area on the joint could have been evidence of aluminium oxide – the result of the corrosion. Without testing, he cautioned it is difficult to determine how big an effect this would have had on the Titan's structure. Dr Stone warned that 'in the most extreme circumstances', this might have potentially triggered a 'very small amount of honeycombing'. Any gaps would have weakened the hull's structure and left it vulnerable to the extraordinary force exerted by the ocean. He said this reaction would begin once Titan was exposed to any salty air but would 'accelerate once they are within the water'. Dr Stone added: 'This will be especially potent when they are going in and out of the water many times because then it will also get exposed to oxygen as well as water, which is good for corrosion.' Dealing with the unsightly sealant by grinding it off was also unwise. He said: 'If they were repeatedly cleaning that kind of sealant, they may have actually done more damage cleaning it than would have occurred due to the corrosion. 'The use of vibrating tools on brittle materials such as epoxy (resin) can have a damaging effect on the stress cycle of these things. It all depends on what the engineering margins are in these extreme environments.' Lower safety margins would result in a greater danger of failure. Ultimately, Dr Stone told MailOnline that the product they used was designed for high altitudes and not the deep sea. He said: 'I would have advised them to use a filler material that was inert and does not conduct electricity.' Dr Stone said OceanGate should have spent more time testing, including the use of accelerated corrosion and stress testing. He added: 'I would also recommend preventive measures such as anodizing the titanium, coating the carbon fibre, and coating the sealant as well just to remove any chance of any of them interacting to make a cell and a battery.' When building his submersible, Rush appeared in a promotional video showing his team applying the glue to craft using large plastic spatulas. He said the product was 'like peanut butter' and thicker than Elmer's glue. Showing absolute confidence in his problem-solving skills and ability to think independently, Rush told the camera that attaching carbon fibre to titanium 'is pretty simple, but if we mess it up, there's not a lot of room for recovery'. A US Coast Guard investigation into the June 2023 tragedy is expected to publish a report into the disaster before the end of the year. As part of the investigation, experts at the National Transportation Safety Board examined the wreckage which was recovered from the scene. Examining the crucial joint, the NTSB found: 'Most of the adhesive originally used to bond the hull to the titanium segment had disbonded from the machined end of the hull piece, but there was an approximately 3.5-inch-long patch where some adhesive bits were still attached.' The glue had failed to hold the sub together, although it is not thought to be the underlying factor behind the implosion. Donald Kramer, senior materials engineer of the NTSB, wrote: 'The aft dome, aft segment, aft portions of the hull, and rails were located together in a comingled mass. The forward dome was located by itself.' The sub had failed at the front, investigators believe. Much of the imploding sub behind the very front was sent hurtling towards the rear dome, hitting it with such force it twisted the titanium ring which was glued to the hull, and ripped out several of the heavy duty bolts screwing the two parts together. OceanGate has suspended all exploration and commercial operations following the disaster.
The Independent
19-06-2025
- General
- The Independent
OceanGate CEO heard eerie ‘popping' sounds in doomed Titan sub before fatal implosion
Footage from a Netflix documentary reveals the Titan submersible made "attention-grabbing pops" during a previous test dive. These sounds, heard by OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, were eerie thumps from the carbon fiber hull, indicating tiny fibers snapping under pressure. Rush expressed concern, stating "as long as it doesn't crack, I'm okay," before safely resurfacing from that particular dive. The incident occurred before the fatal implosion on June 18, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of all five passengers onboard. Watch the video in full above.
The Independent
19-06-2025
- General
- The Independent
Titan sub heard ‘popping' on previous dive before fatal implosion in eerie audio
The doomed Titan sub can be heard making popping sounds on a previous dive before the fatal implosion killed all five passengers onboard the vessel on 18 June 2023. Footage from the Netflix documentary Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster shows CEO Stockton Rush inside the sub on a test run as he describes hearing some 'attenion-grabbing pops'. Eerie thumps can be heard coming from the carbon fiber hull, which were explained in the documentary to be tiny fibres snapping when the sub was under great pressure. Stockton can be heard swearing before saying 'as long as it doesn't crack, I'm okay'. He later emerges safely from the sub to applause from his colleagues.
CBC
10-06-2025
- General
- CBC
6 revelations about the Titan sub disaster and its ill-fated dive
The implosion of OceanGate's Titan submersible stunned the world. On June 18, 2023, five people were lost in the deep Atlantic, more than 3,000 metres below the surface: OceanGate CEO and founder Stockton Rush, Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and Dawood's 19-year-old son, Suleman. But while the incident captivated global attention and sparked a media frenzy, many key details remained obscured beneath speculation and sensational headlines. In the days that followed, questions multiplied: How could such a tragedy happen on a high-profile expedition? What safety protocols were in place? Was the design of Titan intrinsically unsafe? The real story of what happened was revealed months later in the United States Coast Guard's public hearing, part of an extensive investigation that included testimony from witnesses, former OceanGate employees and submersible experts. The hearing painted a sobering picture of the events leading up to the disaster, highlighting a series of decisions and oversights that made the tragedy seem not just possible, but predictable. Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster, a documentary from The Nature of Things, follows the investigation. Titan's carbon-fibre hull wasn't fully proven Titan flew in the face of industry convention, featuring a 6.7-metre-long carbon-fibre hull. The material isn't approved for certified deep-diving submersibles, but this didn't stop OceanGate from testing its unconventional design — and Rush from touting its strength. "Carbon fibre in subsea vehicles is really the right substance to use," he says in archival footage featured in Implosion. "It's three times better on a strength to buoyancy basis than titanium — the next best thing. So our hull is going to be positively buoyant, which is what you want in a submersible." Between 2021 and 2021, the sub reached nearly 4,000 metres below the surface multiple times. "Stockton Rush had 13 successful dives down to the Titanic depth. So, in theory, he did prove his concept," says U.S. Coast Guard investigator Kate Williams in the documentary. But while the sub's initial performance may have contributed to a sense of security both within the company and among those eager to be a part of this new frontier, not everyone was convinced. Contractor Tym Catterson, who served as a safety diver for OceanGate, is one industry expert who disagreed with Rush's choice of material over the usual titanium or steel. "Hardly anybody in the public is familiar with carbon fibre. It's stable — all the way up until this magic point that it is not," he says in the film. "When it finally pops, it will catastrophically fail." "Their sub was there. And then it was not." 3 days ago Duration 2:54 Early test dives were concerning In 2019, OceanGate chose Great Abaco island in the Bahamas as a site for early full-depth test dives. The Bahamian continental shelf plunges rapidly into deep ocean, making it one of the few places in the world where Titanic-depth waters are relatively close to shore. This strategy allowed the team to test the submersible in deep conditions without the cost and logistical burden of travelling far out to sea. However, these early dives revealed significant structural concerns. "When the first hull failed," Catterson says, "they went through and sanded it all out, and saw that there was a crack that went all the way. It went virtually the whole length of the hull." Reconstruction began in 2020, but despite the catastrophic failure, the hull was once again built out of carbon fibre. Hull warnings were ignored During a dive in July 2022, the sub's occupants heard a loud bang as Titan surfaced from the depths. The acoustic data suggested there had been a structural change happening deep inside the carbon-fibre cylinder. "I brought up the possibility of delamination," says Antonella Wilby, a remote operated vehicle–expert and former OceanGate contractor featured in Implosion. "I asked [Rush], 'Are you going to keep diving the sub?' And he said, 'Yeah, we'll do the next mission, and then we'll visually inspect it when we get back.'" "A delamination is essentially a parting of the carbon fibre," Williams explains. "When they heard this loud bang, there should have been, 'All stop, do not continue, investigate further.'" Instead, three more dives took place during the 2022 season. Titan was 'off the regulatory radar' Unlike most conventional submersibles, Titan was not registered or certified in any country to make sure it met safety standards. According to reporting from CBC News, OceanGate explained why it did not submit its vessels to a certification process in a 2019 blog post, which has since been removed. "Bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing is anathema to rapid innovation," the post read. But rapid innovation may not have been OceanGate's sole motivation. "One reason to not register is to make sure that no one, from a regulatory standpoint, is monitoring your operations," says U.S. Coast Guard chief investigator Jason Neubauer in the documentary. "How can somebody operate in a public manner yet still be off the regulatory radar? … that is definitely part of the investigation." 'Mission specialists' not passengers One of the more revealing details to emerge from the hearing was that OceanGate called its clients "mission specialists" rather than passengers. These individuals — paying $250,000 US per dive — were said to be playing a role in OceanGate's underwater exploration. But according to people involved in past operations, they were only given minor tasks to complete before and during dives. "I didn't do any of the, what I would say critical items," says past mission specialist and businessman Alfred Hagen in testimony shown in the film. "A 'mission specialist' was definitely something that was created by OceanGate to give the perception … that these were really crew members, when in fact they were paying passengers," says Neubauer. Submersible pilot and designer Karl Stanley, who went on one of Titan's first crewed deep-water dives, testified that framing customers as part of the operational team allowed OceanGate to avoid the more stringent safety requirements that would have applied if they were recognized as fare-paying passengers. Pushing boundaries became the norm The U.S. Coast Guard's public hearing not only provided insight into what happened on Titan's final dive, it also exposed a pattern of risk-taking at OceanGate that, over time, became normalized. In archival footage featured in Implosion, Rush positions himself as a fearless disruptor. "When you're trying something outside the box, people inside the box think you're nuts," he says in one clip. "Same thing when Elon Musk was doing SpaceX inside the box. Everything's scary." In some ways, OceanGate's model was a reflection of the broader tech world ethos: move fast and redefine boundaries. But in the unforgiving world of deep-sea exploration, nature doesn't compromise. Pressure at Titanic depths is absolute and the margin for error is zero. Innovation in this domain requires not just boldness, but rigorous checks, third-party accountability, and a culture of safety embedded at every level. The final report from the investigation is still pending, but the emerging picture is clear: when ambition outpaces oversight, even the most promising visions can descend into catastrophe.
CBC
04-06-2025
- Business
- CBC
History repeats itself, says widow whose husband and son died in Titan sub implosion
History repeats itself as unheeded warnings foreshadow the Titan's fatal implosion 9 hours ago Duration 1:48 Social Sharing On June 18, 2023, the Titan submersible disappeared during a dive to the iconic wreck of the Titanic. The world watched in shock as authorities mounted a laborious, four-day search-and-rescue operation that located debris on the sea floor, less than 500 metres from the bow of the Titanic. The submersible had imploded shortly after launch, killing all five on board. The Nature of Things documentary Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster, coming to CBC Gem on June 6, examines a series of warnings and red flags that were raised in the years and months leading up to the tragic implosion. With unprecedented access to the United States Coast Guard's Marine Board investigation and interviews with key witnesses and experts, the film details the systemic issues and design flaws that led to the Titan's ultimate failure. Who was OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush? In this clip, we meet Stockton Rush, the OceanGate CEO who died on the doomed expedition. He was an inventor with a grand vision to make deep-sea exploration more accessible. "His family legacy was really about the closest that you could get to royalty within the United States," says submersible pilot and designer Karl Stanley in the film. Two of his forefathers were signers of the Declaration of Independence, and his wife, Wendy, was the great-granddaughter of Isidor and Rosalie Ida Straus, the owners of Macy's department store who died when the Titanic sank in 1912. Rush was wealthy, with vast connections in the American business world, and deep-sea exploration was his life's passion. Was the Titan submersible doomed to fail? Rush had built the Titan submersible out of carbon-fibre, an unconventional material for deep-sea exploration that, in hindsight, doomed the vessel. The sub had already made 13 trips to the wreckage of the Titanic, some 3,800 metres below the surface, before its final trip. The 15-month investigation into the tragedy revealed that each trip to the depths weakened the hull. "Hardly anybody in the public is familiar with carbon-fibre," says OceanGate safety diver Tym Catterson in the film. "It's stable. All the way up until this magic point that it is not. When it finally pops, it will catastrophically fail." There were early signs that the Titan was unsafe; in 2020, a large crack formed during a dive and the hull had to be rebuilt entirely. In 2022, a l oud bang was heard as Titan was surfacing from the depths, suggesting that the carbon-fibre hull suffered structural damage. "In one of my emails, I tell [Rush] that the hull is yelling at him and he needs to listen," submersible expert Karl Stanley recalls. In spite of all this, Rush continued his missions, undeterred. "Why is arrogance more important than safety?" asks Christine Dawood, whose husband, Shahzada and 19-year-old son Suleman died on the dive. "The irony is not lost on me that the Titanic sunk for exactly the same reason. So history repeats itself." Watch Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster on CBC Gem and The Nature of Things YouTube channel on June 6, 2025. Airing on CBC TV Wednesday, June 18 at 8 p.m.
