OceanGate's Titan submersible failed to meet safety standards: NTSB report

OceanGate's Titan submersible failed to meet safety standards, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report.

The report released on Wednesday found that the June 2023 disaster that killed five people during a voyage to view the wreckage of the Titanic was due to OceanGate’s “inadequate engineering process,” according to NewsNation.

OceanGate "failed to establish the actual strength and durability of the Titan pressure vessel and resulted in the company operating a carbon fiber composite vessel that sustained delamination damage that was subsequently exacerbated by additional damage of unknown origin, resulting in a damaged internal structure that subsequently led to a local buckling failure of the pressure vessel,” the report said.

NTSB recommended that the U.S. Coast Guard implement regulations for small vessels like the Titan submersible that are informed by the report's findings.

The Coast Guard's Marine Board of Investigation in August released a similar report, which found that OceanGate had “critically flawed” safety procedures, and that the core of the company's failures came down to “glaring disparities” between their safety protocols and actual practices.

The Titan disappeared off Canada on June 18, 2023, after losing contact with its support vessel 1 hour and 45 minutes into the dive, at approximately 12,000 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

Officials searched for the Titan for four days until they found evidence of an implosion on the ocean floor.

OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman Dawood, all died as a result of the implosion.

OceanGate suspended its operations following the accident.