Review of the Netflix documentary Titan: The OceanGate Disaster Rating *****
Of the many missteps, miscalculations, and inexcusable errors that this documentary highlights leading up to the Titan disaster, the one that stands out is what happened after mission 80. You’ll have to wait until about two-thirds in before the filmmakers cover this important topic, but it stands out in my mind as a major warning sign.
The Titan OcenGate story is reminiscent of another submersible disaster story and documentary, Into the Deep: The Submarine Murder Case. That story also had at its center a narcissistic CEO. In both stories, financial pressures lead to disastrous choices.
The idea behind OceanGate’s business model seemed sound. Build a submersible that can take tourists to underwater wrecks like the Titanic and charge them upwards of $100,000 each for the experience. Pack five paying customers inside the hull, and you’re looking at over $500,000 per dive. The venture probably turns a profit after just four or five dives. Getting there was the problem for CEO Stockton Rush. His idea was to use a hull made out of carbon fiber. Early tests of scale model hulls revealed problems. As the pressure increased, individual fibers began to break, producing a loud popping sound that was captured by sound recording devices and audible to anyone standing nearby. Increase the pressure further, and the hull failed.
Rather than abandon the flawed carbon fiber hull idea, Stockton instead fired all of the engineers and hired new ones. When his experienced submersible pilot raised safety concerns, he was fired. When the lead engineer expressed to Stockton that he would not go down in the sub due to his concerns, he was let go. Just about anyone who disagreed with Stockton was let go. Stockton Rush became the primary submersible pilot.
Now we get to mission 80. The reason that mission 80 is so significant is because of what the acoustic data showed in the few subsequent dives after mission 80. There was a marked increase in the amount of fibers indicating breakage.
When the four paying passengers entered the Titan submersible on June 18, 2023, they knew nothing about the lack of a class rating, the safety concerns of past employees, or the obvious warning signs from the acoustic data. As the Titan began the long journey to the ocean floor, there would no doubt have been popping sounds the deeper the vessel went. Stockton might have calmed the passenger’s fears by saying that the sounds were normal, but even he would have been alarmed.
When the Titan imploded, it came to rest not far from the Titanic—the three days of searching for survivors had been a complete waste of time and money. A slew of past employees didn’t have to say I told you so, Stockton Rush died from his own arrogance. He wanted to be famous. He achieved his goal, but not in the way he had hoped.