Wreckage shows how Titan’s hull came apart
An analysis of the wreckage from OceanGate’s Titan submersible has revealed how its hull disintegrated.
Photos of the craft’s debris, scattered across the ocean floor, indicate that the carbon fiber hull had split into multiple layers—a known issue with this material.
This evidence was presented to the US Coast Guard on Wednesday during a public hearing on the sub’s catastrophic failure in June 2023, which claimed the lives of all five aboard.
While it hasn’t been confirmed that the hull was the first component to fail, the details suggest it is a major focus of the investigation.
Investigators aim to determine the cause of the tragedy and propose measures to prevent future accidents.
Titan, operated by OceanGate, imploded less than two hours into its descent toward the Titanic wreck.
Its hull, composed of multiple layers of carbon fiber combined with resin, was an unusual choice for a deep-sea submersible due to its unreliability under extreme pressure—most submersibles use metals like titanium.
Don Kramer, an engineer with the National Transportation Safety Board, presented a series of images to the US Coast Guard, showing fragments of the hull on the ocean floor. He explained that in some sections, the carbon fiber layers had separated—a known process called delamination.
In other places, the material was cracked.
It was not confirmed whether the damage to the hull had caused the implosion.
“I’m not offering any analysis at this point as to whether [the damage] occurred before or after the implosion,” he said.
Mr Kramer also described how his team had analysed samples of Titan’s hull left over from its construction. They looked at offcuts from when the sub was made.
He described that the samples showed areas where the carbon fibre layers had separated, as well as wrinkles, voids and gaps.
Any irregularities in the material would have affected how the hull performed under the immense pressures under water.
The US Coast Guard was also told how a loud bang heard during a dive a year before the disaster may have damaged the sub’s structure.
Passengers had reported it while the sub was returning to the surface after a dive to the Titanic in 2022. One passenger described it as an “alarming sonic event” while giving evidence last week.
At the time, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush said he thought it was the sub shifting in the metal frame that surrounded it.
But a new analysis of sensor data by the National Transportation Safety Board suggested that the noise signalled some kind of change to the fabric of the hull.
This may have altered the way the sub was able to respond to the pressures of the deep.
Bill Kemper, of Kemper Engineering, had been asked to compile an independent report into the failure of Titan by the US Coast Guard.
He concluded that at present the root cause for the failure was indeterminate.
“At this time, there are multiple unmitigated single point failures, single mode failures,” he told the Coast Guard.
In his lengthy presentation, he described multiple weaknesses in the sub’s design.
This included an analysis of the sub’s window, that suggested it was being pushed out of shape on each dive and this could eventually result in it cracking. He also outlined serious problems with the carbon fibre hull.