Boston | A day after revelations that the Titan submersible imploded, officials grappled on Friday with vexing questions about who is responsible for investigating the international disaster.
The US Coast Guard said an official inquiry had not yet been launched because the agencies involved are still looking for clues about what caused the vessel to fall apart.
“I know there are also a lot of questions about how, why and when did this happen. Those are questions we will collect as much information as we can about now,” Rear Adm. John Mauger of the First Coast Guard District said on Thursday.
On Friday, the Coast Guard said all of the agencies involved are trying to determine who has the authority to lead an inquiry, which is sure to be complex because of the international nature of the mission.
After the Titan imploded in international waters, the US Coast Guard led the search and rescue mission.
OceanGate Expeditions, the company that owned and operated the Titan, is based in the US but the submersible was registered in the Bahamas. OceanGate is based in Everett, Washington, but closed when the Titan was found.
Meanwhile, the Titan's mothership, the Polar Prince, was from Canada, and the people on board the submersible were from England, Pakistan, France, and the US.
How the investigation will proceed is also complicated by the fact that the world of deep-sea exploration is not well-regulated. Deep-sea expeditions like those offered by OceanGate are scrutinised less than the companies that launch people into space, noted Salvatore Mercogliano, a history professor at Campbell University in North Carolina who focuses on maritime history and policy.
The Titan was not registered as a US vessel or with international agencies that regulate safety. And it wasn't classified by a maritime industry group that sets standards on matters such as hull construction.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who was piloting the Titan when it imploded, complained that regulations can stifle progress.
“Bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing is anathema to rapid innovation,” Rush wrote in a blog post on his company's website.
Bob Ballard, a member of the research team that found the Titanic wreck in 1985, called the lack of certification by outside experts “the smoking gun” in the Titan implosion.
“We've made thousands and thousands and thousands of dives ... to these depths and have never had an incident,” Ballard said on ABC's “Good Morning America.” “... The smoking gun is that this is the first time by a submarine that wasn't classed,” he said.
After the Titan was reported missing Sunday, the Navy went back and analyzed its acoustic data and found an “anomaly” that was consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the vessel was operating when communications were lost, a senior US Navy official said.
The Navy passed on the information to the Coast Guard, which continued its search because the data was not considered definitive, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive acoustic detection system.
In addition to Rush, those killed were two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
The Titan launched at 8 am Sunday, and was reported overdue Sunday afternoon about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John's, Newfoundland. Rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to the site of the disappearance.
Any sliver of hope that remained for finding the crew alive was wiped away early Thursday, when the submersible's 96-hour supply of air was expected to run out and the Coast Guard announced that debris had been found roughly 1,600 feet (488 meters) from the Titanic.
“The debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber,” Mauger said.
The Coast Guard said Thursday that the sounds detected during the search — that had given rescuers some hope that maybe the people were alive — were likely generated by something other than the Titan.
James Cameron, who directed the blockbuster movie “Titanic” and has made multiple dives to the iconic ship's wreckage, told the BBC that he knew an “extreme catastrophic event” had happened as soon as he heard the submersible had lost navigation and communications at the same time.
“For me, there was no doubt," Cameron said. "There was no search. When they finally got an ROV (remotely operated vehicle) down there that could make the depth, they found it within hours. Probably within minutes.” At least 46 people successfully travelled on OceanGate's submersible to the Titanic wreck site in 2021 and 2022, according to letters the company filed with a US District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, that oversees matters involving the Titanic shipwreck.
But questions about the submersible's safety were raised by both by a former company employee and former passengers.
David Lochridge, OceanGate's former director of marine operations, argued in 2018 that the method the company devised for ensuring the soundness of the hull — relying on acoustic monitoring that could detect cracks and pops as the hull strained under pressure — was inadequate and could “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible.” OceanGate disagreed. Lochridge “is not an engineer and was not hired or asked to perform engineering services on the Titan,” it said, and it noted he was fired after refusing to accept assurances from the company's lead engineer that the protocol was, in fact, better suited to detect flaws than a method Lochridge proposed.
One of the company's first customers, meanwhile, likened a dive he made to the site two years ago to a suicide mission.
“Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can't stand. You can't kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other,” said Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman and adventurer from Germany. “You can't be claustrophobic.”
