New footage has shed new light on the tragic final moments of the Titan submersible, revealing the precise instance the vessel imploded during its June 2023 descent to the Titanic wreck.
The video, recorded aboard the sub's support ship, captures Wendy Rush (wife of OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush) reacting to a sudden noise, asking, “What was that bang?”. This happened approximately 90 minutes after the sub began its dive nearly 3,800 meters (12,500 feet) below the Atlantic surface.
All five people on board were killed in the implosion: Oceangate's CEO Stockton Rush, explorer Hamish Harding, veteran diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman. The passengers had each paid OceanGate for the chance to view the Titanic’s remains on the ocean floor.
A submarine is any naval vessel that is capable of propelling itself beneath the water as well as on the water's surface. First devised as a watercraft in the 19th century, the submarine was quickly adopted by navies around the world, for attack and defensive purposes. But by its very nature as a vessel designed to spend many weeks, if not months, submerged, a submarine is an inherently dangerous environment to live and work in. And when something goes wrong, the likelihood of escape is very limited. Sadly, this has been proven on numerous occasions where stricken vessels have quickly sunk, killing all hands or trapping them to endure a long and agonizing demise.
Click on to explore this gallery of catastrophic underwater accidents.