Featured Image Credit: Netflix
Topics: Titan submersible, World News, News, US News
Rhiannon Ingle
A three-word message that was the last communication received from the Titan sub before it imploded might reveal insight into the crew's final moments.
Next month will mark the two-year anniversary of the Titan submersible disaster which tragically resulted in the deaths of five people made headlines all over the globe.
The catastrophic failure took place in June 2023 when a massive operation was launched after the missing submersible - which had an inside space of just 22ft long and 9ft wide with a height of a little over 8ft - vanished about 435 miles (700km) south of Newfoundland, Canada.
The tiny craft, which was operated by OceanGate Expeditions, carried OceanGate CEO and co-founder Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, French diver/Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood.
Advert
With Netflix's Titan: The OceanGate Disaster due to probe into the horrific tragedy next month, the last words heard from the craft have been revealed, as well as the moment Stockton Rush's wife heard the sub implode without realising it.
Titan lost contact with its surface crew on 18 June 2023 as it explored the underwater gravesite of the Titanic wreckage, which lies around 12,500ft deep.
The US Coast Guard later announced the 'catastrophic implosion' of the Titan vessel some days later (22 June) after debris was discovered near the wreck of the Titanic off the coast of Newfoundland.
The implosion ended up killing all five passengers on board.
The US Coast Guard has previously shared the final exchange they had with the Titan passengers before the disaster, detailing the tragic final words uttered by the crew which has given an insight into their final moments.
The crew on board the sub had been communicating with staff on board their support vessel - named the Polar Prince - by messages in the hours prior.
However, contact was lost after an exchange of repeated inquiries from the Polar Prince about the submersible's depth and weight as it descended.
The mothership then asked repeatedly if the Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display.
One of Titan's final responses, which became 'spotty' as it descended, was simply heard saying 'all good here' during the dive and was never heard from again.
This implies the crew of the sub were not aware there were any problems, and they are thought to have died instantly following the implosion.
And now, coming up to the two-year anniversary of the disaster, ship footage shared with BBC has captured the haunting sound of the Titan sub imploding as they've been given unprecedented access to the US Coast Guard's (USCG) investigation for a documentary titled Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster.
The BBC's footage shows Wendy Rush, the wife of OceanGate director Mr Rush, sitting in front of a computer that was used to send and receive text messages from Titan.
At the point when the sub reaches a depth of about 3,300m, a noise that sounds like a 'door slamming' can be heard.
Mrs Rush then pauses to look up and ask other OceanGate crew members what the noise was.
Hearing the sound of the implosion while watching on from the sub's support ship, she asked: "What was that bang?"
Shortly after, she receives a text message from the sub saying it had dropped two weights - something which seems to have led her to mistakenly think the dive was proceeding as expected.
However, the USCG has said that the noise was in fact the sound of Titan imploding but the text message, which must have been sent just before the sub failed, took a while longer to reach the support ship than the sound of the implosion.
The video in question has been presented as evidence to the USCG Marine Board of Investigation, which has spent the last two years looking into the sub's disastrous failure.