A new video revealed the moments OceanGate’s Titan submersible was lost.
According to CNN, the footage released by the Marine Board of Investigation, the US Coast Guard’s highest level of inquiry, showed the moment when the Titan submersible imploded and made an apparent sound.
Cameras on the mothership of the sub captured the moment when a faint cracking sound similar to a car door slamming was heard.
Titan was imploded in June 2023 after 90 minutes into a descent to see the wreck of the Titanic, killing five people on board.
The passengers on board were Oceangate's CEO Stockton Rush, British explorer Hamish Harding, veteran French diver Paul Henri Nargeolet, the British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman.
What was the bang?
In a newly released video Wendy Rush, wife of OceanGate founder Stockton, could be seen turning to the people next to her and asking, “What was that bang?” after 90 minutes into the submersible’s descent to the ocean floor.
The “bang,” which is believed to be the moment when the sub imploded, was heard when it had reached a depth of about 3,300 metres to give passengers on board an up-close view of the Titanic wreckage, which lies 3,800m down.
However, a few moments later, the crew on the support ship received a message from the sub that they had dropped two weights, which created the impression that it might be operating normally.
Receiving a message after ‘bang’
Chris Roman explained that weights might be dropped shortly before the implosion but, due to a delay, were only seen by the support vessel afterwards.
He told CNN every system which transmits data through the water has “some inherent buffering or delay related to how they do the signal timing or processing.”
“If the ‘weights dropped’ message was sent a few seconds before the implosion … the computer may not show the message immediately when it is received. The timing is tight, but possible. It really depends on the system they were using,” he added.
Notably, as per the timeline established by authorities investigating the doomed expedition, the mother ship lost contact with the sub six seconds after receiving the message about the weight drop.
