Until a few days ago, Oceangate continued to advertise submarine trips – although five people had previously died in a dive. Now the company is taking action.
The submarine operating company Oceangate has shut down operations – after five people, including the company’s boss, died during a dive trip to the wreck of the Titanic last month. The company announced this on its website.
It only says in one sentence: “OceanGate has ceased all exploration and commercial activities.” The company did not initially announce any details.
Operators were apparently warned of defects early on
The submersible “Titan” left on June 18 to wack the “Titanic”. After almost two hours, contact with the escort ship broke off, and since then there has been no trace of the diving capsule. It was not until June 22 that the US Coast Guard announced the discovery of debris. It is the stern of the submersible and the front and rear parts of the pressure chamber, it said. The debris lay around 500 meters from the wreck of the “Titanic” on the seabed at a depth of almost 4,000 meters.
The British BBC later reported, citing an e-mail exchange from 2018 between the submarine owner Stockton Rush and the deep-sea researcher Rob McCallum, that there were already warnings about defects at the time. McCallum told the BBC he had repeatedly asked the company to have the “Titan” certified.
According to the report, Rush, owner of the operating company Oceangate, is not interested: he is sufficiently qualified “to understand the risks and problems associated with underwater exploration in a new vehicle,” according to one of his emails .
