The Titan submersible implosion killed all five people on board as it was taking passengers to view the wreckage of the Titanic. Now, a report from the U.S. Coast Guard says the 2023 tragedy was preventable and outlines a series of mistakes.

Washington

A U.S. Coast Guard investigation into the Titan submersible disaster has found that the incident was preventable. The report points to multiple errors and missed warning signs by Oceangate, including inadequate maintenance, ignoring design warnings, and operating in unregulated international waters. Investigators noted that the company used off-the-shelf parts and took risks outside industry norms, contributing to the tragedy.

While the exact cause of the implosion remains undetermined, the Coast Guard has recommended stricter oversight for novel submersible designs and greater international cooperation to regulate such vessels. The findings underscore the need for improved safety standards and accountability in deep-sea exploration.

U.S. Coast Guard probe: Titan submersible implosion was preventable

A major update for you on the Titan submersible disaster from two years ago. We all remember this tragedy. The vehicle imploded thousands of feet underwater as it was taking five passengers on a trip to view the wreckage of the Titanic. All five on board sadly died. Now a report from Coast Guard investigators says this accident should never have happened and points to a series of mistakes that were made along the way. David Pogue of CBS Sunday Morning, who spent time with the founder of the doomed sub before the incident, has more on this investigation. Oceangate advertised the ultimate in adventure travel, a cross between cutting-edge engineering and deep-sea exploration. The disaster was entirely preventable, according to the Coast Guard Marine Board's lead investigator, Jason Neubauer. Oceangate could have done maintenance and some monitoring of the danger signals, of the warning signs that the hull was giving off. In the summer of 2022, we were invited on that submersible with Oceangate's CEO Stockton Rush for a CBS Sunday Morning story. He was killed in the disaster. Are you making money on this operation? No, so not yet. There were signs of cost-cutting even then. So it seems like a lot of the way you made this is by taking off-the-shelf parts and sort of MacGyver-ing them together. Yeah, pretty much. Does that not raise anybody's eyebrows in the industry? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, I'm definitely an outlier. At some point, you're going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question. I said, I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules. The report identifies at least a dozen factors that contributed to the implosion of the sub about 11,000 feet below sea level near the wreckage of the Titanic. Oceangate dismissed warnings about the sub's design, stored it all winter exposed to the elements, and operated in an unregulated gray area in international waters. Do you think anything that Oceangate and Stockton Rush did could be classified as deceptive, for example, to customers? Yes, I do. I think from a common-sense standpoint, there would be an expectation that the vessel was being maintained, at least to the ability that they could, you know, to be kept safe. And David Pogue joins us now. David, I remember that story very well. It's almost surreal and eerie to see it now, knowing how it turned out. But even then, you seemed very skeptical when you were talking to him. What are your thoughts now that the report has come out? Was there anything that surprised you? I guess the biggest surprise is that the report, 330 pages long, did not ultimately tell us what happened. There are two reigning theories. One is that the carbon fiber developed a crack. One is that there was a seam between the carbon fiber and those titanium end caps that got worked loose over repeated dives. And I got the opportunity to interview the chief investigator yesterday, Jason Neubauer, and he said, we'll never know. The resulting damage is just too splintered. And David, I mean, you had been in this vessel. You went in the water, not as deep as they did. But have any safety measures been proposed to make sure that something like this never happens again? The Coast Guard has looked at all the things that went wrong and suggested the obvious things. From now on, if there's a new radical design for a submersible, it should be registered with the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard would like to have somebody in place during its design to overlook it. And then there's this business of the fact that the Titan operated in international waters outside of anyone's jurisdiction, so it wasn't registered with any country. So they've also proposed that the maritime organizations of the different countries get together and perhaps consider how to handle novel new craft like this. David, before you go, were you afraid when you were down there? Did you think it was safe? I was not afraid at all. I mean, they'd been to the Titanic and back something like 21 times in that thing. They had the world's leading expert, P.H. Nargile, on hand to supervise the whole thing. And above all, why would they invite a CBS News crew on board to witness the whole thing if there was anything sketchy about it? So I have to say, perhaps embarrassingly, that I was completely convinced. Some critical reporting there from David Pogue on a disaster that was seemingly preventable. David, thank you very much.

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