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00:00All stations are reporting a launch as a go. Please stand by.
00:05On June the 18th, 2023, the Titan submersible set out for the wreck of the Titanic.
00:15On board were five men, including the pilot and owner, Stockton Rush.
00:20When I started with this goal of getting people underwater, and I also wanted to go deep,
00:24I have what I call the deep disease.
00:27Titan descended two miles beneath the surface.
00:32Then, suddenly, all communication was lost.
00:36Our sub was there, and then it was not.
00:41What's that like?
00:43Did they have a chance to worry about it? Not a chance.
00:47The submersible had suffered a catastrophic failure, and all five men on board were killed.
00:53I lost two people who were important in my life. They're not going to come back.
01:00With unprecedented access to the U.S. Coast Guard investigation...
01:04In about two minutes, they identify that they lost cons and tracking.
01:09Everyone in the world wants to know what happened to Titan.
01:12...and exclusive footage from inside the submersible.
01:15Yep, everything's good.
01:16We reveal the truth behind the biggest scandal in deep-sea exploration.
01:21I've gone back and forth a lot, like, whether I should have done more.
01:25Nothing is breaching the hull. It's the safest spot on the entire planet.
01:30What really happened on that fatal dive?
01:34If it wasn't an accident, it then has to be some degree of crime.
02:01Exploration is part of human nature.
02:04Many are compelled to push the boundaries and explore.
02:07And that's where, you know, you have to balance the risk with some oversight.
02:13In September 2024, 15 months after the Titan implosion...
02:19...the U.S. Coast Guard convenes a public hearing into the cause of the disaster.
02:26We need to provide closures for the families.
02:30We have to find out why.
02:33We have to be able to provide that closure to everyone.
02:41The aim for Jason Neubauer and his team is not only to find out why Titan imploded...
02:47...but to prevent this kind of failure ever happening again.
02:52I've met many of the families of the victims.
02:57And that is the one thing that keeps me driven.
03:01Seeing the impacts from a tragedy.
03:05Every loss of life impacts hundreds of people.
03:12During the two-week hearing, the investigation team will question witnesses...
03:17...about their memories of Stockton Rush and his creation, the Titan Submersible.
03:25To get to the bottom of what went wrong on the fatal dive...
03:29...they will have to delve back into how it all started.
03:33Carl Stanley has almost 30 years' experience diving submersibles.
03:40Mr. Stanley, the board's recorder, Lieutenant Steele, will now administer your oath.
03:45Good afternoon, sir.
03:46Please stand and raise your right hand.
03:50Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you're about to give...
03:54...will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
03:56So help you God.
03:58You may be seated.
04:02Good afternoon, Mr. Stanley.
04:04Mr. Keith Fawcett will have the first round of questioning for you, sir.
04:09Mr. Stanley, could you just talk about your experience...
04:13...and your interaction with Mr. Stockton Rush?
04:15My relationship with Stockton goes back at least 10, possibly up to 15 years.
04:22When I learned that he was making a carbon fiber sub...
04:26...I told him I want to be a part of that.
04:28I saw that as an opportunity to dive deeper...
04:31...than I probably would have ever gotten to dive again.
04:34I was excited about it.
04:38I don't think Stockton started this whole project knowing that it would end in total disaster.
04:46I think he believed in having people have better access to the deep ocean.
04:55In April 2017, Stockton Rush was invited to the prestigious Explorers Club in New York...
05:02...where he gave an impassioned presentation about his ambitions for deep-sea exploration.
05:09Thanks very much.
05:12You may have seen in the write-up of this that I wanted to be an astronaut.
05:17That's why I got an engineering degree.
05:19I watched Star Trek, Star Wars.
05:22And I wasn't going to get to Jupiter or Mars.
05:25But I did realize that all the cool stuff that I thought was out there is actually underwater.
05:33He wanted to support science.
05:35He wanted to, you know, make this kind of adventure more approachable to the public.
05:46The goal was, where do you want to go in the ocean?
05:50What is the most known site in the ocean?
05:56And it's clearly the Titanic.
05:58And to go to the Titanic, which is at 3,800 meters, requires a special sub.
06:05Carbon fiber in subsea vehicles is really the right substance to use.
06:10It's three times better on a strength-to-buoyancy basis than titanium, the next best thing.
06:16Deep-diving passenger submersibles are made of steel or titanium, not carbon fiber.
06:22But Stockton was a strong advocate for using the untested material.
06:29It would be the deepest diving carbon fiber sub ever built.
06:33But if we mess it up, there's not a lot of recovery.
06:36I'm good already north-south.
06:38Thanks to you so much.
06:39Stockton and Ocean Gate came on our radar probably in 2020.
06:43My job is to go around the world investigating great mysteries and to tell stories of exploration.
06:49And so we thought this would be an amazing opportunity to shine a light on what they were doing.
06:56Stockton wanted to bring more people to Titanic.
06:59So he built a vehicle that had a totally different shape, toilet paper tube.
07:04This carbon fiber hull that was built to be lighter and stronger from the space-age material had these big
07:10titanium end caps that would seal this cylinder.
07:13When I first saw it on the dock, it was kind of this marvel.
07:20Titan's design meant that it could carry five passengers down to depths.
07:25This will be one of the great moments of submersibles in that this technology is what we need to explore
07:33the ocean depth.
07:33It's our belief that without innovative technologies and innovative business...
07:38Ocean Gate extensively documented their story for their archives.
07:42...and that the days of government funding...
07:44Their videos were used to promote Titan, to attract investors, the media, and passengers wanting to explore the ocean depths.
07:52Make the exploration possible.
07:58If you're starting a submarine company, is there a more famous destination in the world than Titanic?
08:05No.
08:06Where is your excitement factor on this?
08:08Oh, definitely at a level.
08:11By the time we're done testing it, I believe it's pretty much invulnerable.
08:15And that's pretty much what they said about the Titanic.
08:17That's right.
08:23To test the strength of Titan's carbon-fiber hull, Stockton took the sub to deep waters just off the coast
08:31of the Bahamas.
08:32I got an email saying, come out to Marsh Harbor, Bahamas, and I have a spot open for you.
08:40This was the opportunity that sub-expert Carl Stanley had been waiting for.
08:45Okay, I'm good. Lock me up.
08:48Stockton told him that the incremental testing of Titan's hull had so far involved 46 dives, mostly shallow, with only
08:56three reaching deep-sea pressure.
08:59All of our test program has been about incremental testing.
09:03This is really focused on the pressure vessel and making sure that the most critical component of the sub is
09:08safe and capable of handling depths down to 4,000 meters repeatedly with people on board.
09:164,000 meters, or two and a half miles, is the depth of the seafloor where the Titanic lies.
09:23To succeed in reaching it, Titan would have to withstand crushing water pressures equal to two and a half tons,
09:31bearing down on every square inch of the hull.
09:34I did not even come close to appreciating the real danger.
09:41I was the one that was like, hey, capture this moment.
09:44Like, I was happy to be there.
09:52Joining the dive that day was 25-year-old Petros Mathiodakis.
09:57He was in the Bahamas demonstrating an underwater scanner to Stockton, and he had jumped at the chance for a
10:02ride in Titan.
10:04I was aware that this was extremely risky, and Stockton was very clear.
10:11He said, do you have a wife?
10:14And I said, no.
10:16Do you have kids?
10:17And I said, nope.
10:19He said, okay, you're in.
10:28When you're inside of Titan, on your descent, you're just free-falling.
10:32You're just heavy, and your gravity is pushing you down.
10:38You're essentially in the dark, just enough light to see.
10:43Now, left is forward is down.
10:45On the left stick, this is down.
10:47That's up.
10:47That's up?
10:48Yep.
10:48That's down?
10:49Yep.
10:51The first time the carbon fiber made a noise in that hall, it was extremely loud.
10:56It was like a gunshot.
10:59Any noise would have been loud, but that was loud.
11:04Everyone stops talking for a little bit, and, okay, I think we're okay, you know?
11:11That loud, sudden noise that you know is essentially part of your pressure vessel breaking, I think that's going to
11:21scare anybody.
11:25But the alarming noises were not the only concern for those on board.
11:31When we got almost to the bottom, the lights on the exterior of the sub powered down.
11:45We had a bit of issue with one of the battery banks, Stockton had mentioned, we're not seeing full vertical
11:54thruster availability.
12:04The supposed goal of the trip was to test it to the exact depth of the Titanic.
12:11We got 96% of the way there, like we're getting closer to it, but we're not touching it.
12:24The cracking sounds were continuing, so at some point, collectively, we came to a decision of, well, that's good enough,
12:34let's call it a day.
12:38I'm sure we were within a few percentage points of implosion.
12:48After his experience, Carl Stanley decided to warn Stockton Rush that the noises could mean the sub's main hull was
12:56no longer safe.
12:59Mr. Stanley, you sent an email in April 18th, 2019, I believe, to Mr. Rush.
13:06You say the sounds we observed yesterday sounded like a flaw, defect in one area being acted on by the
13:12tremendous pressures and being crushed, damaged.
13:16Would indicate there is an area of the hull that is breaking down, getting spongy.
13:26I was very much concerned that I kept sending him emails for over a year, and I didn't even know
13:33a fraction of what we know now.
13:39You know, I feel this exchange of emails strained our relationship.
13:43I felt like I kind of pushed things as far as I could without just him telling me to shut
13:49up and never talk to him again.
13:52It's become clear during the investigation that the damage was worse than Carl had suspected.
13:58And after dive 47, Stockton found out about a crack.
14:04After dive 47, one of the pilots for Oceangate was getting ready to do a pre-dive inspection of the
14:11hull.
14:13And he was able to identify a crack in the carbon fiber.
14:17The layers of carbon fiber were beginning to come apart, known as a delamination.
14:23This is what had caused the crack.
14:32In the Arizona desert, Tim Catterson, one of Oceangate's contract safety divers, is building his own steel submersible.
14:41Using carbon fiber was an option he never even considered.
14:46Hardly anybody in the public is familiar with carbon fiber.
14:50It's stable all the way up until this magic point that it is not.
14:58The failure happens catastrophically, nearly explosively.
15:05As you're diving down, the pressure's getting greater.
15:09They heard big pops.
15:11So you got your fibers are like this.
15:14When this breaks like that, that would make some pretty loud pops.
15:18It's pulling apart from one side and is now starting to roll up underneath itself.
15:24That's delamination by its definition.
15:30The damage to Titan meant it would no longer survive the pressures of the deep ocean.
15:36So early in 2020, Stockton had no choice but to completely replace the hull, building once more with carbon fiber.
15:46He was convinced that with slight modifications to the processing of the carbon fiber, this sub would be able to
15:54repeatedly dive down to depth.
15:58It's been a long process to ensure that Titan can go to the Titanic repeatedly and safely.
16:04He was not going to be swayed from using carbon fiber.
16:07We've refined the process so that we have extremely uniform, five-inch thick carbon fiber.
16:13However, Stockton and Ocean Gate needed to maintain their company vision of taking people in a carbon fiber, innovative, submersible
16:21for the trip of a lifetime.
16:23I can't wait to get out to the Titanic.
16:28Titan was relaunched with its new carbon fiber hull early in 2021.
16:34The Titanic expedition plans were well underway.
16:37But Ocean Gate had disregarded U.S. guidelines for carrying passengers.
16:43They did not register it.
16:45Why would they not register it?
16:47One reason to not register is to make sure that no one from a regulatory standpoint is monitoring operations.
16:54You know, by design to operate in a manner that you stay off the radar.
17:00The saga of the Titanic's sinking and rediscovery has captured...
17:04At this GeekWire conference, Stockton Rush attempts to justify why Titan was not properly certified.
17:11And today we're honored to host one of the explorers who is literally bringing new light to that saga.
17:17Stockton Rush.
17:18There are certifying agencies, the Pressure Vessels for Human Occupation Committee, the Subsafe program in the Navy.
17:26These programs are over the top in their rules and regulations, but they had nothing with carbon fiber.
17:32So we had to go out and work on that.
17:35And one of the things I learned is, you know, when you're outside the box, it's really hard to tell
17:39how far outside the box you really are.
17:42And we were pretty far out there.
17:54Hey, Josh.
17:55Hey, how are you, man?
17:56Glad you made it.
17:58We had read about Ocean Gate, and we thought this would be a great story for Expedition Unknown.
18:05Here was this innovator that was going to come and break design barriers and to create a next-generation submersible.
18:14Discovery presenter Josh Gates saw Titan as his chance to take the trip of a lifetime.
18:21I'm on board.
18:23Hi, everybody. How are you?
18:24How's it going?
18:27Stockton was a really compelling salesman, and that's a good way to describe him, I think.
18:32So this is the largest viewport on any deep-diving sub in planet Earth.
18:39Stockton's answers felt rehearsed.
18:41They felt like they were the smooth answers that you were bound to get as you cruised the showroom floor
18:48for a new car.
18:49Carbon fiber will be one-third the weight of a similar titanium structure.
18:54Right.
18:55We all rely on that spidey sense.
18:57We all have that little voice that whispers to us.
18:59And that voice started whispering to me early on.
19:02All right.
19:04The only way to get in or out of Titan was through the front.
19:08Thank you, sir.
19:10Copy that.
19:12And so when you climbed inside of it, and they closed that door, they seal you in from the outside.
19:18Okay, the door is closed. Now what's happening to it?
19:20They're bolting it in.
19:21How many bolts go around it?
19:22Four bolts.
19:23Four bolts.
19:26So we're in.
19:27Yes.
19:27We're sealed up.
19:29You are a prisoner. My prisoner.
19:31I'm happy to be here.
19:32Stockton just didn't see, even psychologically, the need for a way out of this sub.
19:42This is Titan. Topside. Topside. Titan.
19:45There you go.
19:46There you go.
19:47It's going to take it pretty steep. That's where it gets interesting.
19:54Pretty good.
19:56Yeah, we are underwater.
19:57We were in the sub for hours with Stockton, and the dive was interesting in that nothing really worked right.
20:06I'm having trouble with our port horizontal thruster.
20:10Okay, let's roll that.
20:20Aft is unlocked. No UBT light.
20:24Good, then?
20:24The sub didn't really do anything it was asked to do.
20:28Now this guy helped me down at Titanic, too, right?
20:30Yeah.
20:31Yep.
20:34They have an emergency overwrite on the VBT.
20:38Yes, we have a software problem.
20:39Then there was an issue with the software.
20:42The system crashed at one point.
20:44Hello?
20:44Hello?
20:45Can you copy?
20:47Motor doesn't even seem to be moving, but the control program says it's moving.
20:51No current.
20:52Yep, I don't like when the thrusters go up.
20:54We may just go back to the platform rather than go to the bottom.
20:57Okay.
20:57We're pretty much here.
20:59Hey, topside.
21:02I mean, it was non-functional, is a good way to put it.
21:08And so eventually it was decided that we had to scrub the dive and bring it back to the surface.
21:15Okay, we're up.
21:16We're going to get some good footage.
21:18Big time.
21:19And this will make it a different story.
21:21On the way back to port, Josh quizzed Stockton about being in Titan on deeper dives.
21:27How noisy is it when it goes down?
21:29Is it pretty quiet?
21:30Oh, it'll be quiet.
21:30There's usually a bang somewhere.
21:32Most subs have a bang of some type.
21:34When I was in the sub before, and it was, you know, I'll play you what it sounded like when
21:37the carbon fiber is collapsing around you and you don't have much time left.
21:41This is what it sounds like.
21:42And what, you just were sending, ascending, ascending at that point?
21:45No, no, I was going down.
21:46I kept going down because, why not?
21:50I don't know if it'll play on the speaker.
21:55Those click sounds, that wasn't a mouse clicking.
22:01And you could feel it.
22:02I was in the dome.
22:02I could feel these things popping.
22:05The second dive, I put earplugs in.
22:06Right.
22:07And it worked much better.
22:08I just ignored it.
22:09Right.
22:10Yeah.
22:10It wasn't just a red flag for me.
22:12It was like a flare had gone up.
22:15Josh confronted Stockton about how much testing Titan had undergone.
22:21Okay.
22:21Oh, we're back.
22:23So we've had 52 dives in the sub to date.
22:27Test dives.
22:27Test dives.
22:28Okay.
22:28And a year and a half in the Bahamas testing the sub.
22:30But we've done a massive upgrade of the software systems and some of the external components.
22:35And we're testing.
22:37And so those things, you test, test, test.
22:39And I was thinking, when did they go back and test this new sub in the Bahamas?
22:45And I couldn't quite make the dates line up in my head.
22:49What Stockton hadn't told Josh was that this Titan, with its replaced hull, had only been tested so far on
22:58three shallow dives.
23:01Pieces of it were tested in the ocean.
23:04But the main pressure hull, once it was refabricated, never went back to depth.
23:11All right.
23:12I suddenly realized, what would it mean if I made this kind of promotional documentary about Stockton and about Ocean
23:20Gate that maybe inspired other people to go and take a ride in this sub?
23:24And then something happened to it.
23:27And so I made the really difficult decision to call up the president of the network and to fall on
23:32my sword and say,
23:33I know that this is something that was a big deal for you to sign off on, and I appreciate
23:37the opportunity, but we shouldn't do this.
23:40This is a mistake.
23:41Something bad is going to happen here.
23:42Yeah, no, I'll get there.
23:44In the very short time that I spent with Stockton, it absolutely seemed like he had something to prove.
23:50Currently, Stockton's directing this, too.
23:52Okay.
23:54He wanted to kind of, you know, damn the establishment, and I'm going to kind of show them,
23:58and I'm going to, you know, be this cutting-edge entrepreneur and inventor and do it my own way.
24:10Certainly, Stockton had the money.
24:13He had the vision.
24:15He had the drive to do this.
24:20He invited me once to go out flying with him.
24:25He's got an experimental aircraft.
24:29Experimental.
24:31And he said, do you want to fly?
24:34Give me that thing.
24:36So, you know, I'm flying the airplane a little bit.
24:40It's great fun.
24:42And then he says, do you want to do a barrel roll?
24:46Sure.
24:46He told me how to do it, and then I did one.
24:53Basically, we were just doing this stuff, and he said, you know, this is great.
24:57Nobody else ever wants to go and do this stuff.
25:00I said, well, it's either going to work or it's not going to work, you know.
25:04While we're doing it, it's going to be a, you know, a great fun time.
25:08Yeah, we could have crashed.
25:15Somewhere, somewhere in there, we were a kindred spirit.
25:20Why I kept working with him, I don't know, because I definitely did not say yes to him all the
25:25time.
25:31My dynamic with Stockton was interesting.
25:35We didn't agree on everything.
25:37You know, Stockton wasn't always right, but he was always sure he was right.
25:41Businessman and adventurer Alfred Hagen was one of the first to sign up for Stockton's Titanic expedition.
25:50I mean, he was a genius, and he had a very distinct vision of what he was going to build,
25:56how he was going to do it, and what he was going to achieve.
25:58I'm here with Stockton Rush, who is the CEO of OceanGate.
26:01You know, there's no doubt in my mind that his primary motivations were more ego-driven than financially driven.
26:10Well, Stockton was guilty of hubris, and people accuse him of trying to prove himself and live up to his
26:17own ancestry, and those are relevant points.
26:21His family legacy was about the closest that you could get to royalty within the United States.
26:30Stockton was a true blue-blood patrician, as was his wife, Wendy.
26:35You know, her great-grandparents were the people that owned Macy's, whose lives were lost on the Titanic.
26:42She had that direct connection.
26:44They were of the upper crust.
26:50I don't think most people can even imagine the access that Stockton had to the uber elites of the world.
27:01Stockton's father had been the president-elect of the Bohemian Club, which owns a multi-thousand-acre reserve of old
27:12-growth redwood forest an hour outside of San Francisco that they use for their private campground.
27:21Who cares where the original funding came from?
27:24You know, it doesn't matter.
27:26It's what he was doing with it.
27:27That's what mattered.
27:29He pitched an idea to people at the right place in the right time that threw money at him, and
27:36he felt some kind of psychological need to accomplish something and impress these people.
27:44Don't miss the opportunity to be part of history.
27:47Ocean Gate Expeditions offers you the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be a specially trained crew member safely diving
27:55to the Titanic wreckage site.
28:00Rushing things to market so that a business can become profitable or stay afloat is obviously dangerous.
28:09The Titanic is one of the most amazing brands in the world.
28:13People are so enthralled with Titanic that it became a must-do dive.
28:20And so, from a business perspective, it was very appealing.
28:24I understand the draw to go down and see the underwater world, the Titanic, firsthand.
28:31But how do you keep the person safe who doesn't understand submersible operations, who just knows they want to go
28:37see something unique, taking the ultimate risk like that?
28:41Especially in a kind of a commercial arrangement.
28:45They're paying passengers.
28:51So, to confirm, to become a mission specialist, did you pay Ocean Gate any money?
28:57I did.
28:59As a mission specialist, were you part of the submersible crew, or were you a passenger?
29:05Well, both.
29:06I was a passenger who was given the latitude to participate in the mission.
29:13I didn't do any of the, what I would say, critical items, but certainly, you know, Titan bolts on the
29:21dome and other things that I would qualify as what we would say in a slang version, monkey work.
29:30Alfred paid a discounted price of around $200,000 to join the first expedition in 2021.
29:38He was on deck as Titan was launched for its first attempt to reach the Titanic.
29:43The dive, number 61, was abandoned at seven meters.
29:48But as the submersible was hauled back up the ramp, another, more serious failure occurred.
29:56Did you observe the incident as the dome fell off?
30:01Yes, I did.
30:04The titanium dome, there were only four bolts in it, and they just sheared, and they exploded like bullets.
30:10Suddenly, the people inside were looking out at the ocean, down a ramp, and obviously a horrifying moment.
30:17Stockton and his team had taken the decision that only four of a possible 18 bolts needed to be used
30:25to fix the titanium dome to the carbon fiber hull before a dive.
30:30The thought with the four bolts was simply that once you went to depth, I mean, you didn't need anything
30:35to hold on.
30:35The pressure was so intense that you couldn't pry it off.
30:39Stockton wanted to appropriate any pictures or videos of the occurrence.
30:44So there was a dedicated effort to hutch that up.
30:48Despite witnessing that incident, Alfred remained determined to get down to the Titanic.
30:53It did not deter me because I understood that they made basically a dumb mistake and they had corrected it.
31:00It was not a safe operation. It was an experimental vehicle.
31:05It was clear to me from Mr. Higgins' testimony that he had a very high risk tolerance and that he
31:12felt like there was a possibility that the worst could occur.
31:17And when Alfred did get his chance to go on Titan's next dive, they were forced to abort the attempt
31:23halfway down.
31:27Anyone that went down in it either knew or should have known how risky it was.
31:32They were either embracing that reality or they were delusional.
31:43Christine Dawood lost her husband and son in the implosion.
31:48This hearing is now back in session.
31:50She watched the hearings from her home in the UK.
31:54It felt like a real crime horror film, to be honest.
31:58The strain of flying there and staying and going there would have been, I think, too much.
32:04I guess there was an element of doubt in myself.
32:10Like, did I miss something? What could I have done differently?
32:21Oceangate celebrated reaching Titanic depths six times that summer.
32:31Stockton, emboldened by their success, was back in the North Atlantic with Titan for a second season of dives in
32:372022.
32:40Hi, my name is Stockton Rush.
32:42I'm the CEO and founder of Oceangate.
32:44Let's take a look at Titan.
32:46So we're coming into the sub.
32:48This is the only toilet available on a deep diving submersible.
32:53Best seat in the house.
32:54You can look out the viewport.
32:55We put a privacy screen in, turn up the music.
32:58It's very popular.
33:00We have our control screen here, our sonar screen here.
33:05This is the second year we've been out to the Titanic.
33:08We're a completely privately funded operation.
33:10And we're funded by, we call mission specialists, who help support the mission.
33:14So they take quite a bit of money.
33:15We want to document what the wreck is like now and also try to predict what it will be like
33:19in the future.
33:26Midway through the season, Antonella Wilby joined the ship as a contract crew member.
33:30She is an expert in underwater, remotely operated vehicles.
33:36From the moment I stepped onto the ship, I never forgot it.
33:40I was signing, I had to sign the liability waiver.
33:43And Stockton was there, and two, a room full of people, some of them who had paid him lots of
33:48money to be there.
33:49All I really knew was a quarter million dollar price tag.
33:53He says, the company's registered in the Bahamas, and they don't do punitive damages, so don't even bother suing me.
33:58And he says this with a laugh.
34:00And I was so shocked, I wrote it down.
34:01That's a verbatim quote, because I wrote it down right after this meeting, because I was just shocked.
34:09I wasn't even aware the extent of how ridiculous and unsafe their operation was.
34:17Even just the level of attention to detail in inspecting the sub or pre-diving the sub.
34:22You know, I'd walk around right before a dive and just find, you know, cables that were loose or unplugged.
34:29We wouldn't send an ROV down like that.
34:31And they don't have people on an ROV.
34:34It's entirely remotely operated.
34:38How does this guy keep taking this sub down?
34:42Delusion or desperation?
34:45Someone who is so deep into this and has so many creditors at the door and has their personal reputation
34:53on the line
34:55that they have to move forward and keep forging ahead, because there's no other path.
35:03Basically, it's like, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
35:06We're going to work on to talk about all these different little things.
35:09No one actually notices, wait a second, like, there's a bigger problem here.
35:14It felt like watching some really bizarre surrealist movie or something, and I'm the only one going, this is insane,
35:22right?
35:27All right, good morning, everyone.
35:30Headed back to the Titanic.
35:32Right now, we did vessel checks this morning.
35:35A couple of very minor anomalies, which is great.
35:42On the morning of 15th of July, the Titan crew prepared for Dive 80.
35:50Alfred was back in the hope of finally seeing the Titanic up close.
35:54I'll do that.
35:55It was one of those moments where you embrace the possibilities, you embrace the unknown.
36:05Platform target line, we'll get you in place.
36:07Titan is a go for a dive to the Titanic.
36:10In that moment, you're living a life trembling with joy.
36:14That's the essence of what I felt.
36:22Unlocked.
36:22Unlocked.
36:23We're unlocked.
36:24We're unlocked, okay?
36:30Really?
36:52Oh, my God, that's it.
36:53Yeah, yeah, yeah.
36:57Pretty close.
36:58Yeah.
36:59Yeah, that's it, that's it.
37:01We are right at the bottom.
37:09Oh, my God, we're pretty close here.
37:15Above here?
37:15Oh, yeah.
37:16That's the funnel number one?
37:19Where is the actual phone?
37:20Oh, my God.
37:21Oh, they're on the stern.
37:24It's a devastating thing to look at, but it's also awe-inspiring and inspirational in some ways
37:31and deeply sobering.
37:36And that's where they were launching the lightboats.
37:39Yeah.
37:44After the dive, it took two hours for Titan to return to the surface.
37:54Right now, we're doing three knots, and we're trying to get back to the sub.
37:59We were ascending in the Titan.
38:01We were actually fairly close to the surface, as I remember, and we heard a loud crack.
38:11It sounded like the ship breaking apart.
38:14It was very loud.
38:16It was very dramatic, and everyone sat up and, like, what was that?
38:22Look at that blue.
38:24It's getting bright.
38:26Yeah.
38:28You can see the surface almost.
38:32That's a pretty welcome sight.
38:36I spoke to a member of the Horizon Arctic crew about the bang that was heard.
38:41I was, you know, just concerned and kind of shocked that this had happened, and he told
38:45me that he heard this bang.
38:47He was able to hear it from the surface.
38:50It must have been loud.
38:52When we got to the surface, Scott was piloting.
38:54He heard a really loud bang.
38:56Not a soothing sound.
38:58No.
38:59But on the surface, and as Tim and PH will attest, almost every deep diving sub makes
39:06a noise at some point.
39:07You have dissimilar shapes and metals that are expanding due to thermal interaction, due
39:13to pressure changes, and it's quite common to have a noise.
39:18I heard that, and I was just, like, shocked.
39:20And no one else really sort of reacted, and then Stockton sort of shut it down, and, you
39:23know, just, oh, we'll talk about that later.
39:25And, you know, for me, my initial reaction was, like, hold on.
39:29You know, you don't...
39:31Even if you heard your car make that sort of noise, you'd probably stop and go, wait a
39:34second, we need to, like, see what happened here.
39:40At the U.S. Coast Guard headquarters, Lieutenant Commander Katie Williams has been studying
39:46the data from Dive-80 obtained from Oceangate.
39:50This picture here is of the placements of the acoustic admission sensors on the Titan.
39:57These acoustic sensors pick up and record any noise from the carbon fiber hull.
40:05Oceangate recorded this data, and they plotted it.
40:09On Dive-80, this purple line was a loud bang.
40:12There is this huge amplitude.
40:20When they heard this loud bang, there should have been all stop, do not continue, investigate
40:26further to make sure that that carbon fiber hull was still safe for people to operate in.
40:31The data reveals that the loud noise was, in fact, the carbon fiber delaminating.
40:39Titan's hull was beginning to break apart.
40:46You don't need to be a composites expert to think, okay, maybe we need to step back and
40:53stop the operation until we figure out what this actually means.
40:57But of course, as with anything with Oceangate, the response was to just go, oh, okay, and
41:03then just keep going.
41:06Their system said there has been a fundamental change in the material of your carbon fiber,
41:11and it was no longer structurally sound.
41:14Delamination at Dive-80 was the beginning of the end.
41:17And everyone that stepped on board the Titan after Dive-80 was risking their life.
41:26I've gone back and forth a lot, like, whether I should have done more, you know, whether
41:31there's some moral obligation to do more.
41:35Antonella contacted the Coast Guard and volunteered to give evidence at the hearing by video link.
41:41I felt like it was the right thing to do to, you know, share what I knew and tell that
41:46part
41:46of the story.
41:47Lieutenant Commander Williams.
41:49So as I understand it, you were present during Dive-80 on July 15, 2022, where a loud bang
41:57was heard upon surfacing.
41:58Am I correct?
42:00Yes.
42:01Can you please tell me in detail about what you know about that dive?
42:07I wanted to say something before the next dive, because they were going to be diving the sub
42:13a couple days later.
42:15After I went to Amber Bay, the director of administration.
42:22I told her I was really concerned that they were going to continue diving the sub.
42:26Her initial response was, yes, people are concerned about you two.
42:30You don't have an explorer mindset.
42:32Talking about explorer mindset, like, that is not a mindset that you should have for doing
42:35anything.
42:37I did also talk to Phil Brooks.
42:38He's the director of engineering.
42:40And I asked him, are you going to keep diving the sub?
42:42And he said, yeah, we'll do the next mission, and then we'll visually inspect it.
42:45And I was just shocked by this.
42:47I'm like, you're going to continue diving it.
42:49Like, you don't know what's wrong, and you've seen evidence that something has happened in
42:52the hull.
42:53And I said, something has gone really wrong here.
43:01The hull itself, you're not going to hurt the hull.
43:03From the standpoint of the passenger safety, you're going to be alive, because the hull,
43:07nothing is breaching the hull.
43:08It's the safest spot on the entire planet.
43:10But the stuff around it can get smashed and mangled, and then that can delay launches and
43:15dives and all kinds of stuff.
43:17They offered to send me home, and I said, yes.
43:19You know, no one even looked at me.
43:21Like, I just grabbed my duffel bag and walked off the ship, and, like, people wouldn't make
43:25eye contact with me.
43:28After dive 80, Stockton was undeterred.
43:32And over the following week, Titan carried passengers on three further deep dives.
43:42Two and a half miles down, and it's difficult.
43:45That's why no one else does it.
43:49After dive 80, every single time you would go down to depth, you were further damaging
43:54that hull.
43:55Eventually, something bad was going to happen.
44:02You guys should be able to see it.
44:04All right.
44:05Right now, they will cruise around the bow, and they'll spend about two hours on that,
44:09and then they'll come up and take about two and a half hours to get to the surface.
44:12Okay.
44:12Next up, Titanic.
44:14Titan reports on bottom.
44:16Woo!
44:20The unique thing that we're doing here, and we're in a unique spot where it's like where
44:24so many people pass away, there are a lot of, you know, parallels.
44:28That was a ship that was, you know, more of the finest ships of its day, and I think we
44:31have
44:32a sub that's one of the finest subs.
44:34We want to make sure we do things safely and have a good outcome and are able to take people
44:40down to the wreck for many years to come.
44:47And if he admits defeat and failure, and then has to tell this to the people that had given
44:57him so much money, what's the rest of his life look like?
45:01There's no possible way that Stockton didn't know how this was going to end.
45:06It was just a matter of, is it going to fail with me in it or with other people?
45:12It was obvious that it was going to fail in some way.
45:19This arrogance of the people in charge, when they think they're above everything, that
45:29really gets to me.
45:33Like, why is ego and arrogance more important than safety?
45:39The irony is not lost on me that the Titanic sunk for exactly the same reason.
45:47In May 2023, Stockton and the Ocean Gate team brought Titan back to the North Atlantic for
45:53its third season.
45:55For the first few weeks, poor conditions meant four dives were cancelled or aborted.
46:02Then, one morning, the weather finally broke.
46:08It was a perfect day for diving.
46:13The seas were calm, the wind was down.
46:18What was your responsibility on that day?
46:20Basically, I did all the dive checks for the platform.
46:25Stockton was the pilot.
46:27He was doing all the internal checks.
46:30He's like, this is great, this is great.
46:33We get to dive.
46:37On board Titan with Stockton was adventurer Hamish Harding.
46:43Titanic expert Paul-Henri Narjalee and Shehzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleiman.
46:53Suleiman knew nothing about it.
46:55This was just his grand adventure.
46:57As the same for his father, Suleiman was close to the last to going in.
47:03And when he came up, I grabbed him by the back of his flotation device, you know, pull him
47:10and make sure he's not going to go sliding off into the water.
47:15And I helped him get in.
47:17I helped him get into the sub.
47:20And then I said, have a good dive.
47:35At 9.14 a.m. local, according to the Polar Prince deck log, the Titan disengaged, maneuvered
47:43away and proceeded to dive with five persons aboard.
47:51They're going down to see the Titanic.
47:53You have this young boy, you know, who's excited.
47:58His dad's excited for him.
48:00The quiet, right?
48:03What questions, what conversations were they having?
48:10For the next 90 minutes, Titan descended towards the Titanic.
48:17Communications continued throughout the descent.
48:20There were no transmissions which indicated trouble or an emergency aboard the Titan.
48:26At 10.47.33 a.m. local, the Titan was pinged for the final time.
48:34With Titan just 500 meters from the ocean floor, all communication was lost.
48:44Recently retrieved video from the support ship cameras has allowed the Coast Guard to see
48:49that moment for the first time.
48:54Okay, so what you're going to see is Miss Rush as she is on the comms and tracking team.
49:00She leads that team, right?
49:02Yes.
49:02You will hear a noise that is external to the ship or external to the room, I should say,
49:07and you will see their reaction to the noise.
49:10Okay.
49:26So at that point you said, what was that bang?
49:28What was that bang?
49:28I'm going to back up and play it one more time.
49:30It sounds like a door slamming.
49:34Yeah.
49:36Yeah.
49:36It should be about 500 meters.
49:41Yeah.
49:43What was that bang?
49:45Now next, she's going to look at the computer and she says, drop two weights.
49:49Drop two weights was the last message from the Titan up throw.
49:53Right.
49:54The message actually comes in after they heard the noise of what could possibly have been
50:00the implosion noise.
50:01Right.
50:01Okay.
50:02Drop two weights.
50:06Yeah.
50:07Drop two weights.
50:10It appears that she thinks something happened or she, she senses something and then the relief
50:15once she sees drop two weights.
50:19What we believe is implosion sound came first before the computer message of drop two weights,
50:25based upon the speed at which the acoustic telemetry modem chat and the speed of actual sound.
50:32That final text took several seconds to arrive on screen, longer than the sound of the implosion
50:40took to reach the ship.
50:43That is, I mean, you figure it's a fatal moment, you know, all, it is, it's very sobering.
51:02It is.
51:04It is.
51:04It is.
51:07It is.
51:10It is.
51:14wreck of the Titanic went missing in the Atlantic Ocean.
51:17The Canadian Coast Guard, they have new ships that have just
51:20arrived on scene.
51:21The Horizon Arctic, a ship that can drop a remotely
51:23operated vehicle.
51:25But if they find that sub, they've got a huge challenge
51:27lifting it up out of the water, maybe from a depth of two
51:31and a half miles.
51:35There's no other explanation for losing comms and tracking
51:41when they weren't yet at the bottom, other than implosion.
51:45They found what they were looking for.
51:48It was no longer a search and rescue, but a recovery.
51:57They found debris.
52:07Stockton would have understood the reality
52:11of an implosion being instantaneous and painless.
52:16You're talking about something happening in a fraction of a second
52:20where you're exposed to temperatures hotter than the sun
52:24and pressures more than double what's inside a scuba tank.
52:29So they, you know, they didn't feel a single,
52:33it's basically the perfect painless way to die.
52:40This was a moment in time when their sub was there and then it was not.
52:53This is the life of my son and my husband they're talking about.
52:58This is the life of Hamish and two others who died there, right?
53:03So it's, it was deeply personal.
53:08So I would never want anybody to go through that pain.
53:23So here is a picture of the aft dome that came up.
53:27It is filled with carbon fiber, fiberglass, electronic parts.
53:31As we're pulling each item out, we have to individually separate it and we placed it out on two tarps.
53:40So we're sifting through and we realized what it was, um, the clothing material.
53:47It was the portion of Mr. Rush's suit, the piece of his sleeve that has survived.
53:55No, not the whole suit, um, just that.
53:57And inside of the sleeve of it was ink pen, business cards, and stickers for the Titanic.
54:17My belief with the dead is just leave them alone.
54:20Same goes for Stockton.
54:23I wish he was here right now and I would smack him one, you know.
54:27Um, it's, it, it does no good to, to, to speak ill of the dead.
54:35Yeah, it's.
54:41Their voices are still in the house.
54:44Their memories are in the house.
54:50I think I will never be the same person, ever.
54:56I, I don't think that anybody who, who goes through loss and, and such a trauma can ever be the
55:03same.
55:05As the U.S. Coast Guard investigation draws to a close, Christine has to face their conclusion.
55:14It doesn't change the fact that they are dead.
55:18No matter what the investigation is, the rooms are still empty.
55:24They're not going to come back.
55:25They're never going to come back.
55:28So, do I need to know exactly what happened in order to come to terms with these empty rooms?
55:35Or not, and, and, and, and, and I don't know the answer yet.
55:38Well, it's a, it's a, it's a process.
55:48After almost two years investigating the tragedy, the Marine Board of Investigation reviews the findings, which will eventually inform their
55:57report and recommendations.
56:00Ocean Gate gave this idea that they were safe, but when you look at all of the things that Ocean
56:06Gate bypassed and didn't do, safety was not their priority.
56:10It was a monetary gain.
56:12It was arrogant and he felt that his way was the only way and the best way.
56:15And I mean, I don't know why he felt that way, but he did.
56:20Black people perished because of it.
56:24There were so many opportunities for Stockton to stop this operation from happening, and he always chose to continue the
56:31operation instead of thinking about it from a safety perspective.
56:37With regards to the actions and the inactions of Mr. Rush, continued failures to properly inspect the hall, failures to,
56:46to properly identify risks and risk mismanagement.
56:50So many steps and so many failures that, that got to where this happened.
56:54So really what we have here is not an accident.
56:58It's a potential crime.
57:02He knew the risks he was taking with that carbon fiber haul and with the Titan, but he didn't tell
57:07anybody else about those risks.
57:09Because he had to make the money.
57:15When people are doing things like spending a quarter million dollars in a death tube controlled by a game controller
57:24that wasn't tested by a guy that's telling you how he wants to be remembered for breaking rules.
57:32It's a message to the super wealthy, the oligarchy, if you will, that your money can't buy everything.
57:40If you want to be an explorer, an inventor, an innovator, that's awesome.
57:47But when you start inviting the public, when you bring a kid into this thing you've invented, you have a
57:57responsibility at that point to be totally forthright about what it is that you're offering.
58:06We all know who the culprit is.
58:11It's not changing anything, does it?
58:15The culprit died with them, right?
58:17So who am I to blame?
58:44It's not changing anything, does it matter?
58:47It is still a logic.
58:51It's a natural agenda.
58:51It's not changing anything.
58:53It's a natural myth.
58:57It's a handbook potion.
58:57It's absorbing anything through to twolaimings all the time.
58:58It's too much ISSUE
58:58I'm listening to that one.
59:28Transcription by CastingWords