Debris from the ill-fated Titan submersible vehicle that prompted a search mission and captured the attention of the world was found Thursday, indicating that it imploded with five people inside.
As the timeline of the tragedy becomes clearer, it seems that the sub imploded Sunday, shortly after it lost contact with its support ship. This leaves a lingering mystery: what were the “underwater sounds” reported by the U.S.
Coast Guard Tuesday and Wednesday?
What was the Titan?
Titan was a submersible vehicle made from carbon fiber that had one viewing window and was operated by OceanGate. Stockton Rush, 61, founded OceanGate in 2009. He was one of the five who was on the Titan when it launched on June 18.
Hamish Harding, 58, chairman of Action Aviation; Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 73, a Titanic expert; Shahzada Dawood, 48, one of the richest men in Pakistan and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood were also on board.
Passengers aboard the 21-foot long submersible were on their way to see the wreckage of the Titanic on the sea floor. In April 1912, the luxury passenger liner sank after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic during its maiden voyage. Around 1,500 people died in the disaster.
Since the wreck site – located around 900 nautical miles off of Cape Cod – was discovered in 1985, there have been dives to the site, including many by James Cameron, director of the 1997 film “Titanic”. While OceanGate, the company operating the Titan, had pulled off successful dives there in the past, there have been questions about the safety of the vehicle. Cameron himself said that the carbon fiber material used to make the hull was not appropriate for deep sea diving in an ABC News interview.
Retired travel industry businessman Bill Price also told Audacy’s KNX Radio there were difficulties with the Titan’s first launch. He was one of the passengers.
“We lost communication with the support ship, and that was a concern,” he said. But at the same time, everyone was healthy and we had enough air, so everything was fine.”
However, as they tried to release weights holding the sub down and get back to the surface, the mechanism to release them wouldn’t work.
“We proceeded to, all five of us, you know, go to one side to the other in a swaying type motion,” Price explained. “And then eventually, after a few attempts, we heard a clunk and the first weight was dislodged.”
Jay Bloom, a Las Vegas financier, also told KNX this week that he narrowly avoided being on the June 18 trip. He and his son, a Titanic fan, were initially excited but then became concerned after researching the Titan.
“He started to research it and expressed his concerns to me,” said Bloom. “And I brought them back to Stockton. And Stockton was kind of dismissive. And the more we dug and the more we looked into it, the more things we found that concerned us.”
About the search
Although a number of vessels were deployed to help search for the Titan, a Thursday report in The Wall Street Journal revealed that the U.S. Navy detected noise of an implosion around the time the vessel lost contact Sunday. It used a system that monitors for enemy submarines.
On Thursday, a remotely operated vehicle discovered a debris field approximately 1,600 feet off the bow of the Titanic, according to the Coast Guard.
“The ROV deployed to the Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic, discovered the tail section of the 21-foot submersible, Titan, that went missing Sunday,” said a press release. “Experts from within the unified command are evaluating the imagery and debris while continuing ROV’s search efforts near the Titanic to locate additional portions of the Titan.”
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada announced Friday that it is launching an investigation into the incident.
About the mystery noises
Before the debris was located, the Coast Guard said that “underwater sounds,” had been detected in the search area. These would have occurred after the Titan is believed to have imploded.
CBS News reported that these sounds were “described as banging noises heard at roughly 30-minute intervals.”
“With respect to the noises, specifically, we don’t know what they are, to be frank with you,” Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick said at the time.
Carl Hartsfield is an expert in underwater acoustics and the director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. His team helped with the search.
“The ocean is a very complex place, obviously — human sounds, nature sounds,” he explained, “and it’s very difficult to discern what the sources of those noises are at times.”
Indeed, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has an entire program dedicated to recording underwater acoustics. In a 2012 TED Talk, Scandinavian biologist Magnus Wahlberg explained how detections of fish fart noises have resulted in diplomatic meetings.
Even the Titanic wreck site “makes a lot of noise even as the current shifts through it,” said former rear admiral Chris Parry, according to Sky News.
“If the implosion happened well above the ocean floor, fragments of the submersible may have spread across a wide area, said James G. Bellingham, a professor of exploration robotics at Johns Hopkins University, per The New York Times. “They will have to search for Titan debris amid the Titanic debris on the bottom,” he added.
It is unclear if that would have contributed to the noise.
“U.S. Navy analysis determined that the banging noises heard earlier in the week were most likely either ocean noise or noise from other search ships,” said a Navy official cited by CBS News. Per the Coast Gard, many vessels were deployed for the search.
What is clear is that an alleged recording of the noises circulating online is not authentic, according to an Associated Press fact check.
“The audio that spread online first plays a sonar-type beeping, followed by muffled banging and the the sound of splashing water. An image that combines two photos – one of an OceanGate submersible and another of the Titanic wreckage – serves as a backdrop for the audio,” said the outlet. Text on the image states: ‘Here’s the audio of the knocking they caught from the submarine.’”
This incident may have horrified many people, but Paul Hochman of Humongous Media told WBBM’s Noon Business Hour that it may not deter billionaires from attempting it again.
“I think it would for me, because, you know, if I’m deciding what to spend my dollars on, then I’m definitely in to rule out high risk,” he said. “I don’t know how billionaires will look at this, but I definitely think there will be maybe a modest dent or maybe some pause. But I think it’s going to continue.”
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