Long before the Oceangate Expeditions Titan submersible embarked on its fateful final voyage, oceanographers, engineers, industry experts and former employees sounded the alarm about the ship, whose design had undergone standard rigorous testing. He warned that failure to do so could have serious consequences.

The role these factors may have played in the ship’s “catastrophic implosion” on its way to the wreckage of the Titanic, which killed the entire crew and led to a multi-day search that turned national attention. brought a tragic end. Officials said the focus of the ongoing investigation is likely to be partially focused on industry safety standards.

Few official details about the scope of the investigation have been released. It remains unclear which country will take the lead in investigating the catastrophe, which took place on the high seas and affected various countries.

“There are a lot of questions about why, how and when all this happened,” U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger told reporters on Thursday.

But for those familiar with Titan’s design and operations, safety concerns existed long before the accident. Oceangate declined to comment further beyond the company’s statement on Thursday.

In 2018, an Oceangate employee flagged a vessel in a lawsuit against the company, specifically refusing to undergo an external review and endangering passengers. That same year, dozens of submarine industry experts warned the company’s CEO, Stockton Rush, that the ship’s “experimental” approach could have “mild to catastrophic” consequences. warned in a letter that They pressed him to undergo rigorous scrutiny by classification societies such as DNV and the United States Bureau of Shipping regarding the Titan.

“Although this may require additional time and money, our consensus view is that this third-party verification process is an important component of the safeguards that protect all submariner crews. is,” the letter said.

Liz Taylor, president of Deep Sea Exploration Research, Inc. (DOER Marine), which designs and builds remotely-operated vessels, said the submarine industry has achieved many firsts while maintaining an impeccable safety record. “The way to do it is to work and test,” Taylor said. But Ms Rush didn’t want to hear it, she added.

“On the surface, he felt he had done enough or knew better,” she said.

Rush publicly refuted the criticism. He said safety regulations helped the industry avoid accidents and injuries, but they also stifled growth and adventure. “One of the jabs he throws at us is, ‘Dude, you’re not certified.’ But how can you do something new and get certified?” Rush said of Maptia. I asked in my 2022 article: He referred to General Douglas MacArthur, adding, “I think it was MacArthur who said, ‘You will be remembered for breaking the rules.'” We are intelligently and intentionally trying to break the rules. ”

Rush was the pilot for this week’s expedition. He died along with four other passengers, officials said. Hamish Harding, chairman of Dubai-based aircraft sales company Action Aviation. Paul Henry Nargiolet, a seasoned diver who has visited the Titanic sinking site more than 30 times. Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and her son Suleman.

“Once certified, it’s not like you can keep using that ship and go on expeditions over and over again,” says a marine geologist and chief scientist at the Environmental Systems Institute who travels to the deepest points known. said Dawn Wright.Last year, riding on the ocean floor of the earth limiting factor underwater. “It’s like doing an oil change on a car. You maintain it, tune it up, do an oil change. Keep it safe and keep it in good working order.”

Submersibles are typically made using titanium, steel and, depending on the planned depth, acrylic. They are all proven to withstand the changing water temperatures and crushing pressures of deep water.

Ships are usually spherical in shape to distribute pressure more evenly, but pressure builds up rapidly as you dive.

In contrast, the 21-foot-long Titan had a carbon fiber composite hull with titanium end caps and was shaped like a tube. At a price of about $250,000 per person, this was a more affordable approach that could accommodate more passengers.

Experts say Titan’s unconventional design has not undergone a meticulous external review process, leaving it vulnerable and dangerous.

of water pressure at depth The Titanic is about 12,500 feet high, about 400 times above sea level. Carbon fiber that can maintain internal pressure, can be unstable Small cracks are more likely to occur when external pressure is applied, which can be fatal. There was also concern about the danger of different reactions to changes in ocean pressure and temperature due to the combination of various materials.

“There’s something that’s supposed to stick to prevent the sea from invading, [the materials are] It’s shrinking at different rates,” said Harvard marine scientist Peter Gergis, who has taken several deep-sea dives throughout his career.

Ships and other vessels, ironically in a sense, adhere to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, a global treaty enacted in 1914, shortly after the Titanic. But Salvatore Mercoliano, associate professor of maritime history at Campbell University in North Carolina, said submersibles would operate in a gray area on the high seas because there are no global standards.

“This is the Wild West,” he said.

The Titan left Canada and was loaded onto a Canadian ship and launched to a remote location in the North Atlantic Ocean. As such, there was no need to register with the country, fly a flag or comply with regulations set for other types of vessels, Mercoliano said.

“It’s like putting a boat in the back of a trailer and towing it with a car,” he says. A police officer who stops a car might ask for a license or registration check on the car or trailer, but “I don’t care about boats, they’re out of their jurisdiction,” he said.

That’s also why it’s 1993. Passenger Ship Safety ActU.S. laws that essentially set requirements for when passenger submarines must be registered with the Coast Guard do not apply to the vessel, he said.

In 2019, Oceangate published an online blog post, “Why Titans Are Not Classified?” Industry standards focus only on “physical container verification,” according to the post, which appears to have been deleted.

“They do not ensure that operators are adhering to proper operational procedures and decision-making processes. These two areas are more important in mitigating maritime risk,” the blog post said. It is stated.

But some experts said Titan doesn’t even have a basic contingency plan. According to former U.S. Coast Guard officer Aaron Davenport, most vessels doing high-risk work are a sort of emergency locator beacon that sends a signal to anyone with access to that frequency, including the Coast Guard, allowing them to respond. is planned to be installed. board member. Titan didn’t seem to have such a beacon, he said.

Taylor said the submarine classification also corresponds to standard operating procedures and emergency procedures. One of her criteria, especially when working remotely, is to have a self-rescue capability ready to go on site, she said. “There was none of that in this case,” she said. The ship didn’t even submit a plan to the Coast Guard, which she called “normal procedure.”

Before Taylor launches the submarine, he calls various facilities in the area to inform them of the plans and to find out what resources are available.

“If you can’t tick all the boxes, you’re no good,” said Taylor.

Another critic is Titanic director James Cameron. He spent more than 30 days in the ship’s wreck and helped design a submarine that later navigated to the deepest points of the world’s oceans. He told Reuters he wished he had sounded the alarm sooner, adding that he was skeptical when he heard Oceangate was building a deep-sea submersible with a composite carbon fiber and titanium hull. rice field.

“I thought it was a terrible idea,” Cameron said. “I wish I could have spoken out, but I thought someone was smarter than me because I hadn’t tried the technology, but it sounded bad on the surface. .”

Oceangate co-founder Guillermo Thornlein appeared in various media outlets to defend the company and respond directly to Cameron’s comments. There are many different opinions on how submersibles are built and how submersibles are operated, he said. He said it was “impossible” for anyone not involved in the Oceangate process to guess.

“This is a 14-year technology development program that has been very robust and has certainly led to the successful scientific understanding of the Titanic over the last few years,” he said in another interview. BBC Radio 4 on friday.

The Coast Guard said on Thursday that it had discovered Titan’s wreckage using a remotely operated vehicle that can search the ocean floor. Mauger said the debris coincided with “a catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.”

The robot continues to search the ocean floor for debris to build a timeline of the ship’s final hours. Mauger said regulations and standards are likely to be the “focus of future reviews.”

Coast Guard officials said they found several key parts of the Titanic, including a nose cone, pressure hull forward end and pressure hull aft end, in a rubble pit about 1,600 feet from the bow.

Oceangate Expeditions, which owned and operated Titan, is based in Everett, Washington, but the submarine was registered in the Bahamas. The Polar Prince that launched Titan was from Canada, and the people on board the submarine were from England, Pakistan, France and the United States.

A government official familiar with the investigation said he had no authority to discuss the investigation, but that Canada would likely play a leading role.

The Coast Guard declined to comment.

Los Angeles-based Times staff writers Noah Goldberg and Jonah Valdes contributed to this article. The Associated Press also contributed to this report.