Titan: The tale of an avoidable tragedy

Ending a five-day search party for Titan, on Thursday, the US Coast Guard announced that they have found the debris of the deep-sea submersible vessel, and revealed that the vessel was lost after a "catastrophic implosion," killing all five passengers on board. 

A large debris field containing multiple sections of the vessel was spotted some 488 metres (1,600ft) from the bow of the Titanic earlier in the day by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) scouring the seabed.

Five major fragments of the 6.7-metre (22ft) Titan were located in the debris field left by its disintegration, including the vessel's tail cone and two sections of the pressure hull, Coast Guard officials said.

Titan had been missing since it lost contact with its surface support ship on Sunday morning about an hour, 45 minutes into what should have been a two-hour dive to the world's most famous shipwreck.

Those onboard the submersible were British adventurer Hamish Harding, 58; French veteran Titanic explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77; British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son Suleman; and 61-year-old American Stockton Rush, co-founder of OceanGate, the company that operated the sub.

It seems that vessels named Titan have a way of getting lost. That point was proven again, about 110 years after the original behemoth sank in the Atlantic, taking the lives of hundreds, including wealthy magnates Benjamin Guggenheim and John Jacob Astor IV. 

The downsides of extreme tourism

The remains of the Titanic were found in 1985. Since then, it has been the site of wonder for many, including the legendary director of 'Titanic' James Cameron, who dove 33 times to see the remains of the Titanic up close and study for his Oscar-winning movie. For quite some time, the opportunity to visit the Titanic remained confined to researchers, scientists and expeditions.

However, seeing the Titanic wreck for the first time, while risky, can be the experience of a lifetime. And many of the world's most wealthy people are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for such an opportunity. 

American company OceanGate Expeditions exploited this opportunity and opened the door for 'Titanic Tourism'. They offered eight-day expeditions that allowed guests to explore the Titanic more than 13,000 feet below the ocean's surface utilising five-seat carbon fibre and titanium underwater vehicles. According to the company's website, the once-in-a-lifetime experience costs $250,000 per participant.

Even with a quarter-million-dollar price tag, there has been no shortage of those interested in such an adventure. The OceanGate Expeditions submersible experience, has a large waitlist, according to Philippe Brown, founder of the luxury travel business Brown and Hudson. 

From billionaires like Jeff Bezos travelling to space to other wealthy citizens visiting the Titanic shipwreck, extreme tourism has grown in popularity among thrill-seekers seeking an adrenaline rush, stretching the boundaries of normal travel and, in some cases, safe travel. And every now and then, tragedies happen, even when they were avoidable.

How safe was Titan?

Although OceanGate would claim that the deep-sea diving submersible was always safe and the Titan tragedy was only a blip on the radar, facts may state otherwise.

To visit the wreckage of Titanic, lying 3,800m under the Atlantic Ocean, a submersible vehicle the size of a minivan must be boarded. It takes approximately two hours to reach the sunken ship and another two hours to return to the surface, plus time spent visiting the wreckage. So, the vessel must have the capability to endure the pressure of dropping over two and a half miles into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean for a prolonged period. 

James Cameron came out lambasting OceanGate after Titan had gone missing, citing design flaws that potentially caused the accident. 

The filmmaker, who has dived multiple times, including diving in a self-designed vehicle to the bottom of the planet's deepest recesses, has highlighted a couple of oddities in the vessel that he assumed would have been found out by someone. 

Cameron pointed out that implosion was not a typical factor in a fatality at such depths. For such accidents to take place, there had to be major design flaws. 

In an interview with Reuters, he expressed reservations about the submersible's usage of composite carbon fibre and a titanium hull. He went on to say that the technologies used in its creation "sounded bad on its face." However, he did not come out before, as he had never experimented with the technology. 

Carbon-fibre composites are frequently employed in the aircraft industry due to their small weight, but being stronger than steel and aluminium. The same material, however, cannot be used to create an undersea vehicle that will face tremendous compression as it dives deeper into the abyss due to an increase in water pressure.

Cameron also chastised the owner and CEO of OceanGate, Stockton Rush, who was also the vessel's pilot, for certifying the submersible as safe to paying clients without proper inspection. 

Moreover, David Lochridge, former Director of Marine Operations at OceanGate, was met with hostility when he raised concerns about Titan's window and pressure tests. He was later fired,  after airing his complaints to government regulators and OceanGate's management, with the latter then suing him for breach of contract. Funnily enough, Mr Rush had previously dubbed Lochridge as 'the best man for the job'. 

Greed and lack of regulations 

All of these beg the question: why would a company like OceanGate which charges $250,000 for each dive not maintain safety standards? 

Firstly, deep sea tourism is a highly profitable business that is becoming increasingly popular day by day. More importantly, the customers are often wealthy and are willing to pay obscene charges to get a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Any whiff of safety concerns could have been disastrous for OceanGate. And so, they swept it under the rug.

But more importantly, much like any other public service, OceansGate submersibles should have undergone safety inspections from government regulators. Unfortunately, as Jon Heshka, an academic at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, suggested, the government was not simply interested in regulating an industry with such a niche market until the industry could no longer regulate itself.

Now that it is evident that no industry, no matter how rich its consumers are, can self-regulate. It's saddening that the lesson had been learnt at the expense of valuable lives.