Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Getty
The OceanGate incident is coming to a head much like the Titanic itself: slow, painful, and tragic. On Thursday afternoon, OceanGate and the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed that debris found around the Titanic wreck appears to be from the company’s Titan submersible “consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.” This means that the five crew members of the Titan are presumed to be dead.
Details about the journey and about the submersible are still to come to light—and it doesn’t look good.
The vessel—which saw its first maiden voyage in 2021—is largely experimental. It’s unlicensed, which means no regulatory body inspected it to ensure its safety. It also lacks basic emergency features like a location beacon to send its coordinates in case of disaster; or even a navigation system that other deep-sea submersibles have. Instead, OceanGate relied on a control room onboard an expedition ship on the surface to help maneuver the Titan around the ocean.