The last message from the imploded Titan submersible seemed to suggest the crew thought they were “all good here” before they lost contact. The US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation revealed the final communication with its support ship the Polar Prince on Monday, the first day of a two-week hearing about the deadly accident.
According to an animated video about the tragedy, the Titan went underwater near the Canada coast around 9:30 am on June 18, and exchanged communication with the ship for 40 minutes before problems seemed to arise as the ship repeatedly asked the submersible if it could see the Polar Prince on its display.
Fifteen minutes later, the submersible responded by saying it had “lost system [and] chat settings.” At 10:15 am, after the ship asked again, “status? do you see the polar prince on your display?” the Titan submersible responded “yes” and “all good here.”
Communication then became shaky again before the submersible lost contact once more. The last message received by the ship was that the submersible had “dropped two wts,” regarding her weight. Less than a second later, contact was then lost.
The Titan submersible imploded and killed five people near the Titanic wreckage in the North Atlantic Ocean in June 2023. The craft, owned and operated by OceanGate Expeditions, was designed to take high-paying customers on deep-sea adventures, such as seeing the Titanic up close. The five people on board included pilot and OceanGate's founder and CEO Stockton Rush, British aviation businessman Hamish Harding, Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, and his 19-year-old son, Suleman.
In a statement last October, the Coast Guard said its Marine Board of Investigation “recovered” the remaining remnants with presumed human remains being “transported for analysis by US medical professionals.”
According to the Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation, the two-week hearing will “review testimony from technical experts, crew members, and other relevant parties, and will examine evidence related to the submersible's design, operation, and safety protocols.”
