How Titan was Built, Lost and Found: An Analysis

This week the maritime research community and world as a whole was shocked by two tragedies at sea; the sinking of passenger vessel of Greece which took hundreds of lives and the loss of the OceanGate submersible Titan diving on the wreck of Titanic. Because this channel's focus is on Titanic and her history, I will be covering the latter in detail today as many of you have reached out for more information.

Frankly I have been disappointed but not ultimately surprised at the coverage of this event across the globe as well as the general feeling and response from much of the public online. Out of respect to families and friends of those lost I have tried here to present a factual account of what has happened and why. This video goes into some detail around the design and construction of Titan and the technology that was used in the search for her.

With special thanks to @jimryan4056 for letting me use the amazing footage of the underwater sonar ping.

Oceanliner Designs explores the design, construction, engineering and operation of history’s greatest vessels– from Titanic to Queen Mary and from the Empress of Ireland to the Lusitania. Join maritime researcher and illustrator Michael Brady as he tells the stories behind some of history's most famous ocean liners and machines!

0:00 Introduction
2:33 Why Even Dive on Titanic?
7:02What is Titan?
08:34 How was Titan Built?
15:08 Debris Discovered
16:00 The Search for Titan
19:52 Visual and Radar
21:35 Passive Sonar
27:20 Active Sonar

#titanic #titan #sinking #ship #history #documentary

[iwannaratrod]

A couple of potentially key aspects that weren't mentioned in this video:

A - The viewport was only rated for EDIT: 1300m. That's 1/3 of the depth to the Titanic. That was a flagrant, known danger point. Russian roulette on every dive with a negative safety margin.

B - The engineering spec for the carbon fiber thickness was 7". They built it to 5".

C - Preface: I used to work at Boeing on the 787 program, both post-cure and pre-cure. The 787 is mostly made of carbon fiber. Pre-cure was basically a low-level clean room. Not an open warehouse where people were at working areas with loafers and polo shirts. Every single large co-cured part underwent ultrasonic inspection and any defects fixed, and checked again for verification. The submersible did not get any testing for voids, inclusions, nor delamination after it was built. Any small one of those SIGNIFICANTLY weakens a co-cured composite structure by a significant amount.

For them claiming to be primarily interested in scientific pursuits, they intentionally disregarded science, engineering, and safety standards, then claimed they got in the way of innovation. I'm fine with innovation, but when innovating, you put no lives or only put your life on the not putting several uninformed lives on the line. In my opinion, the passenger's deaths are akin to homicide. Rules were intentionally disregarded, then lives knowingly put in significant danger.

Edit: I'm in no way meaning to imply the video missed points intentionally. The stream of information about the disaster comes and goes, and I'm certain there was no ill intent, intentional misinformation, nor deliberate skipping of information.

[emb]

James Cameron was basically right. Cut corners. Ignored warnings. Needless catastrophe waiting to happen….
Right next to the Titanic. Like modern day Shakespeare.

[steveoltjenbruns]

Can’t speak for the weapons system aboard USS Colorado, but as a former submariner, there is a very big difference between the Titan being completely controlled by a game controller, and a game controller literally only controlling the periscope. Not to mention that the control surfaces (at least on board a 688i) have several redundancies and other places they can be controlled even if the ships control panel is damaged.

[botanifolf]

Funny how oceangate's stated goal was for science, yet they ignored every piece of scientific and engineering advice from everyone more qualified than rush

[Pilot_]

Great video! I gotta add, I was one of the CP-140 pilots, I flew the search over the 96th hour and was leaving the scene as the wreckage was discovered.
As an ASW aircraft, acoustics is our bread and butter. We know the difference between biological, background noise, surface vessels, and subsurface sounds. The entire time the “banging” we heard was unlike anything we’ve heard before. It was to a cadence and we located it to a very small area of probability on the sea floor. It seemed to respond when we dropped Mk84 eSUS, or used active to Ping as a mode of communication. This is why we believed they were alive.
As more ships arrived on scene, background noise drowned out the banging we heard, but we could still hear it on occasion and easily differentiate noises.
The area we triangulated the banging to come from, in part using the echos through a passive sono grid and strategically positioning surface vessels to block certain echos, is where the wreckage was found. At the moment, we don’t know what the banging was, but could have been wreckage tumbling in the strong currents or small implosions from life support equipment as it settled. It’s a tragic ending and all assets on scene really gave it their all.
Thanks for making a great video that lays it out nicely.

[acefighterpilot]

The only open question I have about Titan is where the incompetence stopped and the willful negligence began.

[giglefreakz]

At the end of the day, it appears this incident was caused by no small amount of hubris and carelessness by OceanGate. Untested construction techniques, ignoring safety regulations and dismissing safety concerns.

Simplicity and "risk taking" is something for consumer technology, not when human lives are at risk when visiting one of the most extreme environments on Earth.

[May-qbvx]

My father was a sonar tech in the navy during the Cold War and he used to tell me that the things he’d hear in the ocean would probably freak a lot of people out. Really freaky stuff down there.

[afauxican_american]

I was on a submarine for a few years and this is one of the craziest stories I’ve ever heard. He was basically submerging an RV. Absolutely bonkers.

[MikePhillips-plov]

It's commendable you defended the OceanGate project, both its design, and its reason for existence - science. But I'd dispute that, as a scientist who has been professionally involved in studying and mapping the seabed, and I've made digital photogrammetric 3-D imagery. There isn't any science that this submerisible could do that couldn't be done as well, or better, by remote vehicles mapping the Titanic in detail. Which has already been done and which you pointed out. In fact the Titanic has now been mapped in incredible detail.

Taking with them a man and his young son, both of whom had no scientific background, or reason to be there (apart from sightseeing) does not suggest any genuine science. Ok perhaps we could justify their presence by saying the company needed paying customers (with a high ticket price) to fund the project. But if doing genuine science, skip the need to make the vessel big enough for fee-paying passengers, and just build a smaller one (to take only genuine scientists), made from titanium as a sphere - as you showed in your excellent breakdown of Alvin.

Finally, if this was all about science, why did Stockton Rush do the exact opposite of that? i.e. ignored the science that showed what materials you could and couldn't build with, ignored the necessary certification (which all genuine scientists would adhere to), and ignored what other experienced experts were telling him.

It smacks at best of massive overconfidence in his own abilities, at worst of extreme arrogance.

[Matt-vszz]

I'm honestly surprised they found it. Amidst all that wreckage, they were able to locate (at least part of) that tiny submersible. Says a lot for the skill of those involved.

[debbiejarus]

Very informative video, Mike. Although Ocean Gate existed supposedly for science, Rush was still criminally negligent in many areas involving the Titan. He, obviously, had faith in his design but had definitely not reached the point where the Titan had been confirmed safe for others to join the dives.

[OceanlinerDesigns]

EDIT JUNE 26: Hijacking this top comment to answer to claims that I am being an OceanGate "apologist". I'm sorry if my intention wasn't clear on this video; I am in no way affiliated with the organisation nor commenting on whether it was right or wrong to use this submersible. I only mentioned OceanGate's MISSION STATEMENT and pointing out that, at their core, OceanGate is an organisation with a scientific purpose with many operations not just related to Titanic dives. For Titanic specifically their science missions did the following;

- Film Titanic in high definition from many angles to track deterioration and try to capture, on camera and in high definition, undersea organisms
- Take water samples and use DNA analysis to identify organisms and try to match this with the footage taken from that specific dive

Whether this is correct scientific method is beyond me; I just wanted to point out that OceanGate, the entire company, is not a sightseeing organisation as a whole based the above information.

What is clear is that their business model then relied on public backers to keep these missions going and that those backers were given the opportunity to join the dives as assistants. Whether this is a pure "tourist" operation is open to interpretation by the viewer - I think it is a part of the business model but not the entire thing.


I have not made any comment on whether the methodology or design doctrine was right or wrong - I have merely outlined what that design doctrine was.

A CORRECTION: In referring to Titan’s wall thickness I mentioned 7” when I actually meant to say 5”, 127mm. Apologies for this misspeak!
ANOTHER CORRECTION: Some of you have pointed out that my De Havilland Comet metaphor is based on outdated information. Thanks for this and I will read more into it, but suffice it to say the original point still stands - that a spherical structure or a round structure does a better job at distributing stresses evenly throughout the structure.

[TheRibottoStudios]

I'm glad James Cameron said what we were all thinking. The irony of the situation is astounding. This didn't need to happen. Those who don't learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.

[MaterialMenteNo]

7:45 there's a huge difference between using a wired controller of good quality to operate some specific equipment and using a bluetooth controller infamous for its clumsy performance to operate the entire thing. The philosophy was not "simplicity", it was "let's just cut any possibile corner because I'm smarter than anyone else".

[TMBGTransformer]

that sonar sound made my cat SO UPSET. jumped off the couch and has been looking around in confusion with wide eyes for the past 5 minutes.... never seen him react like that to any noise lmao

[michaelimbesi]

Thank you. Speaking as a naval architect, this has actually been probably the single best-done video on this accident. You’re clear, concise, and level-headed, and you’re actually knowledgeable about this type of thing.

[AndyHappyGuy]

Now this is how a video about the Titan incident should be done. Thank you for remaining respectful.

[DIFFLOCKERS]

The Titan was built by people who thought they knew better, Lost by people who thought they knew better, and found by people who knew better.

[Artmis]

I know that their deaths are said to have been instantaneous and painless, but right before it, the fact that they had the time to try some methods of resurfacing means that they had at least some seconds that they knew that something was wrong... and that's a horrifying feeling to imagine.