Why the Titanic sub imploded | 60 Minutes Australia

They had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, but the prize for the passengers onboard the OceanGate submersible, Titan, was supposed to be worth every cent. They were promised the chance to visit the most iconic shipwreck in history, the Titanic.

But somewhere along the journey, 3.8 kilometres down into the hostile depths of the north Atlantic Ocean, catastrophe struck. As Amelia Adams reports, valuable lessons must be learned from this tragedy. The brutal reality is this wasn’t an adventure. Rather, like the Titanic, it was a disaster just waiting to happen.

For over forty years, 60 Minutes have been telling Australians the world’s greatest stories. Tales that changed history, our nation and our lives. Reporters Liz Hayes, Tom Steinfort, Tara Brown, Nick McKenzie and Amelia Adams look past the headlines because there is always a bigger picture. Sundays are for 60 Minutes.

#60MinutesAustralia

[johnjake]

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” - Charles Bukowski

[Stalicone]

I was a cave diver in the 1980s and 90’s. My colleagues used to call me the “deco queen” because I saw no need to try and exit the water as quickly as possible instead opting to build safety factors into my decompression schedules. We were doing deep cave dives over 300 feet deep.

I was always the last to surface, to their jeers and derision. They would already have all their gear stowed and were changed into street clothes when I was still climbing out of the water.

I was also the only one who never suffered from decompression sickness.
Never let anyone pressure you into cutting safety corners.

[Wipsplash]

I like the reporter keeping it real when she said there must be something wrong with the sub because 5 people are dead.

[stalelemonproduction]

That opening statement is just so raw:
"The reward for the titan passengers was supposed to be life changing. Instead, it was life ending"

[DavidGS]

I have a mechanical engineering degree & Stockton Rush had an aerospacial engineering degree, so I know we both studied fatigue failure, so after watching this video, I'm still baffled how Stocton Rush wasn't doing testing to retire his sub before fatigue failure. It's gross negligence.

[txbill]

Clear to me that Stockton Rush felt he was right and everyone else was wrong. Avoid those people at all costs.

[letstalk]

The way he dodged and pivoted away from the question about the unnecessarily risk...10/10

[Four_Words_And_Much_More]

As an engineer, clearly this submersible was a very high risk device. My experience and training said that there was not enough testing without human life at stake. Thus, it is no surprise that 5 died needlessly. That attitude that "this is the price of exploration" is utter nonsense to an engineering mind.

[joanna]

LOL that one guy from Oceangate says James Cameron doesn't know what he's talking about yet Cameron has dived to the Titanic 33 times and even built his own submersible to go down into the Challenger Deep, which is the deepest point of the ocean on the planet. Did it SOLO and came back to tell the tale.

[TURBOINTEGRATYPER]

The guy was like most business owners. Cut corners where you can, break rules, save costs even if it jeopardize safety, and fire people who talk.

[Jon_Flys_RC]

I love Australians. They are as un-filtered as they come. She didn’t hold back asking anything.

[StarflightProductions]

When Robert Morganson wrote the book "Futility" in 1898, it spoke of a great ship sinking in the north Atlantic with an insufficient number of lifeboats after striking an iceberg. The irony here is while this eerily corresponds with the events of the Titanic disaster, the name of the vessel in the book... was the "Titan"

[hjk]

Watching the co-founder try to defend Stockton Rush and the sub is unbelievable. He knows he's being sued into oblivion, so trying to "spin it" is all he can do, but he really shouldn't.

[Casterman]

Amelia your interview was spot on with Stockton’s friend. You kept circling back saying people are dead and just glared at him. Brilliant

[timbaland]

It's hard to fathom a kid’s entire existence being annihilated in milliseconds despite him having better intuition than the multimillion-dollar engineers who created that Fisher-price playset of a sub. Denying the obvious safety issues associated with the titan is perhaps the biggest slap in the face to the families involved.

[Philip-heqc]

That poor 19 year old kid thought that he was just going out with his father to have a good time and never realizing he was at a death trap at 19 years old unbelievable in Heartbreaker

[Andrew-wyji]

As a polar oceanographer, I am intrigued by the assertion of the man defending OceanGrate in this piece that the Titan was somehow breaking new ground in oceanography. I haven't once encountered anything in the scientific literature where the Titan was responsible for a new discovery. Perhaps I am reading the wrong journals. If you want to see how discoveries are made with a submersible, look no further than the work done by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

[chinadoll]

The look on his face after being told by the reporter “apparently something went wrong because 5 people are dead.” Was priceless 🤔

[calvancandy]

Well done to the father and son who didn’t trust the quality of the submersible and pulled out.

[Sean-go]

Humans say…”Watch I’ll cut corners”. Nature says…”Here hold my beer.”