After years of construction, testing, and failures, OceanGate has sent a next-generation submarine and its crew to the area where the Titanic sank for the first time.
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“ We had to overcome enormous engineering, operational, business and ultimately COVID-19 challenges to get here and I am so proud of this team and grateful for the support of our partners ,” OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush said in a press release .
OceanGate's first 12,500-foot dive in the North Atlantic, where the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank during its maiden voyage from England to New York in 1912, has brought to light photographs showing the frame of a stained glass window and fragments of floor tiles from the ocean liner.
The loss of the ship and more than 1,500 passengers, as well as the discovery of the wreck in 1985, made the story of the Titanic one of the most famous maritime tragedies in history.
OceanGate Expeditions’ mission to the Titanic site will include multiple dives and use 3D imaging techniques to document the wreck’s condition in detail. In 2019, another dive team reported that the Titanic’s decay appears to be accelerating. Rush and his colleagues plan to survey the wreck annually to monitor how it, as well as the surrounding sea, changes over time.
See also: The sinking of the Titanic as it really happened
Scott Griffith, OceanGate's director of logistics and quality assurance, is also a partner. The dive team also included mission specialist PH Nargeolet, a former naval commander and submarine pilot who is referred to as "the most experienced Titanic diver in the world."
Nargeolet said the Titan OceanGate proved that “innovation and security can go hand in hand.”
One of OceanGate Expeditions' innovations has to do with the way the dive crews are organized. Some crew members are OceanGate employees and some are researchers.
Each team of expedition specialists will spend approximately a week on the support vessel, Horizon Arctic , and will have the opportunity to participate in a dive.
OceanGate pilots use a video game-style controller to guide the submersible. Titan's mobile launch and recovery system, which can be deployed from any vessel suitable for the expected sea conditions in the targeted dive zone, is innovative enough to be patented.
One of the most complex innovations involves Titan’s hull, which is made of carbon fiber and titanium. When the first version of the hull was built and tested, experts decided that it might not be able to withstand the extreme pressures found on the seafloor. As a result, OceanGate engineers had to go back to the drawing board and build a new hull with guidance from NASA and other partners.
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OceanGate also had to deal with weather difficulties encountered during test dives in the Bahamas and regulatory issues related to Canadian maritime law. Last year's coronavirus pandemic was also a challenge.
All of these delays cost money, a major reason why OceanGate turned to private investors to raise $16 million for the mission in early 2020.
