OceanGate’s Titan submersible imploded in June. OceanGate/Getty Images
The Titan submarine reached the Titanic wreck on 13 of about 90 dives, according to a passenger waiver.
This meant that OceanGate’s success rate in its deep-sea expeditions may have been as low as around 14 percent.
Titan failed a test dive in 2021, and other trips were canceled in the previous three years.
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The OceanGate submersible Titan only reached the depth of the Titanic wreck on 13 out of about 90 dives, according to the company’s waiver.
The submarine made “only 13” dives 12,000 feet to the Titanic, according to a waiver signed by a potential passenger, seen by Business Insider.
That means the company, which three times described the Titan submersible as “experimental” in the four-page liability waiver, may have only had a success rate of about 14 percent in its dives to Titanic depths.
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OceanGate said it has conducted more than 14 expeditions and 200 dives in the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico using two submersibles, like one Archive of his website emerges, while the first successful dive to the Titanic occurred in 2021, as Forbes reported.
But since the submarine’s disastrous implosion on June 18, which killed all five people on board, several problems with the design have been uncovered.
Rob McCallum, who has been an advisor to OceanGate since 2009, raised security concerns with CEO Stockton Rush in 2018.
McCallum told Business Insider that the company’s technical approach was “ad hoc” and “ultimately inappropriate,” but the red flags he raised in emails to Rush viewed by Insider were dismissed.
One of the submarine expert’s biggest concerns was that the submarine had not been certified or approved by any regulatory body, according to the waiver.
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The waiver also states that the Titan submarine “was constructed from materials not previously commonly used for manned submersibles.”
Guillermo Söhnlein, who co-founded OceanGate with Rush, explained BBC Newsthat the submarine has undergone a “rigorous testing program” that it has been tested over a 14-year period and that it is “very robust”.
Brian Weed, a former passenger, explained However, Business Insider said the sub failed a test dive in 2021 because its thrusters stopped working. It was said to be stuck underwater for more than two hours and never went deeper than 100 feet (30 meters).
Tests of the submarine at the Deep Ocean Test Facility in the US also found that the carbon fiber hull “showed signs of cyclic fatigue” at a shallower depth Geekwire. OceanGate subsequently had to cancel planned dives to Titanic in 2018, 2019 and 2020, the report said.
An OceanGate representative told Business Insider the company was “unable to comment.”
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