Canada's Transportation Safety Board has released its report into the implosion of the Titan submersible, pointing to serious problems with the vessel's design, its testing and the oversight around it. The deep sea craft imploded three years ago while on a mission to visit the wreck of the Titanic off the coast of Newfoundland, killing the five people who were on board.
At the heart of the findings is a blunt conclusion. The board determined that the Titan was not really built to a known standard and that it had not been tested properly. It relied on materials and a design that were unusual and largely unproven for a vessel meant to withstand the crushing pressures of the deep ocean.
Among the unconventional choices, the report noted that the Titan used carbon fiber instead of the more common steel, and that it was shaped as a cylinder rather than the proven spherical form used in most submersibles. The vessel also operated using a plastic game controller, an unusual detail that drew attention after the disaster.
The board said that each time the Titan dove, it accumulated more damage, and the risk of a catastrophic failure increased with every descent. At the time of the implosion, investigators found the carbon fiber hull was at about 82 percent of its fatigue life, meaning it was nearing the end of what it could endure.
The vessel's design ran against established rules, something its operator had openly defended before the tragedy. The company's founder had argued that he broke certain rules with logic and good engineering behind him, including combining carbon fiber and titanium in a way that he acknowledged the industry warns against.
The report also pointed to a breakdown in oversight within Canada. The board found that communication between federal bodies simply did not happen, with agencies identifying problems connected to OceanGate but failing to pass that information along to Transport Canada, leaving no one to assemble the full picture.
As an example, the board noted that a representative from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans met with OceanGate in 2021 and found that the Titan was not classed. With those warning signs never pieced together, the federal government is now facing criticism for a lack of oversight that, the report suggests, might have flagged the dangers sooner.