How many times has OceanGate been to the Titanic? Tether system, oxygen levels, and all we know so far

OceanGate, the private American company based in Everett, Washington, owns the missing submersible Titan carrying five tourists that vanished underwater on the morning of Sunday, June 18. OceanGate is famous for developing industrial, research, and exploration submersibles.

Before this recent expedition, OceanGate sent its submersibles twice to the Titanic wreckage site, once in 2021 and then in 2022. In fact, last month, right after the date of this year’s mission was finalized, OceanGate’s official Twitter handle made a post saying that it “always expects new challenges.”

The ongoing search and rescue operations by various agencies such as the US Coast Guard, Canadian Coast Guard, both US and Canadian navies, and of course, OceanGate revealed hearing possible “banging” noises near the missing submersible’s last location. More than 7600 miles of open sea have already been searched.

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OceanGate’s submersible has 96 hours of oxygen supply

OceanGate’s submersible Titan was carrying five famous people, including British billionaire Hamish Harding, French submersible pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet, Shahzada Dawood, and his son Sulaiman from Pakistan’s infamous Dawood family, and OceanGate’s CEO and founder Stockton Rush.

As per BBC reports, OceanGate’s Titan is 6.7 meters in length (about the size of a truck) and can go to a depth of 4000 meters (Titanic lies at 3810 meters). Besides, it weighs around 23,000 lbs and is made up of titanium and filament-wound carbon fiber.

It can sustain five people for a total of 96 hours on board with its oxygen supply. This means they have about till the end of Thursday before the oxygen runs out.

Just like its last two missions, this time too, the OceanGate submersible carried a pilot, three guests paying 250,000 dollars each, and a content expert. Moreover, as per schedule, the expedition kickstarted from the port of St. John’s in Newfoundland (435 miles south of the Titanic wreckage site in the North Atlantic).

A Canadian vessel named Polar Prince carried the passengers and the submersible to the location before leaving for the Titanic site. However, 1 hour and 45 minutes later, the control room above water lost contact with the underwater carrier.

A full dive to the ruins including both ascent and descent takes around eight hours. As per the company’s website, so far it owns three submersibles and only Titan can reach the depth of the Titanic.

Unfortunately for the missing passengers, neither the GPS nor the radio onboard function underwater. As for the tether system, Titan is designed in such a way that if the mother ship is directly over the submersible, it can send and receive short text messages.

However, since Sunday, there has been no response, except for the recent intermittent “banging” sounds lasting for 30 minutes straight, and reappearing after four hours. It is presumed that the noises came from the pothole windows and were detected by a Canadian “Remotely Operating Vehicle.”

Another challenging part is that even if the submersible somehow manages to rise to the surface, it cannot let the passengers out without outside help as the Titan is sealed by external bolts.

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Problems during previous OceanGate expeditions

Apart from the 2023 expedition, OceanGate has already launched two others in 2021 and 2022 to the Titanic wreckage and has two more scheduled for 2024.

While this time, the expedition “almost ended” before it even began, the previous two were successful, although not without their problems.

During its maiden dive, the submersible faced a battery problem and had to be manually linked to its lifting platform during its final ascent. In doing so, the Titan even sustained minor external damages. However, none of the passengers were hurt.

Likewise, last year too, the expedition was temporarily stopped due to technical glitches. Not only that, one of the passengers onboard, a former New York Times columnist David Pogue, later clarified that Titan was an “experimental vessel.”

He further stated that the bond that he and the other passengers signed clearly mentioned that the submersible was not “approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, emotional trauma or death.”

At that time, the company had argued that the Titan was so “innovative” that it would take many years to “get it certified by the usual assessment agencies” in one of their blog posts.

Prior to that, as many as 38 members of the Manned Underwater Vehicles Committee (MUVC) of the Marine Technology Society who are submersible craft experts issued warning against OceanGate’s Titan, saying it was not equipped to travel all the way to the Titanic wreckage.

It also added how the submersible’s marketing was “at minimum, misleading.” MUVC is a six decades old organization devoted to studies, research, promotion, and raising public awareness about ocean technology.

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The Titanic hit an iceberg and sank during its maiden voyage on April 15, 1912, and killed more than 1500 people onboard. Since 1985, expeditions have been made to its wreckage site. The expeditions increased after the release of the 1997 blockbuster movie Titanic, featuring Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet in lead roles.