Chilling new graphic shows entire doomed final journey of Titan sub…including haunting last words of ill-fated crew
A CHILLING new graphic shows the entire doomed final journey of the Titan sub – including the haunting last words of the five crew who died.
It comes as part of a two-week-long hearing into the tragedy that killed five people held in Charlestown, South Carolina, by the US Coast Guard.
The simulation video shows the MV Polar Prince transporting the Titan and its crew from St John’s, Newfoundland in Canada.
It then shows the vessel’s journey to the dive site above the Titanic wreck.
The Titan is then dropped into the ocean and begins to descend while speech bubbles appear showing conversations between crew and its support vessel.
Communication between the OceanGate submersible and the support ship suddenly stopped around an hour and 45 minutes into the deadly 150 minute descent.
The last words from crew to the support ship Polar Prince said everything was “all good here”.
Audio became more spotty as it descended, with the Polar Prince asking if the Titan could see the Titanic on its display.
The Titan was still able to send one message when the submersible was 3,341m deep – an hour-and-a-half after it began its journey.
The message read: “dropped two wts” and was sent at 10.47am.
Six seconds after the message was sent the Titan was pinged for the final time at a depth of 3,346m.
There was no communications between it and the Polar Prince mother ship the indicated any trouble or emergency on board the sub.
The Polar Prince began to realise the worst had happened when it sent a message to the Titan at 10.49am saying it had “lost tracking”.
They continued to message the doomed sub every two to three minutes, but by 11.15am they told the Polar Prince’s master there had been a loss of communication.
On board were British explorer Hamish Harding, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush and French deep-sea explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
US authorities said a “catastrophic implosion” occurred, killing all on board instantly.
The coast guard were eventually called at 6.27pm after the Polar Prince had spent three hours searching.
“Presumed human remains” were recovered from the ocean floor in two recovery operations.
The remains were taken ashore and were matched with the profiles of the victims on board the submersible.
The hearing also heard that in 2018 the vessel was struck by lightning which left a “significant blow to the structure”.
That caused it to fail a test by a wide margin.
Rapid decompression also occurred during testing phases of the project years earlier, the hearing heard.
A bombshell new lawsuit claims the explorers knew they were going to die after a failed last bid to save themselves.
OceanGate, the company that built the Titan, released a statement offering their “deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who died”.
The spokesperson said: “There are no words to ease the loss endured by the families impacted by this tragic accident.”
The hearing is scheduled to last two weeks.
This week at the hearing chilling new video of the doomed vessel was released, showing pieces of the Titan strewn across the ocean floor.
The harrowing footage of the remains shows “the aft dome, aft ring, remnants of the hull and carbon fibre debris”, the US Coast Guard said during proceedings.
Mission specialist Renata Rojas spoke before the panel on Thursday, breaking down as she described the loss of life.
She said she “never felt unsafe” onboard but “knew what [she] was doing was very risky”.
The specialist also added that “this was never sold as a Disney ride” and that “things happen and you have to adapt to change”.
It was also revealed that the doomed Titan sub crashed during a malfunction just days before it set off on a fatal dive that killed five, an ex-OceanGate chief has admitted.
Former scientific director Dr Steven Ross is testifying as part of an investigation into the “catastrophic implosion” of the vessel last June.
Dr Ross told officials on Thursday that days before the sub set off for the doomed Titanic trip, passengers onboard were thrown about during a mission malfunction.
The submersible pilot at the time, OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush, crashed into bulkheading, Dr Ross said.
Speaking of the mission he said: “The rest of the passengers tumbled about.
“I ended up standing on the rear bulkhead. One passenger was hanging upside down.”
The other two onboard managed to wedge themselves into the bow end cap, he added.
Dr Ross said that he did not know if an assessment of the Titan hull was performed after the incident.
Businessman Rush – who died in the sub tragedy – was reportedly warned about safety concerns ahead of the trip on June 18 last year.
How the Titan tragedy unfolded
Five men plunged beneath the surface of the North Atlantic in a homemade sub in the hopes of exploring the Titnaic wreckage last year.
Four passengers paid £195,000 to go on the sub, with the fifth member of the trip being a crew.
But what was supposed to be a short trip spiralled into days of agony as the doomed Titan vanished without a trace on June 18, 2023.
The daring mission had been months in the making – and almost didn’t happen at the hands of harsh weather conditions in Newfoundland, Canada.
In a now chilling Facebook post, passenger Hamish Harding wrote: “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023.
“A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.”
It would be his final Facebook post.
The following morning, he and four others – led by Stockton Rush – began the 12,5000ft descent towards the bottom of the Atlantic.
But as it made its way down into the depths, the vessel lost all contact with its mother ship of the surface, the Polar Prince.
It sparked a frantic four day search for signs of life, with the hunt gripping the entire world.
There was hope that by some miracle, the crew was alive and desperately waiting to be saved.
But that sparked fears rescue teams were in a race against time as the sub only had a 96-hour oxygen supply when they set out, which would be quickly dwindling.
Then, when audio of banging sounds were detected under the water, it inspired hope that the victims were trapped and signalling to be rescued.
It heartbreakingly turned out that the banging noises were likely either ocean noises or from other search ships, the US Navy determined.
Countries around the world deployed their resources to aid the search, and within days the Odysseus remote-operated vehicle (ROV) was sent down to where the ghostly wreck of the Titanic sits.
The plan was for the ROV to hook onto the sub and bring it up 10,000ft, where it would meet another ROV before heading to the surface.
But any hopes of a phenomenal rescue were dashed when Odysseus came across a piece of debris from the sub around 1,600ft from the Titanic.
The rescue mission tragically then became a salvage task, and the heartbroken families of those on board were told the devastating news.
It was confirmed by the US Coast Guard that the sub has suffered a “catastrophic implosion”.