The chairman of the Coast Guard investigation panel for last year’s loss of OceanGate’s Titan submersible says his team has “found no evidence” that crew members knew about their peril.
In the wake of the tragedy, a purported transcript of communications during Titan’s final dive included increasingly desperate references to an alarm aboard the sub. But Jason Neubauer, the chairman of the Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation, told The New York Times that the document “was made up.”
That conclusion is based on a review of the actual messages between Titan and its mothership as the sub descended toward the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic on June 18, 2023. Although that true transcript has not yet been released, Neubauer’s comments support the view that the five crew members died virtually instantaneously in the violent implosion of Titan’s carbon composite hull.
Neubauer told the Times that he hoped the truth would console relatives of the crew who may have worried that their loved ones suffered in their last moments.
