Titan Sub Tragedy: Log of Passengers' Final Words That Surfaced Online Found to Be Fake
New details have emerged about the tragic Titan submersible catastrophe.
Almost a year after the OceanGate submersible imploded while on its way to the wreckage of the Titanic, the U.S. federal government team investigating the tragedy has revealed that a transcript purporting to be a log of the final communications from the five people inside the vessel is a fake.
"I'm confident it's a false transcript," Captain Jason D. Neubauer, chairman of the Marine Board of Investigation, told The New York Times in an interview published June 10. "It was made up."
The fake transcript, which emerged at the end of June 2023, included communications between the Titan and its mother ship, the Polar Prince, during the sub's June 18 descent. The transcript also alleges the crew aboard the Titan told Polar Prince they were having issues with the submersible, before they ultimately stopped responding.
Neubauer, who noted his team hasn't identified the author of the fake log, said they have been able to access the real communications records between the Titan and the Polar Prince. As for whether the real transcript of the Titan's final communication will be released, the NYT noted they are still under wraps as the investigation continues.
But when it comes to the passengers' final moments, Neubauer's team, aided by investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board, "found no evidence" that they were aware of the imminent implosion.
Neubauer and his team hope that the new information can provide some comfort to the passengers' relatives, confirming that the five men—OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood—may not have been suffering prior to the implosion.
He also explained that due to technical complexities as well as jurisdictional ones, a final report about the fate of the Titan could take years to complete.
E! News has reached out to the Marine Board of Investigation for additional comment.
Many have been wondering exactly what happened to the Titan as it headed to the wreckage of the Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean on June 18 and ultimately led to the death of all five people on board.
"These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure," OceanGate shared a statement confirming the loss of the Titan passengers last June, "and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world's oceans."
"Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time," the continued. "We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew."
But despite the tragedy, billionaire real estate investor Larry Connor and Triton Submarines co-founder Patrick Lahey are currently developing a new vessel to visit the Titanic wreckage.
"This tragedy had a chilling effect on people's interest in these vehicles," Lahey explained to The Wall Street Journal in May. "It reignited old myths that only a crazy person would dive in one of these things."
And so Lahey said he was surprised when Connor called about another venture.
"We had a client, a wonderful man," he recalled of Connor. "He called me up and said, ‘You know, what we need to do is build a sub that can dive to [Titanic-level depths] repeatedly and safely and demonstrate to the world that you guys can do that, and that Titan was a contraption.'"
For more information about the passengers aboard the Titan, keep reading.
On June 18, 2023, a deep-sea submersible Titan, operated by the U.S.-based company OceanGate Expeditions and carrying five people on a voyage to the wreck of the Titanic, was declared missing. Following a five-day search, the U.S. Coast Guard announced at a June 22 press conference that the vessel suffered a "catastrophic implosion" that killed all five passengers on board.
Pakistani-born businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood, both British citizens, were also among the victims.
Their family is one of the wealthiest in Pakistan, with Shahzada Dawood serving as the vice chairman of Engro Corporation, per The New York Times. His son was studying at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.
Shahzada's sister Azmeh Dawood told NBC News that Suleman had expressed reluctance about going on the voyage, informing a relative that he "wasn't very up for it" and felt "terrified" about the trip to explore the wreckage of the Titanic, but ultimately went to please his father, a Titanic fan, for Father's Day.
The Dawood Foundation mourned their deaths in a statement to the website, saying, "It is with profound grief that we announce the passing of Shahzada and Suleman Dawood. Our beloved sons were aboard OceanGagte's Titan submersible that perished underwater. Please continue to keep the departed souls and our family in your prayers during this difficult period of mourning."
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush was the pilot of the Titan. The entrepreneur—who founded the research company in 2009 in Everett, Wash.—had long been interested in exploration. Rush, 61, previously said he dreamed of becoming the first person on Mars and once said that he'd "like to be remembered as an innovator."
In addition to leading voyages to see the remnants of the Titanic, Rush had another surprising connection to the historic 1912 event: His wife Wendy Rush is the great-great-granddaughter of a couple who died on the Titanic, Ida and Isidor Straus.
British billionaire Hamish Harding confirmed he was a part of the mission in a June 17 Instagram post, a day before the submersible went into the water and disappeared.
"I am proud to finally announce that I joined @oceangateexped for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic," he 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."
Harding—the chairman of aircraft company Action Aviation—said the group had started steaming from St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada and was planning to start dive operations around 4 a.m. on June 18. The 58-year-old added, "Until then we have a lot of preparations and briefings to do."
His past explorations included traveling to the deepest part of the ocean in the Mariana Trench, telling Gulf News in 2021, "It was an incredibly hostile environment. To travel to parts of the Challenger Deep where no human had ever been before was truly remarkable."
The Dubai-based businessman also circumnavigated the Earth by plane with the One More Orbit project and, last year, took a trip to space on Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin New Shepard rocket. Harding shared his love for adventure with his son Giles, described as a "teen explorer" on his Instagram.
As for the fifth member, a representative for French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet told the New York Times that he was a passenger on the Titan, with Harding also referencing him on Instagram as a member of the team.
The Times described him as a maritime expert who was previously part of the French Navy. The 71-year-old was a bonafide Titanic specialist and has traveled to the wreckage 35 times before. Nargeolet served as the director of RMS Titanic, Inc., a company that researches, salvages and displays artifacts from the famed ship, per the outlet.
Alongside fellow passenger Hamish Harding, he was a member of The Explorers Club, founded in 1904.
As Harding noted in his post, the submersible—named Titan—was a part of an OceanGate Expeditions tour that explores the wreckage of the RMS Titanic, which infamously sank in 1912.
The company expressed its sympathies to the families of the victims. "These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world's oceans," OceanGate said in a statement. "Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew."
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