OAN Staff Lillian Mann
2:01 PM – Thursday, June 18, 2026
The cause of the deadly 2023 Titan submersible disaster that killed all five passengers on board has been released after years of silence, according to final report by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB).
OceanGate, the company that led the doomed 88th dive to the Titanic wreckage roughly 350 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, purportedly did not recognize the danger that the craft posed to passengers, and was blinded by “groupthink” and “confirmation bias,” according to the 136-page report.
The report centered around the vessel’s damaged carbon-fiber hull and insufficient regulatory oversight as key factors behind the disaster. Investigators further attributed the tragedy to OceanGate’s failure to adequately assess how repeated dives to the Titanic wreck site — approximately 12,500 feet below the surface — affected the vessel’s structural integrity.
“The as-built properties of the Titan’s carbon fibre cylinder were never validated to ensure they met the theoretical values used in the design process, and the construction and testing of the Titan did not follow standard engineering practices,” the statement read. “The investigation determined that the as-built properties of the Titan’s carbon fibre cylinder were never validated to ensure they met the theoretical values used in the design process and that the construction and testing of the Titan did not follow standard engineering practices,” the statement continued. “There was no precedent for diving a human-occupied carbon fibre submersible to the deep ocean, and [OceanGate] acknowledged both internally and publicly that its operations involved risk,” the report continued. “As a result, OceanGate did not know for how long the Titan’s pressure hull would remain structurally intact when used repeatedly for dives to the depth of the Titanic.”
Titan, a 22-foot carbon-fiber submersible operated by OceanGate, set out on June 18, 2023, to visit the wreck of the Titanic deep beneath the North Atlantic Ocean. However, less than two hours into the dive, the vessel lost all communication with its support ship, prompting an extensive international search effort.
Four days later, investigators located the wreckage of Titan approximately 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. They determined that the submersible had suffered a catastrophic implosion near the Titanic wreck site, killing all five passengers instantly.
The TSB highlighted several incidents that may have compromised the submersible’s structural integrity, including a collision with the port bow of the Titanic in 2022 and a loud bang heard while the Titan was resurfacing from a separate dive shortly afterward. Investigators noted that the vessel remained exposed to the elements for nearly a year between 2022 and 2023.
The report stated, “Every time a structure is stressed, small damages may accumulate. The higher the imposed stress on the structure, the more quickly these damages will accumulate.”
“No one was responsible for connecting the dots,” the TSB emphasized.
On board were British explorer and pilot Hamish Harding, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman, renowned “Titanic expert” Paul-Henri Nargeolet and OceanGate founder Stockton Rush.
In a 2025 report, the U.S. Coast Guard’s investigative team alleged that the U.S. Department of Justice could have chosen to pursue manslaughter charges against OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush — had he survived the incident.
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