Titan Sub's Crew Suffered 'Terror and Anguish,' Knew They Were Going To Die Before Implosion: Lawsuit
The family of a crew member who participated in the doomed submersible, Titan Sub, headed to the Titanic wreckage has filed a lawsuit against the company that organized the operation.
Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French explorer, was one of the five people who died in June 2023, while taking a voyage to the famed Titanic wreck site in the North Atlantic, HuffPost reported. His family has filed a $50 million lawsuit, claiming that the crew in the Titan Sub felt "terror and mental anguish" in moments leading to their death because of the company's gross negligence.
The disaster allegedly happened because the sub suffered a catastrophic pressure loss and was blasted, CBS News reported. OceanGate, the company that arranged the entire operation, promoted the trip as a chance to "become one of the few to see the Titanic with your own eyes."
The destroyed submersible was later discovered on the ocean floor about 984 feet (300 meters) off the bow of the Titanic, about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland.
The seats on the vessel had been sold for $250,000 each, CBS News reported. After the tragic incident, it was revealed that industry experts for a long time were raising concerns regarding the project. In 2018, one professional group had allegedly warned OceanGate that its experimental approach to the submersible's design could lead to life-threatening outcomes.
Nargeolet was known as "Mr. Titanic," because of his multiple voyages to the Titanic wreck sites, CBS News reported. He was regarded as an expert on Titanic wreckage and knew a lot about the conditions needed to travel to the site. As per his family's attorneys, OceanGate failed to disclose key facts about the vessel and its durability.
"The lawsuit alleges serious issues with the Titan submersible," Tony Buzbee, one of the attorneys bringing the case, said in a statement, CBS News reported. "I think it is telling that even though the University of Washington and Boeing had key roles in the design of previous but similar versions of the Titan, both have recently disclaimed any involvement at all in the submersible model that imploded."
The lawsuit alleges that OceanGate did not disclose the follies associated with the submersible's structure and functioning to Nargeolet, CBS News reported. He had been designated as a crew member in the submersible and should have had all the information regarding its composition, according to the lawsuit. The family claims, that if Nargeolet knew of the drawbacks, he wouldn't have participated in the voyage.
As per the lawsuit, the submersible "dropped weights" about 90 minutes into its dive, HuffPost reported. This implied that the team aborted or tried to abort the voyage. "While the exact cause of failure may never be determined, experts agree that the Titan’s crew would have realized exactly what was happening," the lawsuit stated. "Common sense dictates that the crew were well aware they were going to die, before dying." As per the family members, this must have led to a lot of anxiety for Nargeolet, in the moments leading to his death.
The lawsuit added, "The crew may well have heard the carbon fiber’s crackling noise grow more intense as the weight of the water pressed on Titan’s hull. The crew lost communications and perhaps power as well. By experts’ reckoning, they would have continued to descend, in full knowledge of the vessel’s irreversible failures, experiencing terror and mental anguish prior to the Titan ultimately imploding," HuffPost reported.
Other victims of the Titan Sub implosion were OceanGate CEO, Stockton Rush, whose estate is named in the lawsuit; British businessman Hamish Harding; and, Pakistani-British Businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood.
The lawsuit was filed on August 2024, in King County, Washington, CBS News reported. A spokesperson from OceanGate declined to comment about the lawsuit.