The final message from the doomed Titanic submersible Titan has been revealed with the crew of five messaging “all good here” only minutes before it lost contact with those on the surface.
During a hearing on Monday with the U.S. Coast Guard — into the cause of the implosion of Titan in June of 2023 — officials revealed that minutes before the five passengers on the submersible were lost forever, the crew had sent a message that the dive was going according to plan, People magazine reported.
Text messages between Titan and the support ship, the Polar Prince, occurred on June 18, 2023 and began after Titan left the ship around 9:20 am off the coast of Canada. After about 40 minutes, routine messages between the two took a turn with the Polar Prince asking numerous times if the submersible can see the ship on its display. When there was no response, the ship started sending urgent messages.
After about 15 minutes, Titan responded that it had communication and the Polar Prince replied, “I need better comms from you.”
The Marine Board presented an animation model in support of the Titan submersible hearing. The entire video can be viewed from the MBI website https://t.co/3TwwWq8TGt and downloaded from here: https://t.co/7lZwbu0dXZ#TitanMBI pic.twitter.com/PToLMpLFw0
— USCG MaritimeCommons (@maritimecommons) September 16, 2024
Titan in turn responded, “yes” and said they “lost system oand [sic] chat settings.”
At 10:15 am, the Polar Prince asked again, “status? do you see polar prince on your display?” Titan responded soon after, “yes,” and, “all good here.”
Minutes later, Titan notified the Polar Prince that they were “east south east [of] the nbow,” which officials suspected meant the crew had almost reached their destination, the wreckage of the Titanic.
Titan then asked the Polar Prince if they were also at the bow, and Polar Prince said, “making our way there … your position jumps significantly each ping” — which the ship repeated to the Titan at 10:36.
At 10:47, Titan messaged that they “dropped two [weights],” and contact was then lost almost immediately, at 10:47:32 a.m., according to the Coast Guard. That was at a depth of nearly 3,350 meters and a pressure of 4,900 pounds per square inch, the magazine noted.
After the ship lost contact with Titan, a four-day rescue mission from the United States and Canada ensued including using airplanes, boats, and submersibles in the attempt to find and save the crew, Variety noted.
On the fourth day, the United States Coast Guard announced that a remotely operated underwater vehicle had found debris from the Titan near the Titanic.
“A debris field was discovered within the search area by an ROV near the Titanic,” USGC Northeast said in a statement. “Experts within the unified command are evaluating the information.”
“A debris field implies a break-up of the submersible … that really sort of indicates what is the worst-case scenario, which is a catastrophic failure and generally that’s an implosion,” marine scientist and rescue expert David Mearns told Sky News.
“The only saving grace is that it would have been immediate — literally in milliseconds — and the men wouldn’t have known what was happening,” Mearns added.
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