US Coast Guard Report on Titan Submersible Implosion Singles Out OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush

The US Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation has issued a scathing report on the implosion of the Titan submersible in 2023, singling out OceanGate’s CEO and founder Stockton Rush for many of the company’s technical and managerial failings. It says that he made “sustained efforts to misrepresent the Titan as indestructible” and accuses the company of “glaring disparities between their written safety protocols and their actual practices.”

Jason Neubauer, who was the deputy chief of the Coast Guard’s Office of Investigations, chaired the investigation and tells WIRED: “All of the evidence pointed to a very singular leader in this operation. It all came back to Mr. Rush.”

Rush was piloting the Titan on a trip to the wreck of the Titanic in June 2023 when the submersible imploded, instantly killing all five crew. Also on board were Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a veteran submariner known as “Mr. Titanic,” and three paying passengers: entrepreneur Hamish Harding and a father and son pair, Shahzada and Suleman Dawood. The Titan had made 13 previous successful dives to the famous site.

The Coast Guard launched its investigation five days after the fatal incident and held two weeks of public hearings in September 2024. Technical testimony presented there detailed numerous flaws within the Titan’s innovative carbon-fiber hull, and highlighted operational failures on previous Titanic missions. These included one of the sub’s titanium domes falling off after the sub’s first attempt to reach the Titanic in 2021, and it being left outside in freezing conditions the winter before its final dives. Carbon-fiber composites can degrade if water freezes in small voids in the material.

Witnesses also alleged that Rush had ignored or glossed over numerous safety concerns raised by others in the submersible community and even by OceanGate’s first director of marine operations, David Lochridge. Lochridge, who has not responded to inquiries, was fired in 2018 after detailing dozens of issues in an internal report. None of OceanGate’s current senior executives testified at the hearings, nor were those responsible for managing operations of the final dive called to testify at the hearings. The new report says Rush fostered a toxic workplace environment, using the looming threat of being fired to dissuade employees from expressing safety concerns.

The Titan was not registered or flagged with any nation, and had not been inspected or certified by any Coast Guard–recognized organization. The report found that Rush himself had lied about the submersible’s specifications when applying for his Coast Guard credentials, and the company had suggested several times that the Titan was or would be flagged in the Bahamas. “The most surprising aspect of the investigation is how far outside of compliance that the Titan was operating and for how long,” says Neubauer. “That fact stands out to me above any other incident I've ever investigated.”

The new Coast Guard report stops short of finding a definitive mechanical cause for the fatal implosion, which occurred almost instantaneously at around 3,000 meters depth. However, it says that the facts strongly suggest that it was either the failure of a glue joint between the Titan’s carbon-fiber hull and a titanium ring, or a delamination within the carbon fiber itself, where layers of the materials separated from each other. The company never properly analyzed or tested the hull to understand flaws during manufacture or how long it might last, according to the Coast Guard.

The report says that data from acoustic sensors and strain gauges on board indicated that the hull had suffered a delamination after a dive to the Titanic in 2022, causing a loud bang. Rush was said to have dismissed that noise, and the report found that there was no one left at the company in 2023 who was able to adequately interpret the sensor data. The company’s director of engineering quit two months before the implosion.

“The power was consolidated in Mr. Rush,” says Neubauer. “There was no set standard for how loud a noise or how many noises would make you take it out of service. I think that was intentional. They didn't want to take it out of service in the end.”

The report contains numerous recommendations that would increase federal oversight of submersibles operated by US companies. It would also require them to be certified with third-party organizations, such as Lloyd’s Register or the American Bureau of Shipping, even if they were operating in international waters like the Titan. That would practically rule out building a hull from carbon fiber, as none of those organizations have classed a crewed carbon-fiber submersible to date. “It doesn’t seem to be the right material because of the way it takes cumulative damage over time,” says Neubauer.

Tony Nissen, OceanGate’s original director of engineering, questions the report’s blanket criticism of the carbon-fiber hull and its acoustic monitoring system. He notes that problems with the Titan’s first hull were identified, in part, using the acoustic sensors, leading it to be scrapped and replaced. “The design was not inadequate. For anyone to say the design was inadequate they would have to address the original manufacturer’s analysis, and the success of the first hull,” he says. “The real-time monitoring worked as designed and intended, but for the second hull they ignored it.”

“We commend the US Coast Guard for its thorough work in confirming what industry experts have long known about the Titan tragedy—it was preventable,” says Will Kohnen, executive director of the nonprofit World Submarine Organization. “The challenge now is to move forward, building a better national and international regulatory framework for submersible operations, so that safety and responsible governance are the standard across this unique and complex industry.”

The Coast Guard report also touches on issues with the search and rescue response after the Titan went missing. Neubauer says that some of the organizations listed as OceanGate’s emergency contacts were not aware of the Titan’s dive plans, and that the company should have had a robotic remotely operated vehicle (ROV) capable of diving to the same depth as the submersible.

Although the world was on tenterhooks during the four-day search and rescue effort for the Titan, Neubauer is skeptical that it could ever have succeeded.

“Even though we eventually found the submersible within the 96-hour window that was being advertised, I don't think we could have recovered the sub or the people if they had survived, and it was entangled at the bottom,” he says. The ROV that located the debris had only a minimal capability to move or free the Titan, especially given that there would have been less than an hour of oxygen remaining.

The Coast Guard report notes that if Rush had survived, he would possibly have been subject to criminal prosecution for negligence. It does not identify anyone else as subject to investigation. However, WIRED reported last year that the Southern District of New York was pursuing a criminal investigation into OceanGate, possibly related to its financing. The Department of Justice has not confirmed that investigation, and its current status is uncertain.

Relatives of Nargeolet are suing OceanGate, Rush’s estate, and others involved in the Titan’s manufacture in Washington state. Survivors of Rush, Nargeolet, and the paying passengers have not responded to requests for comment.

OceanGate supplied the following statement: “We again offer our deepest condolences to the families of those who died on June 18, 2023, and to all those impacted by the tragedy. After the tragedy occurred, the company permanently wound down operations and directed its resources fully towards cooperating with the Coast Guard’s inquiry through its completion.”