Map shows the wreckage of the Titan – and how close the doomed OceanGate expedition came to the Titanic before it fatally imploded

A new map of the debris field of the submersible Titan has revealed that the ship was about 580 meters from the bow of the Titanic before the fatal implosion.

The U.S. Coast Guard on Tuesday released mapped locations of the debris on the North Atlantic seabed as evidence during ongoing Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) hearings.

The images show the exact location of the submersible’s wreckage, which was scattered across an area of ​​about 322,917 square feet (about 30,000 square meters) on the seafloor after the vessel imploded in June 2023, a Coast Guard official told Popular Science.

A National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) engineer is scheduled to testify before the Coast Guard today as the investigation into the June 2023 implosion of OceanGate’s Titan submersible continues.

Earlier this month, the Coast Guard opened a public hearing as part of a high-level investigation into the causes of the implosion that killed five passengers during the descent to the historic wreck of the Titanic.

Some of the testimony focused on the company’s problems as well as several eerie videos and images that MBI has released in recent days.

The experimental submersible Titan (pictured) imploded en route to the wreck of the Titanic during a dive on June 18, 2023

The supply ship Polar Prince then sent repeated messages asking whether Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display.

One of the Titan crew’s last messages to Polar Prince before the submersible imploded was “all is well here,” according to a visual recreation presented earlier during the hearing.

When the submersible’s delay was reported, rescue workers rushed ships, aircraft and other equipment to an area about 700 kilometers south of St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Wreckage from the Titan was later found on the sea floor about 300 meters from the Titanic’s bow, Coast Guard officials said. No one on board survived.

As part of the investigation into the disaster, eerie new footage was released on Monday showing a deep-sea recovery mission to recover the wreckage of the doomed submersible Titan.

The video shows a remote-controlled vehicle attaching thick yellow ropes and equipment to what appears to be the end cap of the sunken ship on June 26 last year.

An aerial photograph later showed a cloud of dust rising to the sea floor as the vehicle lifted off from the seafloor about four kilometers below the surface of the North Atlantic.

Recently released footage of a salvage mission from the submarine Titan, released by the Marine Board of Investigation, shows a remote-controlled vehicle picking up debris from the sunken ship

Two arms of the robot could be seen maneuvering the recovery equipment around the wreckage site.

The clip shows a remote-controlled vehicle attaching ropes and equipment to what appears to be the end cap of the sunken ship.

The video released late Monday documents the high-tech efforts involved in recovering debris from the wreckage of the submersible Titan.

The MBI hearing is expected to last until Friday and will include several additional witnesses, some of whom are closely associated with the company.

Engineers Don Kramer and William Kohnen of Hydrospace Group Inc. and Bart Kemper of Kemper Engineering are scheduled to testify on Wednesday.

At the start of the hearing, OceanGate’s former chief operating officer, David Lochridge, said he had frequently clashed with CEO Stockton Rush – who died in the implosion – and felt that the company was only interested in making money.

“The whole point of the company was to make money,” Lochridge testified. “Scientific commitment was hardly involved.”

Mr Lochridge and other witnesses painted a picture of a company eager to launch its unconventionally designed vessel. The accident sparked a global debate about the future of private underwater exploration.

Businessman Guillermo Sohnlein, who founded OceanGate together with Mr Rush, left the company permanently before the Titan disaster.

On Monday, he told the Coast Guard panel that he hoped the disaster would have a positive side and lead to renewed interest in exploring the deepest waters of the world’s oceans.

“This cannot be the end of deep-sea research. This cannot be the end of deep-diving submersibles and I don’t think it will be,” Sohnlein said.

All five people on board the ship died in the tragedy, including OceanGate founder Stockton Rush (top right), three Britons, including adventurer Hamish Harding (top left) and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood (bottom right), and Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet (bottom left).

The front nose of the Titan submersible (pictured) was found with no surrounding debris, suggesting that the problem occurred at the front of Titan.

According to experts, there was a faulty connection between the hull and the large titanium ring, which allowed water to enter from the front and push the submarine apart. In the picture, the stern of the Titan can be seen on the seabed.

Coast Guard officials also pointed out at the beginning of the hearing that the submersible had not undergone an independent inspection, as is usually done.

They also pointed out that Titan’s unusual design has drawn scrutiny from the underwater research community.

British adventurer Hamish Harding, father-son team Shahzada and Suleman Dawood and Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet died last year along with Rush.

Earlier last week, a former OceanGate mission specialist burst into tears as she described her agonizing wait for the doomed submersible Titan to resurface.

New York-based banker Renata Rojas delivered harrowing testimony about the doomed mission on September 19 during the fourth day of a public hearing on the tragedy.

Describing her role in supporting the launch last June, she said everyone on board was aware of the risks involved in diving deep into the Atlantic Ocean to view the wreck of the Titanic.

“This was never sold as a Disney ride,” she said. “It was an expedition where … things happen and you have to adapt to changes.”

Another witness, OceanGate’s chief scientific officer, said the submersible malfunctioned just three days before the tragedy, noting that he did not know if the submersible had been inspected before its fateful voyage.

Titan has been making trips to the Titanic wreck site since 2021. Pictured: RMS Titanic leaves Southampton on April 10, 1912 for her maiden voyage

OceanGate, based in Washington state, ceased operations after the implosion. The company currently has no full-time employees but was represented by an attorney during the hearing.

The company said it has been cooperating fully with the Coast Guard and NTSB since the beginning of the investigation.

The Titan has been making trips to the Titanic wreck site since 2021.