The family of French explorer Paul-Henri Narjolet filed a $50 million wrongful-death lawsuit on Tuesday against OceanGate, the operator of a cruise ship that failed catastrophically. Try to visit Wrecks of the Titanic.
Narjolet was one of five passengers on the Titan companion on June 18, 2023. Catastrophic pressure loss and exploded, killing all on board. OceanGate sold seats on the ship for $250,000 each, billing the trip as an opportunity to “become one of the few to see the Titanic with your own eyes.”
But following the incident, what industry experts have said has come to light raised serious security concerns About the project several years ago. For example, a professional trade group warned in 2018 that OceanGate’s experimental approach to Titan’s design could lead to “catastrophic” consequences.
Nicknamed “Mr. Titanic,” Narjolet participated in 37 dives Titanic Base, According to the lawsuit, the most of any diver in the world. He was considered one of the most knowledgeable people in the world about the famous wreck. Attorneys for his estate said in an emailed statement that the “wrecked submarine” has a “complicated history” and that OceanGate failed to disclose key facts about the vessel and its survival.
“This lawsuit alleges serious problems with the Titan submarine,” said Tony Busbee, one of the attorneys bringing the suit. Report. “Although the University of Washington and Boeing were instrumental in the design of earlier but similar versions of the Titan, I think both have denied any involvement in the recently detonated submersible prototype.”
The lawsuit alleges that OceanGate failed to disclose the Titan’s defects and intentionally hid its defects from Narjolet, even though he was appointed by the company as a member of the ship’s crew. The lawsuit says Narjolet would not have participated in the trip had he known about Titan’s problems.
The other passenger who died on the Titan was Oceangate CEO Stockton Rush. British businessman Hamish Harding; and Dawood Hercules Vice President Shahjata Dawood and his son Sulaiman Dawood.
A spokeswoman for OceanGate declined to comment on the lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday in King County, Washington.
Auxiliary video game controller
The lawsuit alleges that OceanGate CEO Rush took a “devil-may-care approach to security” in designing the Titan. Rush has compared himself to Apple CEO Steve Jobs or Tesla CEO Elon Musk, describing himself as an “industry disruptor”.
That approach translated into the Titan’s unconventional design, which was powered by a mass-produced Logitech video game controller used with an Xbox or PlayStation game console. This controller is highlighted in a 2022 Section From “CBS Sunday Morning” reporter David Bogue, he noted that many elements of the companion felt “improvised” and described the ship as having “MacGyver jerry-riggedness”.
The case takes issue with Titan’s carbon fiber hull, as deep-sea vessels are typically crafted from titanium, a material that can strengthen under repeated stress. In contrast, carbon fiber “breaks over time under stress,” according to the lawsuit.
Because of that risk, Rush installed an “acoustic safety system” on the Titan, designed to detect the popping sound that carbon fiber emits under excessive pressure, alerting the pilot to surface. But the lawsuit alleges that the acoustic warning system “probably did nothing more than detect an imminent failure.”
Case in point: Titan’s crew knew they were going to die
At a depth of about 3,500 meters, or just above Titanic, 90 minutes into the voyage it became clear that something was wrong with the dive. At that point, the Titan “dropped weights,” indicating the crew was trying to stop the maneuver, and then lost contact with its support ship on the subsurface.
The Titan’s crew “would have known exactly what was happening” because “Rush’s ‘sonic safety system’ would have alerted the crew that the carbon-fiber hull was cracking under extreme pressure — releasing weight and prompting the pilot to abort,” the suit alleges.
“Common sense dictates that before dying, the crew knew they were going to die,” it says. “According to the calculations of the experts, they would have continued to descend, in full knowledge of the ship’s irreversible failures, suffering terror and anguish before the Titan finally exploded.”
The Titan’s exact point of failure will never be known, however, the lawsuit said.
After the sub explosion, the US Coast Guard quickly assembled a high-level investigation, which is ongoing. A Major Public Inquiry Part of the trial is due to take place in September.
— with a report from the Associated Press.
