Titan sub’s final moments captured by ominous audio 900 miles from implosion

Eerie new audio has captured the moment the doomed Titan submersible imploded during a voyage in the Atlantic Ocean, killing all five people on board.

The thunderous roar was captured by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration device about 900 miles away from where the micro-sub lost contact with the surface during its fateful voyage in the south of Newfoundland in June 2023.

US Coast Guard officials shared the clip on Friday, with the ominous noise described as the ‘suspected acoustic signature’ of the implosion which killed Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, 19; British businessman Hamish Harding, 58; former French navy diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77; and co-founder of the sub owner’s company OceanGate Stockton Rush, 61.

The recording is the latest piece of evidence in an enquiry to determine whether the tragedy could have been prevented.

One of the last pieces of communication between the sub and the surface crew was a short message stating ‘all good here,’ a visual recreation of the incident showed last year.

But the sub lost contact shortly afterwards, and sparked an international manhunt to track down the missing vessel which had plunged 12,400ft beneath the surface – more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.

Initial reports claimed the submersible crew had between 70 and 96 hours worth of oxygen, and an ominous banging noise believed to be from the vessel sparked hope that the people trapped onboard could still be alive.

The submersible’s wreckage was eventually found on the ocean floor close to the wreck of the Titanic, with the coast guard confirming that all five people onboard had been killed.

Questions were soon raised about the safety of the submersible after it was revealed OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush had been using a cheap video game controller bought off Amazon to pilot the sub and had previously been warned his ‘experimental’ methods could lead to a ‘catastrophic’ disaster.

Other OceanGate employees had also expressed concerns about the sub’s integrity, including David Lochridge, who worked as the Titan project’s director of marine operations.

He had demanded more rigorous safety checks on the sub, but was unceremoniously booted from the company after Rush repeatedly ignored his concerns.

The CEO even claimed that doubts about the Titan’s safety credentials were ‘personally insulting’ and branded claims he ‘was going to kill someone’ as ‘baseless’.

Rush went as far as saying he was ‘tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation’ as he appeared resentful of the ‘obscenely safe’ regulations he viewed as an obstacle to development and innovation. 

In September, the Coast Guard held public hearings to question OceanGate executives on what may have gone wrong. 

During the hearing, Karl Stanley, a submersible pilot and designer of the Roatan Institute of Deepsea Exploration, claimed Rush was more concerned with leaving ‘his mark on history’ than safety.

He testified: ‘He knew that eventually it was going to end like this, and he wasn’t going to be held accountable, but he was going to be the most famous of all his famous relatives.’

Stanley said he emailed Rush with safety concerns on a number of occasions but was repeatedly dismissed.

He added: ‘I felt also, this exchange of emails strained our relationship from what it had been previously. I felt like I pushed things as far as I could without him telling me to shut up and never talk to him again.

‘There was nothing unexpected about this. This was expected by everyone who had access to a little bit of information. ‘And I think that if it wasn’t an accident, it then has to be some degree of crime. 

‘And if it’s a crime, I think to truly understand it, you need to understand the criminal’s motive. The entire reason this whole operation started was Stockton had a desire to leave his mark on history.’

Amber Bay, director of administration for the OceanGate, insisted the company would not ‘conduct dives that would be risky just to meet a need’.

She told the hearing: ‘There definitely was an urgency to deliver on what we had offered and a dedication and perseverance towards that goal’.

Later breaking down in tears whilst detailing the tragedy, she added: ‘I had the privilege of knowing the explorers lives who were lost, and there’s not a day that passes that I don’t think of them, their families and the loss.’

OceanGate, based in Washington state, US, has indefinitely suspended all operations after the 2023 implosion.

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