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OceanGate Expeditions is the owner and operator behind the Titan submersible, which had five people on board when it experienced what the Coast Guard called a “catastrophic implosion” amid its journey to the Titanic shipwreck.
The privately-owned US company was founded in Everett, Wash., in 2009 by Guillermo Söhnlein and Stockton Rush to build out a fleet of three five-person submersibles that would be used to take tourists down to the famed wreck.
Söhnlein left OceanGate 10 years ago, though Rush continued on as the company’s CEO, developing three submersibles named Antipodes, Cyclops 1 and Titan.
OceanGate’s Titanic expedition is billed on its website as an eight-day trip that provides a “chance to step outside of everyday life and discover something truly extraordinary.”
Up to four of those days could be spent underwater. OceanGate assured on its site that the 22-foot vessel was equipped with up to 96 hours of oxygen.
Tickets run for $250,000, and travelers must be at least 17 years old, the site adds.
The trip departs from St. John’s Newfoundland, Canada, before sailing 380 miles offshore and diving 12,500 feet below the surface to the Titanic.
The Titan’s latest expedition, which began its descent to the sea floor on June 18, was the only OceanGate Titanic tour slated to take place in 2023, which passenger Hamish Harding cited was due to weather in an Instagram post ahead of his departure.
Titan weighed 21,000 pounds and could travel at the speed of 3 knots, or 3.5 miles per hour. It had a single porthole for up to two people to look out of at any time.
The passengers included 61-year-old OceanGate boss, Rush, as well as Titanic specialist Paul-Henri Nargeolet, UK billionaire explorer Hamish Harding and Pakistani billionaire and mogul Shanzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Sulaiman.
Here’s everything else you need to know about the vessel.What’s next for OceanGate?
Legal experts are divided as to whether OceanGate faces legal liability over the Titan disaster given that the passengers all signed waivers that spelled out the risk to their safety.
One lawyer thinks that the next of kin will have an uphill legal battle in court if they decide to sue OceanGate despite past allegations of negligence and the most recent tragedy.
“The chance of family members of the passengers having a successful lawsuit against the company is close to zero,” attorney Sherif Edmond El Dabe, a partner with El Dabe Ritter Trial Lawyers, told Insider.
“The passengers knowingly participated in an extremely hazardous activity and they knowingly assumed great risk,” he added.
Miguel Custodio, an attorney at the law firm Custodio and Dubey LLP, agreed, telling the outlet: “Everyone on board knew this wasn’t a vacation or a sightseeing trip, and the disclaimer appears to have made the risk of death very clear multiple times.”
It’s all thanks to an ironclad, three-page document that spells out the risks for Titan passengers that includes an eye-popping admission that the craft “has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body and may be constructed of materials that have not been widely used on human occupied submersible.”
The document, which was provided to a passenger last summer, also states that the signer would “assume full responsibility for the risk of bodily injury, disability, death and property damage due to the negligence of [OceanGate] while involved in the operation,” according to TMZ, which was first to publish it.
