Poor navigation practices dogged the dive in which OceanGate’s Titan submersible imploded on a Titanic wreck expedition, a problem now cited by many experts as an dangerous inadequacy. In shocking testimony before the U.S. According to one former OceanGate contractor, the sub relied on a convoluted system of handwritten coordinates and an Excel spreadsheet in order to keep tabs on where it was on the bottom-a process raising serious red flags concerning the safety protocols of the company.
The Bizarre Truths About Titan’s Tracking System
On Friday, former OceanGate contractor Antonella Wilby took to the stand in a U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation hearing, showing how the tracking system employed to surveil the movements of the doomed Titan sub was fundamentally unsound and archaic. The sub imploded on a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic, and it relied on an ultra-short baseline acoustic positioning system to derive data on the sub’s velocity, depth, and position by means of sound pings. You can read more about how USBL systems work here.
Instead, this crucial data was processed and visualized using hand-inputting and reliance on very basic software by the OceanGate team. In testimony, Wilby said that data from the USBL system was first recorded in a notebook and then manually inputted into Microsoft Excel before it could be imported into the mapping software. This in turn would be plotted on the hand-drawn map of the Titanic wreckage. Wilby testified that this process occurred every five minutes, and this was an unnecessary delay to try to track the sub’s position deep in the ocean.
The Manual Mapping System: An Accident Waiting to Happen
It is almost surreal, really, that Excel spreadsheets are used to chart where on the ocean floor the sub rests when there is so much more advanced technology. When Wilby suggested that the company move to standardized software to auto-process the ping data, she got pushback. OceanGate said they did want to make an in-house system but didn’t have enough time.
This was compounded by the highly archaic and inefficient fact that the Titan sub communicated with the surface only via short text messages, with a gamepad controller in use for navigation. The confluence of these factors created a perfect storm for disaster, as correct and timely navigation is a given during deep-sea expeditions.
The process frustrated Wilby, who remembered telling her supervisors, “This is an idiotic way to do navigation.” Shortly thereafter, she was pulled from the team.
Warnings Beforehand: A Sub in Peril
Other former OceanGate employees also corroborated the complaints made by Wilby. Steven Ross, the company’s former scientific director, testified during that hearing on similar issues, particularly with safety. According to Ross, during one of the Titan’s earlier dives-in 2022’s Dive 80-a loud bang was heard during the sub’s ascension. It was loud enough to be heard from the surface, the result of a shifting of the pressure hull within its plastic cradle.
Even more ominous, just six days before the tragic implosion that would take the lives of all souls on board, yet another incident happened. Stockton Rush, the sub’s co-founder and pilot, had crashed the Titan into a launch mechanism bulkhead while trying to resurface after Dive 87. A malfunctioning ballast tank caused the submarine to invert, leaving passengers tumbling about inside. While nobody got injured, Ross testified that he did not know whether there was a proper inspection of the sub afterward. This incident does raise serious questions about the general safety of the vessel in the days leading up to its final dive.
Archaic Methods in Modern Technology
The use of handwritten coordinates and Excel spreadsheets within an environment as high-risk as deep-sea exploration underlines a disturbing reliance upon outdated methodologies that regrettably featured in the normal operations of OceanGate. Indeed, serious mapping and telemetry are available today for tracking underwater vehicles. Modern navigation, such as that used by Google Maps for terrestrial transportation and MarineTraffic for marine routes, provides location and other positional data in real time with perfect accuracy. Many are perplexed as to why a state-of-the-art vessel such as the Titan would rely on such antiquated devices.
The OceanGate decision to resist the adoption of proven software solutions and insist on an in-house system, even when pressed for time, might have contributed to the unwinding of events that brought on the disaster. It is a sobering realization that even today, with so many high-tech solutions, companies can sometimes revert to such outdated processes that toy with people’s lives.
Could This Tragedy Have Been Prevented?
The OceanGate Titan sub accident raised a storm of questions regarding the operations of the company and the sad loss of life. While the implosion was in itself a terrible incident, the manual nature of the navigation system, as filled out by Wilby, hints at technological failings that might have very well been the significant factor in the failure of the sub.
Deepwater exploration may be dangerous, but safety must be and will always be paramount. As the investigation unfolds, it becomes gradually clearer that outdated means, such as Excel spreadsheets and coordinates scrawled by hand, cannot be justified in modern underwater expeditions. The tragedy of the Titan submarine further raises demands for increased oversight, updated technology, and more responsible management of high-risk enterprises.
The entire world was shocked by the OceanGate Titan sub disaster as it came out that the navigation was based on a wrong and outdated system. It came to light in a hearing before the U.S. Coast Guard that the sub utilized handwritten coordinates and Excel spreadsheets for navigation, raising serious questions about the safety protocols followed.
The revelations hitherto on the Titan’s final dive bring into sharp focus the peril of leaning on antiquated methods in high-stakes environments like deep-sea exploration. The investigation will surely unfold, and one can only hope lessons will be learned and at future expeditions, safety foremost.
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