10 Scariest OceanGate Moments from The Disaster

10 Scariest OceanGate Moments from Before, During and After the Titan Disaster

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today were looking at the most chilling moments from OceanGates operations, before and after the Titan implosion.

20 Hours

Not a lot of people outside of the world of ocean exploration were aware of Titan before it disappeared in 2023, and those who did fell into two camps: those rich and naïve enough to trust Stockton Rush, and those who were horrified by what he was doing. One business magnate from British Columbia took two different trips on the sub in 2022, and in one of them, there was a malfunction that left them underwater for 20 hours. Something malfunctioned and the sub couldnt drop the ballasts it uses to make itself buoyant enough to rise to the surface, so they were all stuck down there waiting until the failsafe ropes that dissolve over time  kicked in.

The Warnings

Engineers and experts were calling and writing to Stockton Rush for years before the catastrophic implosion, warning him over and over again about one thing: carbon fiber. The carbon fiber hull was the root of all OceanGates problems, and the reason the sub failed like it did. The problem is that carbon fiber is a composite that weakens over time as its exposed to repeated strain, meaning that on every single dive, it gets weaker and weaker. More dives doesnt prove that the carbon fiber is safe, it just brings it closer each time to the point at which it isnt, with experts saying that when that happened, there would be a catastrophic failure. And thats exactly what took place on June 18th.

Dive 80

Titan had a real-time monitoring system that would be able to detect the sound of a potential failure before it happened, and actually, the real-time monitoring system does seem to have worked kind of. On Titans 80th dive, on July 15th 2022  nearly a year before the implosion  the RMT detected a loud acoustic event which WAS the carbon fiber hull failing. If Rush and the other engineers at OceanGate had heeded this and realized that the sub was a ticking time bomb from this point on, the implosion wouldnt have happened. Although, its highly likely that Rush would have built another, identical sub, as hed already done before, and kept going.

Earplugs

There have been many documentaries released after the implosion, and a handful made before, following Rushs dives to the Titanic, but one of the most disturbing things Rush said about the safety of Titan was his personal solution to the cracking sounds. These cracking sounds were the carbon fiber buckling and tearing under the pressure of the ocean, and he solved this by wearing earplugs so that it didnt bother him anymore. This was after journalists and other experts pointed out that the cracking was a danger sign, and that it meant the integrity of the hull was being slowly eroded. Yet again, ego got in the way of safety.

The Waiver

What could be scarier than being asked to sign a waiver that acknowledges you have a very real risk of dying 4000 metres under the sea? A legal case from the family of one of the victims, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, is ongoing. It looks like OceanGate thought that this waiver would absolve them of ever being sued should something go wrong. We dont know how this case will go and whether anybody other than Rush, who also perished in the sub, is liable for what happened, but theres no small number of people out there who refused to dive on Titan. Suleiman Dawood, one of the victims, nearly backed out until being persuaded to dive by his father.

The Sound of the Implosion

On July 18th, the sub lost contact with the surface, and a media frenzy began. But as we know now, the sound of the implosion was recorded when it happened. Footage was released in May 2025 that showed Wendy Rush, Stocktons wife on the surface, reacting to a sound, and not realizing that shed just heard the instantaneous death of her husband. Elsewhere, and the US Navy eventually announced that it had already detected the sound of a possible implosion from the wreckage of the Titanic, which director James Cameron has talked about in various interviews. He said he and his fellow submariners had contacts in the Navy and knew that an implosion had already happened days before the families and public were informed.

96 Hours of Air

Despite the implosion being recorded and heard the moment it happened, an intense media circus ensued, with 24/7 coverage of the missing submarine. There were constant reports counting down how many hours of air the sub had, waiting for its various failsafes to kick in and, hopefully, for it to surface. This was derided after the fact as offering false hope to the families of the victims, when the Navy knew the sub was already lost. The US Coast Guard was still saying in press conferences that it was a rescue mission, but it took four days for officials to find the wreckage, after finally getting some remote submersibles that could search for the debris. Ten days after it disappeared, human remains were found.

Banging Sounds

It wasnt just wishful thinking that kept people searching for Titan on the surface, though. There were also widespread reports of banging sounds detected by sonobuoys, dropped to listen for underwater noises. People were led to believe that the banging could indicate that the crew was alive and waiting to be rescued, again giving false hope to the families that they might be reunited with their loved ones. The Coast Guard admitted that it didnt know what the banging sounds were, but others, including James Cameron again, theorize that it could have been noises from the ships in the area. Its also been suggested that it was sounds of the Titanic wreckage itself shifting and creaking at the bottom of the sea.

The Wreckage

Though debris was found after a few days, no footage of the wreck was revealed until September 2024. The footage was released as part of the investigations, with separate clips showing the two sections of the sub on the ocean floor. This all proved exactly what we already knew: that it was the carbon fiber hull that failed. When another clip of the front of Titan was released, the mangled, carbon fiber was plain to see. A BBC documentary later showed some of the pieces of debris that were recovered and brought to the surface, including a pen thought to have been on Stockton Rush. They also recovered some stickers meant to celebrate the company and the dive to the Titanic.

The Hearings

Throughout 2024, the Marine Board of Investigation held hearings to interview various witnesses and experts and determine how this had been allowed to happen. We heard chilling testimony, with people discussing how they expressed their concerns to Rush and were ignored, insulted, or in at least one case, fired from the company. We also heard that people tried to notify the authorities that illegal dives were happening in an unregulated vessel, including for-profit expeditions, and that nobody acted to stop Rush in an official capacity. And finally, we heard many experts explaining how they would have never in a million years gotten into an experimental submersible that made these design choices.

Let us know in the comments whether you think expeditions like this should be banned.