and Henri-Nargeolet himself, lost touch with the’mothership’ less than two hours into their voyage on June 18, 2023, on their way to the accident site.
Following an intense search for the crew, it was learned that the submarine had experienced a “catastrophic implosion,” which would have resulted in the deaths of the passengers in an instant.
The collapse and the deaths of the passengers were allegedly caused by OceanGate’s “persistent carelessness, recklessness and negligence,” according to the complaint.
‘In a way beyond the conventions of the diving community and industry,’ Rush allegedly “designed, constructed, and operated” the Titan submersible, according to the lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, Rush ‘believed that titanium was needlessly heavy,’ so he opted for carbon fiber, which ‘breaks down over time under pressure,’ to build the sub’s hull instead of titanium.
But the lawsuit goes on to say that he did account for “catastrophic failure where you have imperfections in the [carbon fiber] structure” and put a safety mechanism in place to catch problems before they happened.
