A year-long investigation has revealed the disturbing log transcript of communications between the doomed Titan submersible and its mother ship — a document that was circulated by millions online — was in fact completely fake.
The log book claimed to detail the final communications between the submersible, which was attempting to reach the Titanic with five voyagers on board, and the mother ship.
There was widespread suspicion when the log documents were released last year, with many questioning whether the transcript between the two vessels was actually legitimate.
According to the New York Times, the head of the US federal government team investigating the disaster — including the nature and authenticity of the communication transcript — believes the entire log is fake.
Captain Jason D. Neubauer, who retired from the US Coast Guard and serves as chairman of the Marine Board of Investigation, said his investigation team has found no evidence that those on board the Titan knew a fatal implosion was about to occur.
“I’m confident it’s a false transcript … it was made up,” he said, as reported by the New York Times.
The logs, which were released and circulated by millions online from an unnamed author, revealed minute-by-minute communications allegedly between the submersible and the mother ship. The logs contained realistic descriptions of what one would imagine would occur on board in the final moments before the vessel imploded.
The logs also contained acronyms and technical words unique to the submersible, which at the time only further convinced readers the transcript was real.
Part of the logs suggested the crew on board the Titan were in a state of panic, with hull alarms going off inside the submersible before communication abruptly ended.
Mr Neubauer hopes the truth around the transcript will bring some comfort to the family of the five men inside the Titan that they didn’t suffer in their last moments.
The five men aboard the Titan were businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son, Suleman, 19. Airline executive Hamish Harding, 58, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77. Stockton Rush, 61, the founder and chief executive of OceanGate – the American firm that built the submersible and ran its tourist dives – was also on board as the pilot that day. It is reported that OceanGate would charge wealthy passengers up to $US250,000 per person to get on board Titan for a chance to visit the wreckage of the Titanic.
On this particular voyage, the Titan had hoped to reach the wreck some 4000 metres below the ocean’s surface on June 18, 2023 when disaster began to unfold.
Despite receiving warnings from both inside and outside OceanGate that the submersible may face “catastrophic” problems should the vessel reach extreme depths, trips to the depths of the ocean floor proceeded anyway.
Five days later, on June 22, the first discovery of debris from the Titan near the Titanic’s resting place were made, and it was officially declared that the submersible had suffered a “catastrophic implosion”.
The now debunked transcript reportedly started to circulate in the days following the debris discovery, with the wording and coding making it look as though “they (passengers on board) were panicking”.
“Somebody did it well enough to make it look plausible,” Mr Neubauer said, adding that the most disturbing element of the fictitious transcript was the silent ending from the submersible while the mother ship tried desperately to seek a response.
