BBC2’s documentary Implosion reveals new information about Titan sub disaster

Footage reveals moment Titan sub imploded

BBC’s soon-to-air documentary Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster offers unprecedented footage from Titan’s support ship, capturing the moment the sub imploded during its fatal June 2023 dive.

The video, recently obtained by the US Coast Guard (USCG), has been presented as evidence to the USCG Marine Board of Investigation, which has spent the last two years examining the sub’s catastrophic failure. The footage shows Wendy Rush, Stockton’s wife, reacting to the implosion sound – a “door slam” noise – that the USCG confirmed as the moment Titan failed.

The film also reveals that Titan’s carbon fibre hull began to fail a year earlier due to delamination, a critical weakness that experts warned made the vessel unsafe. Despite these warnings, the sub continued to operate until its tragic implosion.

The USCG Marine Board of Investigation has spent two years examining the incident, with a final report expected later this year.

Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster airs on BBC Two at 9pm on Tuesday 27 May and will be available on BBC iPlayer.

Titan hearing: US Coast Guard's public hearing into submersible disaster concludes

The US Coast Guard's public hearing into the loss of the Titan submersible disaster began on 16 September at the Charleston County Council Building, South Carolina, and lasted two weeks, concluding on 27 September.

The hearing aimed to uncover the facts surrounding the incident and develop recommendations to prevent similar tragedies. A statement released by the US Coast Guard explained: "The hearing will examine all aspects of the loss of the Titan, including pre-accident historical events, regulatory compliance, crewmember duties and qualifications, mechanical and structural systems, emergency response and the submersible industry."

As the Titan hearing has drawn to a close, the board will publish its final public report, which could include a definitive cause of the accident, bring forth new regulations on deep-sea diving and even criminal charges.

The US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation chair Mr. Jason Neubauer said the investigation would continue for months, although MBI reports have been known to take much longer to be published. Rule changes will take years more. In the meantime, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is working on its own report, as are the governments of Canada and France.

11 former employees of American tourism and expeditions company OceanGate testified before the Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation (MBI), in addition to a range of industry specialists.

Notable figures included engineer David Lochridge, who alleges he was fired from OceanGate in 2018 for raising safety concerns about quality control, as well as Triton Submarines' co-founder Patrick Lahey, who shared his first public comments on the Titan submarine disaster on a special episode of the Big BOAT Interview. He said the submersible was an "experimental monstrosity that should never have carried people".

BOAT provided daily coverage and updates on the court hearing as it unfolded.