Company that owns the Titán submersible suspends its commercial operations and exploration trips

Ocean Gatethe company that owns the Titan submersible, which imploded last month with five people on board while traveling to view the wreckage titanicannounced this Thursday that it has suspended all its commercial operations and its exploration trips.

Without giving further details, the company published a label on the cover of its website in which the suspension is communicated.

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On June 25, the US Coast Guard announced an official investigation to discover the causes of the implosion and the Canadian authorities are carrying out another.

The objective is to prevent the event from repeating itself and for this a committee of experts is trying to figure out what happened to the submersible, which imploded on June 18, as was discovered after several days of searching for its remains in a rescue operation in the that several countries were involved and that captured the attention of millions of people around the world.

The committee of experts may also make recommendations to the competent authorities on the imposition of civil or criminal sanctions.

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The announcement made by OceanGate on its website

The OceanGate company, owner of the submersible and operator of the expeditions, has not updated its website since what happened and you can still see the tours it offered on board submersibles to places like the Azores islands, the Bahamas or the Atlantic coast of Canada, the area where the Titanic sank in 1912 after colliding with an iceberg.

Aboard the Titan, “intrepid travelers” could participate in expeditions that lasted a total of eight days, although the dive to the Titanic at a depth of 3,800 meters lasted only about ten hours.

“The dive will not only provide an exciting and unique travel experience, but will also help the scientific community to learn more about the shipwreck and the deep ocean,” says the website about this expedition, whose price starts at $250,000 per person. .

In addition to the missing Titan, which could submerge up to 4,000 meters deep, the company owns the Cyclops 1 submersible, which can carry up to five people to depths of 500 meters.

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The Titan was the world’s only carbon-fiber submersible capable of submerging five people to 4,000 meters, OceanGate claims.

It was designed and built by OceanGate in collaboration with experts from NASA, Boeing and the University of Washington and made its underwater debut in 2018.

“Through the innovative use of modern materials, Titan is lighter, more spacious and comfortable than any other deep-immersion submersible exploring the ocean today,” the company states.

After several days of searching, on June 22, the US Coast Guard announced that “debris” had been found near the area where the wreckage of the Titanic was found. Later, he confirmed that the remains corresponded to the external part of the Titan submersible.

In it were traveling the millionaire Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood with his son Suleman, a 19-year-old student; British explorer Hamish Harding; the French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet and the CEO of the firm OceanGate, Stockton Rush.

Source: Elcomercio