06 March 2024 , 21:49
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The passengers of the doomed Titanic submersible were required to sign a waiver that mentioned death four times in the first page.
The grim details of the waiver were included in the new Channel 5 documentary about the disaster - The Titan Sub Disaster: Minute by Minute.
The documentary reveals minute by minute how the tragedy unfolded including how mum Christine Dawood gave up her place on the sub to let her son go down with her husband.
OceanGate boss Stockton Rush was recorded boasting about “bending the rules” when building it. He said: “I have broken some rules to make this. The carbon fibre and titanium... there is a rule that you don’t do that. Well, I did."
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The victims of the tragedy. Clockwise from top left - Hamish Harding, Stockton Rush, Suleman Dawood and his father Shahzada Dawood, and finally Paul-Henri Nargeolet (Dirty Dozen Productions/OceanGat)The company's chief executive Stockton Rush and four of his passengers, including British adventurer Hamish Harding, 58, were killed at sea in the tragedy.
The Titan - a cylinder-shaped cabin made of carbon-fibre - began taking people to the Titanic in 2021, at up to $250,000 per passenger per trip.
Hamish Harding, 58, Pakistani tycoon, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman Dawood, 19, French Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 77 were the four passengers who died after the vessel lost communications to land on June 18.
Debris from the Titan submersible, recovered from the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic (AP)Days later, after a frantic search and worldwide media attention, debris from the sub was discovered on the ocean floor and it was believed it had crushed under pressure from the sea.
After the craft was reported missing, the U.S. Navy went back and analyzed its acoustic data and found an anomaly that was “consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost,” a senior Navy official said.
OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush died on the vessel he created (AP)“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” OceanGate said in a statement. “We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.”
The company's website has since gone down and the message that appears reads: "OceanGate Expeditions has suspended all exploration and commercial operations."
Oceangate CEO Stockton Rush revealed previous mishaps with the sub (OceanGate)In 2021 and 2022, at least 46 people successfully traveled on OceanGate’s submersible to the Titanic site, according to letters the company filed with a U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, that oversees matters involving the shipwreck. But questions about the submersible’s safety were raised by former passengers.
One of the company’s first customers likened a dive he made to the site two years ago to a suicide mission.
The Titan sub used by OceanGate to visit the Titanic wreck (PA)“Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other,” said Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman and adventurer from Germany. “You can’t be claustrophobic.”
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