‘Experimental without overview:’ Experts have been concerned about OceanGate submarine for years

ST. JOHN’S, NL — The small submarine that goes missing in the depths of the North Atlantic has not been subjected to industry-standard testing and scrutiny, according to two submarine engineers who expressed concerns about the ship in 2018.

Bart Kemper, chief engineer at Kemper Engineering Services in Louisiana, described the development of OceanGate’s Titan submersible as “experimental without supervision.” That approach is not at all representative of typical industry practice, Kemper said in an interview Tuesday.

He said the Titan’s disappearance on Sunday while descending to the wreckage of the Titanic was “appalling”.

“These are literally the things that keep us up at night because we don’t want to be responsible for any of these stories. We take this seriously,” Kemper said of his subsea engineering colleagues. “It’s heartbreaking.”

Crews from the United States and Canada rushed Wednesday to find the Titan and the five people inside as oxygen reserves were running low. The 6.7-meter submarine lost contact with its mother ship on Sunday, about an hour and 45 minutes after it began its journey to the Titanic shipwreck, about 700 kilometers off Newfoundland’s southeast coast.

William Kohnen, president and CEO of California-based engineering firm Hydrospace Group, was hesitant to comment on the situation in an interview Tuesday evening as the search has not yet concluded. But he said it’s hard to know what went wrong because the Titan isn’t classified.

When a vessel undergoes classification, a recognized third-party agency reviews the design and construction to make sure it has been properly tested and is safe, Kohnen said. Engineers, he explained, know how to design and equip a submarine to be safe. But since the Titan is unclassified, “we don’t know what system the vehicle may or may not have,” he said.

Classification is not required by law, but the Titan’s disappearance could increase pressure to change that, he said, adding that 95 percent of all submarines are classified.

Titan “is really an outlier,” said Kohnen, who is originally from Montreal.

A group of engineers and industry experts, including Kemper and Kohnen, wrote a 2018 letter to OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, first obtained by The New York Times, warning that the company’s “experimental” approach to ship could have “catastrophic” consequences. Those behind the letter were particularly concerned about OceanGate’s mission to invite members of the public aboard Titan for a four-mile journey out to sea; they were afraid the public wouldn’t understand that the ship was unclassified, Kemper said.

Rush is one of five people who were on the Titan when it disappeared, officials have confirmed.

Kohnen said the letter was “leaked” to Rush and that he had discussed its contents with OceanGate’s CEO. In response, the company made changes to its public reporting and clarified that Titan was not classified, Kohnen said.

“But we still have a non-certified submarine here,” he said.

OceanGate representatives did not return any interview requests on Wednesday.

In a 2019 blog post, OceanGate explained that Titan was not classified because the classification process could hinder innovation and fail to account for pilot error, which it says is the cause of most marine accidents.

“Our risk assessment team reviews the entire expedition and completes a detailed, quantified risk assessment for each dive,” the post reads. ”The risk assessment takes into account 25 specific factors that can influence a dive result. Using that information, a dive plan is written to mitigate these known risks.”

This report from The Canadian Press was first published on June 21, 2023.

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