OceanGate Targeted With $50M Suit Over Titan Failure

Much of the news following the OceanGate Titan failure has been focused on the clear shortcomings of their former CEO or explaining what an implosion is in lay terms. Outside of the poor taste Oxygen Clock countdown, there hasn’t been much discussion about what the experience would have been like for the passengers of the vessel. The lawsuit against OceanGate has centered on what would have been going through the passengers’ minds before the implosion. Yahoo! has coverage:

“While the exact cause of failure may never be determined, experts agree that the Titan’s crew would have realized exactly what was happening,” the lawsuit states. “Common sense dictates that the crew were well aware they were going to die, before dying.”

José Luis Martín, a submarine expert, inferred that the crew would have realized that something went terribly wrong for about a full minute before the implosion. ABC quoted him describing the likely scenario as something out of a horror movie:

The Titan changed position and fell like an arrow vertically because the 400 kilos of passengers that were in the porthole compromised the submarine,” Martin said. “They all rushed and crowded on top of each other. Imagine the horror, the fear and the agony. It must have been like a horror movie.”

OceanGate has several weeks to respond. While they have to respond with something, it may be hard for them to overcome Stockton Rush’s meticulously documented corner cutting and retaliation against employees voicing safety concerns.

Crew Of Titan Sub Knew They Were Going To Die Before Implosion, According To More Than $50M Lawsuit [Yahoo!]
Titanic Submersible Victims Knew Their Fate 1 Minute Before Dying, Expert Says [ABC]

Earlier: That OceanGate Liability Waiver Might Not Be As Airtight As It Seems

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.