According to New York Post, during a previous dive, the ill-fated Titan submersible experienced an incident when a former pilot lost control of the vessel. Leading the sub to start spinning in circles, leaving the terrified passengers stranded onboard for hours.
Read more: OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush reveals Titan sub was struck by LIGHTNING during the 2018 test
The footage showed that as the submersible dove 12,500 feet below sea level, the vehicle spun out of control, leading to Pilot Scott Griffith quickly saying, 'We have a problem'
According to the footage revealed in the BBC documentary aired in 2022, when 300 meters away from the ruins of the Titanic, the crew encountered a malfunction with the Titan's systems
According to the Mirror, Griffith shared that “There’s something wrong with my thrusters. I’m thrusting and nothing is happening,”
The accident was believed to have been caused by an alleged improper mounting of one of the Titan's thrusters. This led to conflicting propulsion forces, resulting in the submersible spinning in circles.
One thruster propelled the sub in one direction while the other pushed it in the opposite direction.
According to the documentary's description, the frightened crew members were left waiting for hours while OceanGate's CEO, Stockton Rush, worked to resolve the issue from the safety of the mother ship.
At the moment the Titan crashed, Reneta Rojas, a member of the ship, expressed her concerns. He hugged his head and started to panic as the crew tried to reprogram the ship's motion controls with something like a video game controller.
While the ship's fault was confirmed, the documentary also reveals that the crew had to wait hours for OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush to fix the problem.
The passenger Reneta Rojas told the BBC, “You know what I was thinking, we’re not going to make it. We’re literally 300m (600 feet) from the Titanic, and although we are already in the debris field, we can’t go anywhere but go in circles.”
“We were just so happy we had figured out how to move forward,” Rojas said. “We started clapping inside the submersible and saying ‘Yes we can go.'”
“We were just so happy we had figured out how to move forward,” Rojas said. “We started clapping inside the submersible and saying ‘Yes we can go.'”
In the film, Jaden Pan, the videographer for the documentary, highlighted the perils of the dive, including the fact that the passengers were securely fastened inside the submersible.
“The dome slowly closes in front of me. I have this moment of ‘this is the point of no return’. I’m not claustrophobic by any means but at that moment I was like if there was any point to freak out, now would be the point to freak out,” Pan said.
Upon resurfacing, the crew of the 2022 documentary expressed their concerns about the malfunctioning thruster to Rush. However, he told them, "Almost every deep-sea sub makes a noise at some point.”
Watching the video below:
