Titan Submersible’s Final Messages Revealed Before Implosion

The last messages sent by the Titan submersible before it imploded last year during a doomed voyage to the wreck of the Titanic have now been revealed, showing how the five passengers experienced communications problems but nonetheless felt things were “all good here” less than an hour before losing contact with the surface.

The texts exchanged between the Titan and its support ship, the Polar Prince, were confirmed as part of a recreation of the dive that was shown by U.S. Coast Guard officials on Monday, Sept. 16, at the start of what is expected to be a two-week hearing into the tragedy.

The animated video details how the Titan began diving down from the Polar Prince off the coast of Canada around 9:20 a.m. local time on June 18, 2023.

While the submersible and the ship trade a series of routine messages for the next 40 minutes, an issue arises just before 10 a.m. local time when the Polar Prince repeatedly asks the Titan if the submersible can see the ship on its display — to no answer — leading to more urgent messages.

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After about 15 minutes, the Titan responds, acknowledging that it has communication and the Polar Prince says “I need better comms from you,” to which the Titan responds “yes” and says they “lost system oand [sic] chat settings.” 

Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a noted explorer aboard the submersible at the time, is believed to be sending these messages, according to the Coast Guard.

The Polar Prince asks again, “status? do you see polar prince on your display?” And soon after, the Titan responds “yes” and “all good here” at 10:15 a.m.

Nine minutes after that, the Titan notifies the Polar Prince that they are “east south east [of] the nbow,” which officials believe means the vessel was close to the Titanic wreckage.

Minutes later, Polar Prince asks again if Titan sees them on their display.

Titan then asks the Polar Prince if they are also at the bow, and Polar Prince says “making our way there … your position jumps significantly each ping” — which the ship repeats to the Titan at 10:36, only 11 minutes before losing contact with the submersible.

At 10:47, at a depth of about 3,350 meters and a pressure of 4,900 pounds per square inch, the Titan messages that they “dropped two wts,” referring to their weights — and contact is then lost almost immediately, at 10:47:32 a.m., according to the Coast Guard.

Four days later, some of the wreck of the Titan was found about 500 meters from the Titanic. 

All five passengers died in the implosion: Nargeolet and another adventurer, Hamish Hardin; father and son Shahzada and Suleiman Dawood; and Stockton Rush, who co-founded OceanGate, the company operating the Titan.

OceanGate has since suspended its operations amid the ongoing investigation into what happened. According to the Associated Press, the company says it has cooperated fully with the government probes.

The hearing that began Monday “will review testimony from technical experts, crew members, and other relevant parties, and will examine evidence related to the submersible’s design, operation, and safety protocols,” the Coast Guard has said.

The final moments of the Titan passengers have been the subject of much discussion.

Nargeolet’s family has claimed in a lawsuit that they experienced “terror and mental anguish” and were aware they were in danger before the implosion, though some outside experts have pushed back on this.

“The way a sub operates is that you load it up with weight at the top … so that on the surface it’s heavy and that drags it down through the water column down to the bottom,” one expert tells PEOPLE. 

But “as you are nearing the bottom, you want to slow down,” says this expert, who asked not to be quoted by name given the sensitivity of the investigation and legal issues surrounding it. “And so you release weight so that you are not as heavy, more neutrally buoyant, and that enables you to swim around the bottom using the minimum of energy.”

“People read that — oh, we dropping weight, they must be in trouble,” the expert says. “It’s actually, no, they’re just approaching the Titanic.”