What caused the Titanic submarine to implode?
Authorities have not yet determined what caused the expedition’s fatal incident, and an investigation into the cause of the implosion is ongoing.
Prime Minister David Cameron raised the possibility that the Titan’s carbon fiber composite material, which makes it lighter than other similar submarines, may have contributed to Titan’s downfall.
The material “has no compressive strength,” the filmmaker told the New York Times, and has made numerous expeditions, including a solo dive into Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, in 2012 on the 24-foot submarine Deepsea Challenger. “That’s not what it was designed for.”
Cameron has now said in multiple interviews that the deepwater engineering community generally adheres to the most stringent certification and safety protocols. He pointed out that that is why such tragedies have not happened before.
“An accident like this has never happened before,” he told the Times. “There have never been any fatalities at this depth, and certainly no implosion.”
(First published on June 24, 2023 at 12:00 a.m. Pacific Time)
