EVERETT, WASHINGTON: The company that operated a submersible that imploded on a trip to the Titanic wreck site has seemingly erased its online presence, leaving behind a cryptic message on its website. OceanGate, which was founded in 2009 by Stockton Rush and Guillermo Sohnlein, offered eight-day expeditions to the Titanic for $250,000 per person.
The company claimed to be the first to offer such trips since 2005 and said it wanted to document the decay of the historic shipwreck. However, on June 18, one of its submersibles, Titan, suffered a "catastrophic implosion" while descending to the Titanic, killing all five people on board. Among them were OceanGate's CEO Rush, who was piloting the sub, British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, and French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
What happened to OceanGate?
Since then, OceanGate has gone silent on social media and its website. As of Friday, July 14, visitors to the company's website are greeted with a black screen with the company's logo and a brief message that reads "OceanGate Expeditions has suspended all exploration and commercial operations." OceanGate initially announced the suspension of all commercial and exploration operations on July, 6. Now the company's Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram accounts are also inaccessible, with messages saying that the content is unavailable or that the account does not exist.
It is unclear why OceanGate has decided to remove its online content or what its plans are for the future. The company has not issued any official statement or explanation for its actions. Some internet users have speculated that OceanGate is probably trying to avoid legal or financial troubles, or that it may be planning to rebrand itself under a new name. "They’re definitely going to rebrand and come back under a new name and with a new ship. No way they’re going away forever," wrote one Twitter user.
'Kill 3 billionaires? There will be international legislation after this'
However, other users suggest it was not likely so, "Kill 3 billionaires? There will be international legislation after this." One more user wrote, "Defensive move. They're getting served with civil lawsuits that will suck every last dollar from them. Deletion doesn't really matter though. Plaintiff to subpoenas to social media companies will produce all the past content during discovery." Another user said, "So they gonna go ghost after bagging a million dollars?" One more user pointed out, "They also deleted the videos off their YouTube that said how safe the sub is too just like I said they would the day it went missing." One of the users repeated the speculation, "They will be away for like 3 months and come back like nothing happened." Majority of the users took a dig at the company by writing they "couldn't handle the pressure," in reference to the implosion and the backlash the company received following the tragic deaths.
'Rush wasn’t really looking to build tourism'
Despite the criticism that OceaGate and its CEO faced for charging money for a Titan expedition to the Titanic and bypassing many regulations, a participant who pulled out of the doomed voyage over safety concerns defended Rush, the owner of the submersible, as a passionate explorer rather than a mere sightseer. He said he merely needed money to fund his obsession with the Titanic. Jay Bloom, a Las Vegas financier, told The New York Post: “[Rush] wasn’t really looking to build a tourism business to the Titanic. He wanted to research and document the decay of the ship over time.” He added, “Multiple dives to the site costs a lot of money. A way to finance his scientific observation was to bring observers down with him."
A video animation released by a team of engineers on AiTelly, a YouTube channel showed how Titan's weal carbon fiber shell collapsed "within a fraction of a millisecond" under the immense 5, 600 pounds per square inch pressure at 5,500 feet deep in the Atlantic Ocean on June 18, killing them instantly.
