The family of famed Titanic explorer Paul Henri-Nargeollet is seeking $50 million in damages from OceanGate, the company behind the Titanic submarine. The lawsuit alleges that the company’s negligence toward safety led to the tragic deaths of all five crew members, including Nargeollet, who endured unimaginable terror before the ship’s catastrophic explosion.
At the heart of the lawsuit are allegations of gross negligence against OceanGate and its CEO Stockton Rush. The company is accused of prioritizing profits and publicity over the safety of its passengers. By bypassing industry standards, ignoring expert advice and cutting corners, OceanGate created a dangerous environment for those aboard the Titan. Independent informed of.
The lawsuit states that Rush’s passion for innovation blinded him to the critical importance of safety. His alleged disregard for established protocols, as well as the company’s failure to disclose the full extent of the risks involved, created a deadly recipe for disaster.
The family of Paul Henri-Nargeollet hopes that by holding OceanGate accountable they can prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future. The legal battle promises to shed light on the circumstances surrounding the fatal expedition and could lead to significant changes in the regulation of deep-sea exploration.
For example, while titanium is commonly used in deep-sea submersibles, Rush believed it was unnecessarily heavy and instead chose carbon fiber for the Titan’s hull. The lawsuit states that carbon fiber “breaks down under pressure over time,” and although Rush acknowledged the possibility of “catastrophic failure” due to flaws in the carbon fiber structure, he installed an acoustic safety system to detect problems.
Titan had made only a few trips to the depths of the wreck site before the mission, but these trips may have weakened the ship’s “carbon-fiber hull and/or the connections and seals between different types of materials,” the lawsuit states.
OceanGate’s head of marine operations, who was “most responsible for the safety of anyone sailing” on Titan, requested a scan of the carbon fiber hull as part of a detailed safety report. This request reportedly angered Rush, who not only refused to do the scan, but also fired the head of safety after he addressed the report.
In addition to this expert’s concerns, Rush also received warnings from other experts and the Marine Technology Society, which sent OceanGate a letter in 2018 warning that the company’s “experimental” approach could result in “negative consequences (ranging from minor to catastrophic).” According to the lawsuit, “none of the warnings were heeded.”
The ship was never certified by leading certification group DNV. Rush refused to seek DNV certification for the Titan because he believed it would be too difficult to “educate” DNV personnel — who are world-class experts on the requirements and hazards of deep-sea diving — about the purported benefits of the Titan’s “innovative” design, the complaint states.
The lawsuit also alleges that crew members were required to sign a waiver form that “did not disclose numerous important, relevant risk factors regarding the design and operation of the Titan or the materials used in its construction.”
Despite his extensive knowledge of the sea floor near the Titanic wreck, Nargeollet, 77, was never fully informed of the ship’s safety, the lawsuit claims. “Neither Rush nor OceanGate ever fully or accurately disclosed all of the material facts about Titan’s design and construction… To the contrary, Rush and OceanGate actively promoted Nargeollet’s (and others’) false beliefs about the ship’s safety and seaworthiness.”
Unfortunately, when an acoustic safety system alarm indicated the ship’s hull was “cracking due to excessive pressure,” the pilot attempted to abort the mission by reducing weight.
However, the crew had no communications and possibly no electricity. “Common sense suggests that the crew members knew well before they died that they were going to die,” the lawsuit states.
“The crew would have heard the sound of carbon fibers cracking and becoming more intense as the weight of the water put pressure on Titan’s hull,” the filing said. “According to experts, they would have continued descending with full knowledge of the ship’s irreversible failures, experiencing terror and mental anguish before Titan ultimately exploded.”
The lawsuit states that no commercial manned submersible other than the Titan has ever exploded.
The blast killed Mr Rush and Mr Nargeollet, as well as British explorer Hamish Harding (58), UK-based Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood (48) and his 19-year-old son Suleman.
Tony Buzbee, one of the family’s attorneys, said in a statement: “We hope that through this lawsuit we can give the family answers about exactly how this happened, who was involved, and how those involved allowed this to happen.”
