OceanGate’s Titan Submarine Depended on ‘Idiot’ Excel Spreadsheet

A recent hearing into OceanGate’s Titan submersible, which tragically imploded during a voyage to explore the Titanic wreck last year, revealed that the company used a hand-typed Excel spreadsheet to track the vessel. This unsettling information came to light thanks to testimony from a former contractor of the firm.

The June incident, which took place last year, resulted in the loss of all five individuals aboard the Titan, including Stockton Rush, OceanGate’s CEO and co-founder. During the hearings conducted by the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation, Antonella Wilby, a former contractor for OceanGate, explained the cumbersome process used to monitor the submersible’s coordinates.

Wilby recounted, “There were delays because there was this manual process of first writing down the lat-long coordinates and then typing them in.” She noted that this manual entry was supposed to occur every five minutes, a task Wilby described as burdensome.

Wilby criticized the tracking system used by OceanGate, labeling it as “absolutely idiotic.” She expressed that she raised concerns about this tracking method but was dismissed for supposedly being “not solution-oriented.” The system relied on an ultra-short baseline (USBL) acoustic positioning system, which used sound pings to determine the Titan’s speed, depth, and position.

However, instead of this data being automatically integrated into mapping software, it was first manually transcribed into a notebook and then entered into a computer spreadsheet. Other former employees of OceanGate echoed Wilby’s concerns regarding the safety of the Titan. One ex-engineering director, Tony Nissen, testified that he refused to participate in a test dive of the vehicle.

The hearings investigating the Titan’s fatal implosion are ongoing, with public access available through a live stream on the official YouTube channel of the US Coast Guard. During a previous session, an animated recreation of the incident was presented, illustrating the submersible losing communication at an alarming depth of 3,346 meters.

The Coast Guard stated in a press release prior to the hearing that its primary focus is to uncover the facts related to the tragedy and to develop recommendations aimed at preventing similar incidents in the future. Guillermo Sohnlein, co-founder of OceanGate, is scheduled to testify at the upcoming hearing to shed more light on the operational practices of the company.

The scrutiny surrounding OceanGate and its Titan submersible continues to grow as these hearings unfold. As more information is uncovered about the circumstances leading up to the implosion, the emphasis remains on ensuring stringent safety protocols are established in the future.

This tragic incident has raised critical questions regarding the safety and operational procedures of deep-sea exploration. With the testimony of former employees highlighting deficiencies in technology and safety measures, the hope is that necessary reforms will emerge from these investigations to safeguard future missions.

As the hearings progress, the public continues to await accountability and clarity regarding the events that led to the Titan’s fateful dive.