OceanGate Expeditions, the struggling travel company behind the Titan submarine tragedy, is suspending all research and industrial operations – two weeks after its iconic dive vessel fatally malfunctioned with five people on board.
The announcement was made quietly by a small banner header on the OceanGate website.
Founded in 2009, the corporate offered wealthy daredevils the chance to travel by submarines to underwater shipwrecks and canyons.
Nonetheless, the Washington state-based group made headlines last month when its Titan submarine disappeared within the North Atlantic on June 18 en path to the wreck of the Titanic, sparking an enormous multi-day search by US and Canadian authorities.
There have been five people on board on the time – including OceanGate’s 61-year-old CEO Stockton Rush.
Officials now consider the ship imploded, killing the passengers immediately.
The stays of the submarine, including the tail cone, were found about 1,600 feet from the Titanic’s hull on June 22.
In response to the U.S. Coast Guard, stays recovered in the next days also contained “alleged human stays.”
Within the weeks for the reason that tragic incident, Rush and OceanGate have come under fire for what some see as a nonchalant approach to safety that will have contributed to the submarine’s failure.
In a single recently discovered correspondence, Rush compared the Titan’s bonding glue to “peanut butter” and admitted that the development of the carbon fiber hull was “pretty easy”.
OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Söhnlein, who isn’t any longer with the corporate, has repeatedly defended Rush against accusations of hubris.
“The best thing I’ve all the time admired [Rush] is his healthy respect for risk and his healthy respect for the hazards of the deep ocean,” he told the BBC initially of the search.
“Every thing we did was all the time focused on managing that risk.”
In response to the corporate’s website, on the time of the implosion, OceanGate had conducted greater than 141 expeditions and greater than 2,000 dives within the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.
A coveted seat on the doomed Titanic voyage cost passengers – including billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, 58, and Titanic expert Pierre-Henri Nargeolet, 77 – $250,000 each.