The Titanic fixation phase is a common and inexplicable phenomenon that has affected elementary schoolers since 1912. It’s practically a rite of passage for children to become obsessed with the details of the Titanic’s sinking, from the number of passengers in each class to the conspiracy theories surrounding the ship’s supposedly fateful end. For many ex-Titanic fixators, seeing the ship’s wrecked remains in person would be a dream come true — but for the passengers inside the missing submersible known as the Titan, it quickly became a nightmare.
ICYMI: On Sunday, June 18, a submersible called the Titan set out to carry five passengers to see the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean. The sub lost contact with its mothership, the Canadian research ship the Polar Prince, an hour and 45 minutes into the dive, prompting a massive search and rescue mission. As of noon on June 21, the Titan is still missing. Though the U.S. Coast Guard saying that they had detected underwater noises in the search area on June 21, the 96-hour oxygen supply was believed to have run out sometime on the morning of June 22. Since then, authorities have found major pieces of debris from the Titan. According to The New York Times, the debris meant there was a “catastrophic event” or explosion, and all five passengers are now presumed dead.
The Beatles may have happily sung about how we all live in a yellow submarine, but the Titan’s living conditions left much to be desired (especially since the passengers paid $250,000 for their tickets). The website for OceanGate, the company who ran the Titan’s tours, says that the sub was 22 feet long; that’s roughly the size of a tiny school bus. Inside, it was “about the size of a minivan,” says CBS correspondent David Pogue.
For the sake of investigative journalism, Pogue took a tour on the Titan last November. His experience has 1.1 million views on YouTube and gives us a first-hand look inside the submersible. Fair warning: Look away if you’re claustrophobic.
So, what did the inside of the submersible look like? In one word: cramped. It was essentially a metal tube with a single window that looks out into the pitch-black Atlantic. It had a crude toilet made up of a chamber pot and a plastic bottle. It could hold a maximum of five people, of which none were allowed to have shoes on and only one could stretch their legs.
The Titan itself was built to be controlled very simply. Case in point? It only had one button on the inside. In the video, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush (who is currently one of the five passengers aboard the missing sub) told Pogue, “It should be like an elevator, you know? It shouldn’t take a lot of skill.”
In the TikTok above, Rush showed the BBC that the sub was operated by a Sony PlayStation-style video game controller (although that’s not exactly rare for submersibles). The sub had a single overhead light and no GPS; it relied on texts from its mothership to tell it where to go. Since it lost communication with the Polar Prince, it was sailing blind.
Next time I feel like seeing the Titanic, I think I’ll stick with Jack and Rose.
This article was published on 6/21/23. It was updated on 6/22/23.