American Scandal - TItan Sub Disaster | 12,000 Leagues Under the Sea | 1

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

In June 2023, the OceanGate submersible Titan vanishes during a dive to the wreck of Titanic, triggering a frantic multinational search involving ships, aircraft, and deep-sea robots.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

American scandal uses dramatizations that are based on true events. Some elements, including dialogue, might be invented, but everything is based on historical research. It's late on June 20, 2003, on board a Royal Canadian Air Force patrol plane, high above the North Atlantic Ocean. An airman hunches over a monitor, listening intently to an acoustic feed through his headphones. Typically, he's tasked with tracking the movements of potentially hostile submarines, but today he has a different mission. A small, civilian submersible with five people on board has gone missing on a dive to the wreck of the Titanic.

Search teams from across the world have scrambled to help find it. The aircraft cabin is dim, except for the blinking status lights and the soft glow of computer monitors. To search the murky waters of the Atlantic, the plane has deployed several sonoboies. These sensors sink to a certain depth, capture sounds, then transmit them back to the air,

aircraft circling above, but it will take a skilled ear to pick out the sound of a small submersible against the ocean's background noise. The Canadian airman adjusts a dial. There's nothing on Bowie 2 apart from the usual sounds of the deep sea. Bowie 5 is all acoustic clutter too. But when he shifts to another channel, a sharper noise cuts through. He lifts one earphone and glances across the cabin. Sir, you may want to hear this. The airman's superior rises from his seat by the navigation console. What do you got? I'm not sure yet. A noise, but it's repeating, rhythmic. He hands the officer a spare headset. Listening intently, the officer's eyes narrow.

How long has that been coming through? I switched to buoy seven maybe 30 seconds ago? This is the first time I've heard it. Listen to this pacing. The two men wade as the sequence continues. The officer leans over the airman's shoulder, watching the waveform on his screen bounce in clean, distinct spikes. Well, that doesn't look like random turbulence. Exactly, it's too regular. You think it could be a signal? Someone banging? Now, it's loud relative to the ambient.

If they're using something inside the hole like a hammer, you would get this kind of residence. The officer removes the headset and exhales slowly. All right, what's the interval? It's difficult to say. We didn't catch anything on our last pass, but it'd be easy to miss. This could have been going on for hours. All right, let's consider our options. Could the sonobooie be drifting?

Is there any possibility that this could be interference from ship traffic? There are no surface vessels close enough to give us that profile. It's coming from depth, too, maybe 10,000 feet, give or take. Hard to know precisely, though. And you're sure it's not background noise. Sir, I've been hunting subs for nine years. I know what background noise is. This isn't it.

All right, I'll inform Halifax. They'll relay it up the change of the Americans. In the meantime, keep your headphones on. If the pattern changes, tell me immediately. Yes, sir. Because if this is what we think it is, and they're alive, and they're trying to call for help. The airman returns his full attention to his headphones,

straining to pick out any other noise in the background. Arithmetic banging sound is the most promising sign yet that the crew of the missing submersible Titan may still be alive. But just finding the sub won't be enough. If it is trapped at the bottom of the ocean, there won't be long to rescue the five people on board because the Titan's oxygen will run out in less than two days. The International Search and Rescue Operation in the North,

North Atlantic is in a race against time. From audible originals, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is American Scandal. In April 1912, the British Oceanliner Titanic sank on its maiden voyage to the United States. Around 1,500 people lost their lives in what was then the worst maritime disaster in history. And then for more than 70 years, the ship lay undisturbed at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean before its shattered remains were finally discovered in 1985. But in the decades that followed, only a few people got to visit the wreck. There weren't many submersibles capable of reaching it,

and the cost of mounting any expedition was prohibitively high. That all changed in 2021. Stockton Rush and his company Ocean Gate began offering the public the opportunity to go where only scientists, explorers, and filmmakers had gone before. For $250,000, wealthy thrill seekers could book a seat on the revolutionary Titan submers submersible and see the sunken ship of dreams for themselves. Stockton Rush led the expeditions personally, but in June 2023, the exclusive adventure he offered customers was transformed into a desperate rescue operation. The search for the Titan would

take place under the eyes of the international media, and in the end, Ocean Gate and Stockton Rush would become synonymous not with innovation or deep-sea adventure, but with hubris, reckless decision-making and deadly disregard for safety. This is episode 1, 12,000 feet under the sea. It's 8.30 a.m. on June 18, 2023 in the North Atlantic Ocean, 325 miles southeast of Newfoundland. An engineer tries to keep his balance as the floating platform he's standing on pitches in the swell. A few hundred feet away, the support ship Polar Prince looks almost serene, but out here on this small platform, every wave,

feels like a new attempt to knock the engineer off his feet. Still, he has a job to do. He turns to the white cylindrical hull of the Titan submersible that's resting on the platform. Its 22-foot-long body has a domed end cap at the bow and a tail fin on the stern. Every time the engineer approaches the vessel, he can't resist running his hand over its smooth surface. There's nothing in the world like it. Titans' innovative design and cutting-edge materials allow it to descend to depth that only a handful of subs can reach, but none of the others offer members of the public the chance to come along for the ride. After conducting his final checks of the stern, the engineer moves to Titan's front, where the domed N-cap sits wide open. He pokes his head inside and tells the five men on board,

and it's time to close up the hatch. Four of the occupants smile back. There's the Pakistani businessman Shazada Dawut and his 19-year-old son, Sulemon, who fidgets nervously with a Rubik's cube. There's the beaming British millionaire Hamish Harding and the gray-haired Titanic expert Paul Henri N'Argely. He's going to be their guide on today's trip. The engineer shares a quick joke with all of them, but the fifth man inside the subs pilot just glares and snaps at him to get on with it. The engineer's face flushes. He apologizes and quickly withdraws, hurrying to complete his work. A man who's scolded him isn't just the subs pilot. Stockton Rush is also the founder and CEO of Ocean Gate, the owner of the Titan submersible, and the engineer's boss.

With a final wish of good luck, the engineer swings the N-cap into place and begins tightening the bolts that hold it there. Rush and the other four passengers are now sealed in, with no way of opening the hatch from the inside. With the N-cap bolted shut, the engineer climbs into a boat and returns to the Polar Prince support ship. Then at 9.04 a.m., a floating platform that Titan rests on slips beneath the surface of the Atlantic. Ten minutes later, after divers and scuba gear complete their final checks, the submersible detaches from the platform begins its slow descent to the bottom of the ocean.

The Titan is an experimental craft. It's made fewer than 90 dives in total, and only 13 of those have reached the depth of the Titanic. The shipwreck is more than two miles beneath the surface, and reaching it typically takes a few hours. For the first 50 minutes of the descent, Titan is in regular contact with Ocean Gate staff aboard the polar prints.

Every five to ten seconds, the submersible automatically checks in by sending an electronic ping that gives the subs position. Stockton Rush also keeps in touch with the support ship manually, sending short, coded messages from his control console roughly every 15 minutes. But it's not always easy to communicate between the surface and the bottom of the ocean. At 9.53 a.m., the Titan appears to veer off course, heading away from the Titanic's coordinates. On board the polar prince, the support team sends a message

asking Rush if he can still see the ship on his display, but he doesn't respond. For the next 13 minutes, Polar Prince sends the same message multiple times. Finally, Rush answers with a single letter K, a code requesting a communications check. The team on board the polar prince confirms that they've received this message, and a few moments later, they receive another message from the sub informing them its communication system briefly went offline earlier when everything's working again now.

The support crew aboard the Polar Prince isn't too worried. They had suspected as much, and they soon receive another message from the Titan saying, All good here. All throughout this exchange, the submersible continues its descent into the deep. The automated pings continued to be erratic, though, giving contradictory positions that make it difficult to plot the Titan's exact location. But in one respect, at least, all. instruments agree. The Titan is closing in on the seafloor and its intended destination the wreck of the

Titanic. Abboard the polar prince, Ocean Gates' control room hums with electronics and soft chatter. Wendy Rush sits at a workstation focusing on a glowing laptop screen. Wendy is Stockton Rush's wife, but she's also Ocean Gates Director of Communications. She's responsible for tracking the submersibles progress and keeping in contact with it throughout the deep sea dive. Another Ocean Gate staffer nurses a cup of coffee and glances over Wendy's shoulder at the sub's GPS tracker. So, Wendy, how are we doing? All good now. The communication's been restored. We should get another message in a few minutes. The man takes a seat beside her. We're almost there? About 500 meters away. Wendy looks up as she hears an unfamiliar noise from what sounds like outside the control room.

What was that bang? But only seconds later, Wendy's laptop beeps and her attention returns to the screen. She smiles. Message from Stockton, drop two weights. It must be slowing down. Wendy picks up the walkie-talkie. Control the top side, Titan reports dropping two weights. Repeat, two weights. Confirm receiving. She turns back to the staffer. I was a little worried there for a moment. About that noise? Yeah, let's check the ping. She clicks on the screen. 10,978 feet right on schedule. They should hit the seafloor in 10 or 15 minutes. Let's see how dropping the waits slows the descent. Wendy waits for the next automatic ping. They should arrive every few seconds, but there's nothing. The true member pushes his chair a little closer and squints at the

screen. We should have gotten another one by now, right? Wendy refreshes the tracking panel, but nothing changes. The last recorded point freezes on screen. Oh, come on. Have we lost tracking? Yeah, it could be a packet loss. Wendy shakes her head. Her fingers dance across the keyboard. I'll request another comms check. Hopefully it's just a same problem as last time. For the second time in this dive, communication between the Titan submersible and its support ship has been severed.

That's happened on several other expeditions as well, so no one on board the polar prince is panicking. And with both the automated pings and the manual messaging system down, Ocean Gate staff conclude that there must be some kind of power issue on the submersible, probably the same one that took communication offline earlier in the dive.

They assume that Stockton Rush is busy booting up Titans' backup system, and that they'll hear from the sub soon. In the meantime, the polar prints continues to send messages to the submersible two or three times a minute. None receives any reply. The next two scheduled communication checks

go unanswered as well. These are all written up in the official notes as lost communications, but when the 45-minute check-in arrives with no response from the Titan, the language in the log changes. The entry no longer reads lost communications, but lost sub.

At this point, Ocean Gate's emergency procedures begin to activate, although there's still no outright alarm on the polar prints. Even if Titan has suffered some kind of mechanical or technical failure, the expectation is that Rush will simply have jettisoned the subs remaining weights. Once those are released, the submersibles' natural buoyancy should cause it to slowly ascend. When it eventually resurfaces, the polar prints can locate it, unbolt the hatch, and recover those inside. So Ocean Gate staff spread out across the deck of the polar prints, scanning the waves.

They watch for hours, but there's no sign of the submersibles white hull. They begin to wonder whether perhaps Rush has pressed on, continuing the trip to the Titanic despite losing communications. If that's the case, it should still surface by 3 p.m., but that hour comes and goes, and the ocean around them remains empty. The next theory they consider is that the Titan has drifted in the underwater currents, and resurfaced somewhere farther away from the support ship out of sight. So the polar prince begins a systematic search of the area,

cutting through the waves in a tight grid pattern, while crew members peer through binoculars and study radar screens, searching for any trace of the missing submersible. But still there's no sighting. Hours have now passed since Titan was supposed to reappear. The submersible has never been out of contact for this long before, and the Ocean Gate staff aboard the polar prince realize they can no longer handle this situation alone.

They need help. And soon, at a Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Center in Boston, Massachusetts, the phone starts ringing. This center is responsible for supervising the waters that stretch for 200 miles off New England. It's not the biggest area compared with some other American Coast Guard centers, but it's a busy lane for shipping traffic, and the phones are always ringing. Most of the time, it's cargo ships with engine trouble or a fishing boat in rough weather. but when the officer on duty picks up the phone this time, he quickly realizes this is not a routine call.

The voice on the other end of the line identifies himself as David Ferguson, the captain of the polar prince. Over the next few minutes, the Coast Guard officer listens carefully as Ferguson explains the situation unfolding in the North Atlantic. Ferguson says that the Titan submersible was supposed to surface at the latest almost three hours ago, although they actually lost contact with the sub around five hours before that. Now, the Polar Prince wants help to search for it. The Coast Guard officer outlines the first steps.

He offers to generate drift model calculations to predict where the Titan might have surfaced if it ascended without power. He can also review what Coast Guard resources are available to respond and aid in the search. Ferguson gratefully accepts because at this point there is no ambiguity left. The Titan isn't just overdue. It's officially missing. I'm Indravama and in the latest season of The Spy Who, we open the fire. on Larry Chin, the spy who outplayed Nixon.

For decades, Chin was embedded deep inside US intelligence. Then comes an opportunity. Richard Nixon's secret plan to reopen relations with China. Information Chin can place directly into Mao's hands. But the CIA has a weapon of their own. A Chinese mole ready to defect. How long until Chin's gig is up? Follow the Spy Who Now wherever you listen to podcasts.

Hello, I'm Matt Ford. And I'm Alice Levine. And we're the hosts of British Scandal. Now, Britain loves a royal scandal. Abdications, affairs, dodgy uncles, we've had the lot. But this series is about two brothers. Raised in palaces bound by tragedy, supposed to be inseparable. So how did they end up barely speaking?

Was it jealousy, the press, the firm? Or was this royal rift always inevitable? This is the story of Harry and Wills and the scandal that split the House of Windsor. Follow British scandal wherever you get your pocket. or listen early and ad-free on Audible. Within minutes of receiving the emergency call from the captain of the polar prince, the U.S. Coast Guard begins to deploy personnel and equipment. The first to reach the scene in the North Atlantic are the crew of a C-130 Hercules search

and rescue plane. They assist the hunt for the ocean gates missing submersible from the air. What the Coast Guard really needs, though, is personnel at sea level as well, but the Titanic wreck site is 900 miles off Cape Cod. and ships will take around two days to reach it from New England. There is a closer option, though. The polar prince is just over 300 miles from the coast of Newfoundland. So the Coast Guard liaises with its counterparts in Canada,

who immediately send an icebreaker to support the search. The Coast Guard is working on the same assumption as Ocean Gate, that the Titan has lost communication and returned to the surface somewhere. But even if that's true, Stockton Rush and the other four men on board are still in danger. there's no way to open the subs hatch from the inside. So even on the surface, the occupants will suffocate if they're not found in time. Ocean Gate informs the Coast Guard that the sub carries enough oxygen to last roughly 96 hours. By the time night falls on June 18, 2003, Titan has been sealed for around 12 hours.

That gives the Coast Guard another 84 hours or 3.5 days to locate the sub and open its hatch. The clock is ticking. There's little that rescuers can do at night, so at first light the following morning, a Coast Guard aircraft takes off to resume the search. But the Coast Guard pilots aren't the only ones rising early. Rumors begin rippling through newsrooms around the world that there's a major story breaking in the North Atlantic. As the details are confirmed, reporters rush to be the first on the scene.

And with the Titans' disappearance now public knowledge, Rear Admiral John Mager, commander of the Boston Coast Guard, holds a press briefing. He announces that the U.S. Navy has deployed three aircraft to scour the ocean. The Canadian Air Force has agreed to support the search effort, too, putting another Hercules in the air. But there's still no sign of the Titan on the surface, and that leads the Coast Guard to consider another possibility, that the submersible is stuck on the seabed. If that's the case, then the rescue mission has just grown vastly more complicated, and they're going to need expert help. More than a thousand miles away in East Aurora, New York, one such expert gathers a team of engineers in a small conference room.

Ed Casano is the CEO of Pelagic Research Services, a company that operates remotely controlled submersibles. The atmosphere in the meeting room is tense. The engineers have been glued to their phones all day following the news of Titan's disappearance. Deep Sea exploration is a small, tightly knit industry, and many of Pelagic's employees know their counterparts at Ocean Gate. But unlike Ocean Gate, Pelagic only operates unmanned, remotely controlled submersibles, so the thought of losing a crew at such an extreme depth is almost unimaginable. Casano claps his hands and calls the room to order. Then he confirms what's being reported on the news is true.

He just received the call outlining the gravity of the situation and asking Pelagic for help. Pelagic's flagship vessel is the Odysseus 6K, a cube-shaped submersible that can dive down to 20, thousand feet, far deeper than Titan's last known depth. So if Titan is stranded somewhere, Odysseus is exactly the craft to find it. Normally, it's researchers and surveyors who hire Odysseus to carry out deep-sea monitoring using its array of cameras and sensors. The sub has been deployed all over the world, but luckily for Ocean Gate, it is currently at Pelagic's facility in the lab next door. Under normal conditions, preparing and packing Odysseus for deployment takes two weeks.

Pelagics' engineers have standing instructions to work slowly and methodically with equipment this specialized. Any mistake could cost millions. But if they're going to rescue the Titan before its oxygen runs out, then Cassano needs his team to hurry. He and his engineers quickly draw up a plan. They prioritize the most important tasks and skip anything they can, but geography still poses a major obstacle. Pelagic's headquarters are in upstate New York, more than 300 miles inland, There's no time to transport Odysseus to a port by road, but Cassano has another idea. He makes a call to a contact with the U.S. Air Force, and soon there are three C-17 globemasters

waiting on the tarmac at the nearest major airport. But Pelagic isn't the only company summoned to help the Titan. There's another remotely operated submersible capable of reaching the depth of missing sub is thought to be at, and this one is already in the Atlantic Ocean. Just like Odysseus, the Victor 6,000, is usually high. by scientific researchers and surveyors. And when Ocean Gate's staff reach out to Victor's owners, they learn that it's currently aboard the French research vessel La Talante.

After he's made aware of the situation, the captain of that ship immediately sets course for the Titanic wreck site, but getting there will still take 48 hours. Ocean Gate is running out of time. And while the deep sea submersibles are mobilized, the surface search continues. More ships arrive to sweep the area as well as aircraft, including a long-range patrol plane

operated by the Royal Canadian Air Force. And during one flight on June 20th, an airman on board monitoring a sonobooy hears a banging noise. The sound is clear and regular and it's coming from about the depth where the Titan was last detected. After two days, without any sign of the submersible,

this noise suddenly raises hopes that the passengers are still alive. The banging sound might be the crew desperately trying to signal for help. News of the mysterious noise breaks as the world's media is still descending on the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Its capital, St. John's, has become the staging point for most of the vessels in the search and rescue effort, and among the reporters covering the story is local CBC journalist Ryan Cook. Driving home from work late on June 20, 2003, he witnesses the search effort enter a new phase.

From his car, he sees three enormous U.S. Air Force cargo planes. fly right over the top of him. They're heading in to land at the nearby airport. Cook thinks for a moment, then abandons his plans for a quiet evening. Instead, he makes a U-turn and follows the three planes. When he reaches the perimeter fence bordering the airport, Cook swings his car onto the gravel shoulder and kills the engine. Through the windshield, he can see that a cluster of reporters has beaten him to it. There's already a group of camera operators and photographers by the fence, even one man live-streaming the events on his phone. Cook gets out of his car just in time to see the last of the three giant airplanes on its final approach.

A thunderous shadow passes overhead, low enough that Cook instinctively ducks. The huge slate-gray plane drifts lower and lower until tires squeal and it touches down. The voice then calls out from the group of reporters. Hey, Ryan, thought you were going home. Cook turns to see a fellow CBC journalist, a camera bag slung over his shoulder. Cook smiles and shrugs. Well, I was for about ten minutes. Then those things flew over my car, and I figured something was happening.

Three American globemasters, one after the other, yeah, that'll catch anyone's attention. They lean against the fence as ground crews swarm around the planes, offloading pallets, and steel containers onto waiting trailers. Cook pulls out his phone to check for missed messages. You hear anything about what's on board? No, nothing concrete. Someone said they might be unloading decompression chambers. Someone else said remotely operated vehicles. Well, ROVs would make sense if they think the titans on the bottom. The last Globmaster rolls to a halt. It's cargo ramp opening with a hydraulic groan. Inside, Cook can see more tarped crates or equipment. Man, have you ever seen anything like this? They're turning St. John's into a military staging ground or something.

Yeah, I guess that banging noise they heard lit a fire under everyone. Cook wraps his jacket tighter and yawns, and his colleague laughs. You look like crap, by the way. Well, thanks. I've been running on adrenaline and coffee since Monday. Well, you should go home and get some sleep. Miss all the fun here? They watch as the gate opens and police motorcycles roar out, followed by a convoy of trucks. Cook checks the time.

Well, they are moving fast. Where do you think they're heading? Got to be the harbor, right? Well, what are we waiting for? Cook gives a tired laugh. Well, once a few more hours. right? Ryan Cook and his colleague jog back to their cars.

Although they don't know exactly what the three cargo aircraft were carrying, it's clear that no expense is being spared in the hunt for the Titan. But no matter how much money is thrown at the problem, there's one thing that no one can change. If Ocean Gates' calculations are correct, there's barely a day left before the submersible's oxygen runs out. Unless they find the Titan soon, then the work of hundreds of people from across the globe will all have been for nothing.

By June 21, 2021, 2003, the surface search for Titan has expanded to an area twice the size of Connecticut. Another Canadian Coast Guard vessel has joined the operation, sweeping the waves with advanced sensors. Meanwhile, overhead, a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 Hercules zigzags across the sky in a tight search pattern. Neither spots any sign of the missing submersible, nor do any of the other ships for planes scouring the area. But the Titan is only 22 feet long, a tiny speck against the vast ocean. Even if searchers pass close by, the craft could easily blend in among the choppy, white-tipped waves with the Atlantic. All they can do is keep looking and keep hoping.

Beneath the surface, the search zone is smaller, but no less daunting. Titan may have drifted in the deep ocean currents, but the working assumption is that the sub is stuck somewhere close to the Titanic wreck, the same area where the Canadian Air Force picked up banging noises on a sonogui. If the sounds came from the Titan, the submersible might still be intact. The rescuers just need a way to get eyes on the seabed. And in the early hours of June 22nd, the expert help they need finally arrives. Having been flown into Newfoundland by the U.S. Air Force two days earlier,

the deep-sea specialists from Pelagic Research Services in New York arrive at the search zone. Wind cuts across the deck of the supply ship Horizon Arctic as Pelagic's engineers swarm over the Odysseus 6K. Floodlights bathe and remotely operated submersible in a white glow. The cube-shaped craft has its metal limbs folded in, its cameras covered, and his cables all neatly coiled. But soon it needs to be in the water. Watching from the rail as the boat lurches around him

is Pelagic CEO Ed Cassano. The sea and sky around him are pitch black. The void broken only by scattered lights in the dark, Coast Guard cutters, research ships, even private vessels that have been drafted into the rescue mission. Cassano is watching his team work feverishly to prepare the Odyssey. When the Horizon Arctic's captain joins him at the rail, good timing, because Cassano has a question. He nods across the deck toward the Odyssey. So your crane and winch, you sure they can handle the weight with this sea state?

We've lifted heavier and worse, believe me. We'll just need to time it with waves. where your ROV is going to slam into the hull. You probably don't want that. No, you neither, right? The captain watches the engineers work for me. You know, we were the Titan support ship for the last two years. Most of my crew no stocked them personally.

So this isn't just another operation, you understand? No, I understand. My whole team does. We're doing all we can to bring them home. That's good. But be honest. I really think it's possible that they're still alive? If they are, we've got one shot to save them.

I don't know. They've got what? Five hours of oxygen left? Yeah, maybe less. And it's two hours to the bottom and two hours back. Well, that's not a lot of time to find them. No, it's going to be very tight. And that's assuming Titan's not resting on its side or trap somewhere that's difficult to reach. So the faster we get down there, the better.

Well, we're not going to drag our feet. We'll get you in the water as soon as you're ready. But after that, it's up to you guys. Yeah, but if Titans on the seabed, Odysseus will find her. That's what she was built for. Just after 4 a.m. on June 22nd, 2023, the Odysseus 6K finally enters the water. Under normal circumstances, the submersible would descend at a gentle 80 feet a minute, but this is no ordinary dive, so its operators push the sub to its limits,

and the Odysseus descends almost 50% faster than usual. Even then, it's 6.15 a.m. before it reaches a.m. And the speedy mobilization and rapid descent have come at a cause. seconds after reaching the search zone, some of Odysseus' thrusters fail, and without them, the submersible won't be able to maneuver safely through the hazardous debris field that surrounds the wreck of the Titanic. After nearly three days of non-stop work, it seems that the Pelagic team has failed at the last moment. Under normal protocols, the Odysseus operators would abort the mission. They would bring the submersible slowly back to the surface, diagnose the problem,

and only redeploy when they were sure it was fixed. But they don't have time for that. So in a desperate gamble, the Pelagic team raises the submersible to 65 feet above the seabed, high enough to avoid it crashing into anything while they try a remote fix from the surface. With the subs suspended in the dark, they spend an hour trying to get the thrusters going,

but nothing works. Eventually, they are left with just one option, power cycling the entire vessel, Turning Odysseus off and on again at this depth is dangerous, though. If the submersible fails to reboot, it will hang lifeless at the end of its long cable. The Pelagic team will then have no option but to haul it back up, possibly destroying its highly sensitive and expensive electronics in the process. But there is no other choice, so they give it a try. Remarkably, this last-ditch effort works.

When systems restart on the Odysseus, the thrusters come back online, and the operator have full control again. But just as the submersible reaches the seabed a second time, the 96-hour countdown reaches zero. Titan will be out of oxygen at any moment, and if the men on board aren't already unconscious, then they are living on borrowed time. Inside a converted shipping container on the deck of the Horizon Arctic,

Jesse Doran hunches over Odysseus' control panel. Doran is Pelagic's ROV manager and an experienced submersible pilot. His eyes flit across several screens showing the bottom of the ocean as captured by Odysseus' cameras. Other monitors display depth readings and temperature data. Doran needs all this information at his disposal because at 12,000 feet below the surface, the seabed is pitch black. The only visibility comes from Odysseus's floodlights, which barely pushed through the gloom. Behind him, Pelagic CEO Ed Cassana watches over Doran's shoulder.

He doesn't say a word, but Doran knows he'll be scanning. the screens too, searching for any anomaly, any glimmer of hope. And at 9.40 a.m., a flash of white suddenly appears on one of the monitors. Something is reflecting the Odysseus' lights, and it looks too clean and bright to be part of the Titanic. His mouth dry, Doran maneuvers the Odysseus closer. He and Casano both lean in, and as they get closer, they see that the object is not encrusted or decayed by a century underwater like everything else in the debris field. It's unmistakably modern. Doran angles the submersible to get a better view and suddenly realizes exactly what he's looking at. It's the titan's tail cone, but it's completely separated from the rest of the submersible.

After a three-and-a-half-day search, the Titan has been found, and it's in pieces. Doran's fingers stay on the controls, but his stomach twists. There's only one explanation for what he's seeing, that the Titan has suffered a catastrophic structural failure. The enormous pressure of the water at this death must have crushed it in a sudden collapse known as an implosion. The only small comfort is that this would have happened in just milliseconds. Stockton Rush and his four passengers would likely have been dead before they even realize something had gone wrong. After a long, heavy pause, Doran turns to Cassano. He picks up a radio and reports what they've found to the U.S. Coast Guard. Now, the international effort will have to switch from rescue to

recovery, but it won't just be about retrieving what's left of the passengers for their families to bury. They're sure to be an investigation, and the U.S. Coast Guard will want all the evidence they can get, because it won't just be enough to establish what happened. The families of the victims, the authorities, and the rest of the submersible industry will demand to know why the Titan imploded and whether this fatal accident could have been prevented. From Audible Originals and Airship, This is episode one of a Titan submersible disaster for American Scandal. In our next episode, in designing and building the Titan, Ocean Gate set a collision course with catastrophe, driven by ambition and convinced that the promise of innovation justifies

almost any risk. Stockton Rush champions a series of increasingly experimental submersibles. Follow American Scandal on the Audible app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of American Scandal, ad-free, by joining. audible. And to find out more about me and my other projects, including my live stage show coming to a theater near you, go to not thatlindsaygram.com. That's not that Lindsaygram.com. If you'd like to learn more about the Titan submersible disaster, we recommend the documentaries Titan, the Ocean Gate disaster from Netflix, and Implosion, the Titan sub-disaster from the BBC. This episode contains reenactments and dramatized details, and while in most cases we can't

know exactly what was said. All our dramatizations are based on historical research. American Scandal is hosted, edited and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham for Airship. This episode is written in research by Scott Reeves. Senior producer Andy Beckerman, managing producer Emily Burke, fact-checking by Alyssa Jung Perry, audio editing by Mohamed Shazzy, original music by Thrum, sound design by Gabriel Gould. Executive producer for Ayrship is William Simpson. Executive producer for Audible is Jenny Lauer Beckman. Head of Creative Development at Audible, Kate Navin, head of Audible Originals, North America,

Marshal Louis, and Chief Content Officer Rachel Giazza. Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC. Sound recording copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC.