Resurfaced footage shows Titanic sub spinning after pilot loses control on previous mission

Last month, OceanGate's experimental vessel suffered a 'catastrophic implosion', killing everyone on board.

And now footage has resurfaced showing the Titan submarine spinning out of control on a previous trip.

During the expedition, the five crew members were around 300 meters from the Titanic wreck when the pilot informed them that there was 'a problem'.

In footage from the mission, which was shown in a doc on the BBC last year, Scott Griffith can be seen explaining to the passengers that something had gone seriously wrong with the vessel.

He says: "Am I spinning?"

One passenger then replies: "Yes."

"I am?" Scott asks.

To which the same crew member repeats: "Yes."

BBC

Scott then goes on: "One of the thrusters is forward, one of the thrusters is thrusting backward right now.

"So the only thing I can do right now is a 360."

In the segment from the documentary, one of the passengers says they feared for the worst.

"You know, I was thinking we're not gonna make it," she recalls.

Fortunately, they were eventually able to reprogram the controls and the submarine began to move forward, allowing the trip to continue.

Speaking in the same documentary, a previous passenger, Jaden Pan, revealed that the crew were told by OceanGate's CEO, Stockton Rush, to 'sleep' when the battery failed during a trip in 2021.

The vessel had made it to the ocean floor and was within about 'two football fields’ of the wreckage at the time.

BBC

"At first, I thought he was joking, because we were over two hours into our expedition and so close to the bottom," Pan said.

"But then he explained that one of the batteries went kaput and we were having trouble using the electronic drops for the weights, so it would be hard for us to get back up to the surface."

Rush then explained to the crew at the time that it would take about 24 hours for the weights to dissolve so they could resurface, and he suggested that they have a nap.

While half the passengers on board agreed, the other half wanted to get back to the surface as quickly as possible.

As with the steering, they were able to safely navigate the situation, with Rush using the hydraulics to drop weight and get the vessel and everyone on board back to the surface.

Topics: US News, Technology, Titanic

Dominic Smithers

Dominic Smithers is the News/Agenda Desk Lead, covering the latest trends and breaking stories. After graduating from the University of Leeds with a degree in French and History, he went on to write for the Manchester Evening News, the Accrington Observer and the Macclesfield Express. So as you can imagine, he’s spent many a night wondering just how useful that second language has been. But c'est la vie.

@SmithersDom