The claim, worth over $50 million, was launched by the family of a French explorer who perished in a submersible implosion.
In their more than $50 million lawsuit, the family of a French explorer who perished in a submersible implosion claims that the crew had endured “terror and mental anguish” before to the catastrophe and charges the sub’s operator with willful negligence.
In June 2023, Paul-Henri Nargeolet was one of five victims who perished when the Titan submarine exploded while visiting the well-known Titanic crash site in the North Atlantic. The OceanGate experimental submersible is owned by a Washington state firm that has ceased operations, but no one survived the journey.
According to the complaint, Nargeolet, also known as “Mr. Titanic,” made the most dives to the Titanic site—37—of any diver worldwide. He was considered to be among the world’s foremost experts on the renowned wreck. In an email statement, attorneys for his estate claimed that OceanGate had omitted important information on the vessel’s durability and that the “doomed submersible” had a “troubled history.”
About 90 minutes into the dive, the Titan “dropped weights,” according to the complaint, implying that the team had either canceled or attempted to cancel the dive.
According to the complaint, “experts agree that the Titan’s crew would have known exactly what was happening, even though the exact cause of failure may never be determined.” “The crew must have known they would die before they did,” according to common sense.
The claim continues, “As the weight of the water pressed on Titan’s hull, the crew may likely have heard the carbon fiber’s cracking noise grow more extreme. Both power and maybe communication were lost for the crew. According to scientists, they would have kept going down, fully aware of the Titan’s irreparable malfunctions, feeling fear and mental suffering until the ship finally collapsed.
OceanGate’s attorney declined to comment on the case, which was submitted in King County, Washington, on Tuesday. According to court documents, the defendants have a few weeks to reply to the accusation. Nargeolet is identified in the lawsuit as a Titan crew member and an employee of OceanGate.
A continuous supply of power and a wireless signal are required for the operation of any of the controllers, controls, or gauges in Titan’s “hip, contemporary, wireless electronics system,” according to the lawsuit.
Despite the fact that OceanGate listed Nargeolet as a crew member, “many of the particulars about the vessel’s flaws and shortcomings were not disclosed and were purposely concealed,” according to a statement released by the Buzbee Law Firm of Houston, Texas.
“Get answers for the family as to exactly how this happened, who all was involved, and how those involved could allow this to happen,” stated Tony Buzbee, one of the lawyers involved in the case.
After the accident, questions were raised regarding whether the Titan’s unusual design and its creator’s reluctance to submit to independent inspections—which are common in the industry—meant that the ship was doomed. Concerns over the profitability and future of private deep-sea exploration were also highlighted by its implosion.
A high-level inquiry was promptly gathered by the U.S. Coast Guard and is still underway. September is the date of an important public hearing that is a component of the inquiry.
On Sunday morning, June 18, 2023, the Titan conducted its last plunge and lost communication with its support vessel around two hours later. The Titan debris was discovered on the ocean floor around 984 feet (300 meters) off the Titanic’s bow, about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, during a search and rescue operation that garnered international attention.
Stockton Rush, the CEO and co-founder of OceanGate, was driving the Titan when it collapsed. The lawsuit lists Rush’s estate as a defendant and calls him “an eccentric and self-styled ‘innovator’ in the deep-sea diving industry.”
Apart from Rush and Nargeolet, the British adventurer Hamish Harding and two notable Pakistani individuals, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, were also slain in the implosion.
Currently on its first trip to the wreckage site in years is the company that owns the salvage rights to the Titanic. The Georgia-based company RMS Titanic Inc. made its first trip to the location since 2010 last month when it left Providence, Rhode Island.
Nargeolet oversaw RMS Titanic’s undersea research department. According to the complaint, he oversaw the recovery of several Titanic relics and was a member of an expedition that visited the site in 1987, not long after its location was established. According to the estate’s lawyers, he was an experienced undersea exploration veteran and would not have joined the Titan expedition if the corporation had been more open.
The implosion is attributed in the complaint to Oceangate, Rush, and other parties’ “persistent carelessness, recklessness, and negligence.”
The complaint claims that although Decedent Nargeolet died doing what he loved, both his and the other Titan crew members’ deaths were unjustified.