Investigators Dismiss Viral ‘Final Words’ From The Titan Transcript As Fabricated

In the aftermath of the implosion of the Titan submersible, which claimed the lives of all five individuals on board, a purported log of the crew’s final moments emerged online, only to be swiftly discredited by federal investigators.

A team of federal investigators “found no evidence” that the passengers aboard the Titan were aware of the impending catastrophic failure of the vessel on June 18, 2023. The detailed transcript that began to circulate shortly after the submersible went missing in the Atlantic Ocean has now been deemed a complete fabrication.

“I’m confident it’s a false transcript,” said Captain Jason Neubauer, a retired member of the U.S. Coast Guard who serves as chairman of the Marine Board of Investigation, told The New York Times. “It was made up.”

The viral transcript suggested the Titan’s occupants, which included OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, billionaires Shahzada Dawood and Hamish Harding, Dawood’s son Suleman, and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, had warned their mothership, the Canadian expedition vessel Polar Prince, of alarms and impending doom inside the submersible. However, federal investigators have obtained records of the actual communications between the Titan and the Polar Prince, which they say disprove the accuracy of the circulated transcript.

“Somebody did it well enough to make it look plausible,” Neubauer acknowledged, highlighting the sophisticated nature of the fabrication.

The Titan submersible was on a mission to explore the wreckage of the RMS Titanic when it lost contact with the Polar Prince about an hour and 45 minutes into the dive. A frantic search ensued, and it took four days to locate the wreckage at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, where all five occupants had perished.

Neubauer described the investigation into the Titan’s implosion as one of the most complex he has encountered in his decades-long career, citing the involvement of multiple international agencies as a complicating factor. A full report on the incident could take two to three years to complete.

The Coast Guard has not yet responded to request for further comment on the debunked transcript and the ongoing investigation.

Investigators have said the Rush exhibited a “disregard for human life” with the design of the Titan.