Remember how James Cameron painted a picture of the last minutes before the implosion of panicked passengers desperate to surface as warning alarms sounded? Well…
The New York Times has an interesting article about that scenario now that testimony points to the dropping of two weights, each weighing 35 pounds, in order to slow the Titan’s descent to make a smoother ride.
The article is behind a paywall so I have to paraphrase. Both Cameron and James Ballard had gone to media claiming the crew were aware that an implosion was imminent and were dropping weights. Even the Nargeolet family lawsuit makes that claim.
But Tym Catterson, an OceanGate contractor who helped launch Titan shortly before it imploded,
testified under oath that he is certain that the two weights (totaling 70 pounds) were dropped to achieve neutral buoyancy and help Titan better control its movements as it neared the seabed and not as an effort to return to the surface.
The total weights were about 200 to 300 pounds combined. Dropping 70 pounds wouldn’t been enough to surface.
Plus, no texts were sent indicating trouble. James Cameron backpedaled on his earlier comments and apologized, saying he should not have passed on hearsay information about the weights on national TV and that there’s enough intentional disinformation in our world today, without adding to it with rumor mongering.
James Ballard declined to comment.
Two days of reporting and testifying by experts during a U.S. Coast Guard inquiry challenge the idea that the submersible’s passengers knew they were facing death.
www.nytimes.com