Maritime Injury Law BlogDid OceanGate exaggerate partnerships with Boeing, the University of Washington and NASA?
OceanGate, the company responsible for the lost Titanic tourist submersible likely overstated the details of its partnerships in the development and engineering of the TITAN submersible. This was likely an effort to legitimize the unclassified submersible, which was built with a carbon fiber hull and titanium end caps.
The fatal implosion of the TITAN submersible, a vessel OceanGate once hailed as the “beginning of a new era of exploration,” raises unresolved questions about how the startup was able to operate the vessel and persuade individuals to become high-paying customers in this field of adventure tourism.
In various public statements, the company claimed that the TITAN submersible was designed and engineered with assistance from Boeing, the University of Washington, and NASA. However, each of these entities has described their involvement as more limited than OceanGate sometimes indicated.