CBC News has learned that for several days, the Canadian military was “highly confident” that an explosion heard underwater in June 2023 while searching for the missing Titan submersible was a man-made sound caused by something hitting the hull of the ship near the site of the famous Titanic sinking.
Those sounds helped keep hope alive that the five wealthy explorers aboard the missing ship, which is now believed to have imploded within hours of sinking, during a days-long multinational search.
Now, internal government documents obtained by CBC News through the Freedom of Information Act have revealed more details about what Canadian searchers privately recorded during the hunt, including how a military patrol plane first heard the boom on June 19, the day after Titan went missing.
Multiple internal notices written daily by the Canadian Coast Guard between June 19 and 22 said a Royal Canadian Air Force CP-140 Aurora aircraft heard multiple “explosive sounds that we are confident were man-made, resulting from an object striking the hull of the vessel.”
“They believe the sound came from nearby [Titanic’s] The wreck site is located at a depth of approximately 10,000 feet.”
The “classified information” was contained in more than a dozen internal emails and updates sent to Department of Oceans and Fisheries Canada (DFO) staff obtained by CBC News, including one that was sent to the prime minister’s then-national security adviser, Jody Thomas.
The U.S. Coast Guard said a Canadian aircraft was patrolling the North Atlantic searching for a tourist submersible that went missing while exploring the sunken Titanic when it picked up underwater sounds.
U.S. authorities confirmed they had heard the noise on June 21 and sent a remote-operated vehicle to search the area.
The search was called off when the Titan’s wreckage was discovered on June 22, the same day that The Wall Street Journal first reported that a top-secret U.S. Navy system for tracking enemy submarines had detected what appeared to be the Titan’s implosion just hours after the vessel began its voyage.
The information was shared with U.S. search teams but was inconclusive, so authorities said the search would continue.
CBS later reported that a US Navy analysis found the boom was likely coming from another search vessel or the sound of the ocean.
What happened underwater remains at the heart of the U.S. investigation, with hearings scheduled for next month. The Canadian military has not yet responded to a CBC News inquiry about its latest theory on the sounds it detected.
“An irreparable failure”
Earlier this week, the family of one of the victims, French explorer Paul-Henri Narjolet, known as “Mr Titanic,” filed a $50 million lawsuit, alleging that his death was the result of gross negligence by Ocean Gate Expeditions, the U.S. operator and manufacturer of the Titan, and other defendants.
The lawsuit alleges that all five crew members knew they would be killed before the explosion because an “acoustic safety system” onboard the Titan “should have warned the crew that the carbon fiber hull was cracking under extreme pressure.”
The family of French explorer Paul-Henri Narjolet, who died in 2023 when a submersible en route to the Titanic exploded, has filed a lawsuit against Ocean Gate, accusing the submersible operator of “sustained carelessness, recklessness and negligence,” and seeking $50 million in damages.
“They would have continued their descent with full knowledge of the vessel’s irreparable malfunction and in fear and emotional distress before the Titan ultimately imploded,” the lawsuit alleges.
But according to the New York Times, US investigators have found no evidence that the crew had any warning that an explosion on the submersible would kill the five crew members.
Ocean Gate suspended all operations following the disaster and declined CBC’s request for comment on the allegations in the lawsuit.
Unconventional construction
CBC News obtained more than 600 pages of internal emails, memos and reports from DFO, which runs the coast guard, through a freedom of information request. The documents, written for senior officials, detail Canada’s deep involvement in the high-profile search and offer new insight into what unfolded behind the scenes from a Canadian perspective.
Canada joined the U.S.-led search effort as the Titan submersible departed from St. John’s aboard the Canadian-flagged vessel Polar Prince on June 18, 2023. Later that day, contact was lost with the Polar Prince, about an hour and 45 minutes after it began its dive toward the Titanic.
The Coast Guard has made the search a top priority from the start and said that because of the “high level of interest” from senior management, the Atlantic Canada team should keep Ottawa updated with all updates, “no matter how minor,” the June 19 email said.
Those updates also included a warning that Titan’s carbon fiber hull “does not make a good radar target.”
The explosion raised questions about Titan’s unconventional construction, which includes a spacious cylindrical cabin made of carbon fiber rather than the spherical titanium cabins of most submersibles.
CBC Investigation The Fifth Power and Radio Canada questionnaire New information has emerged about the sunken submarine, including that Ocean Gate CEO Stockton Rush had bragged about breaking basic engineering rules and that his experimental submersible had been sailing unsupervised from a Canadian port for three years, ferrying passengers to the Titanic. Rush was one of the victims.
The Coast Guard report noted the vessel was “not classified by any regulatory agency” and had “deficiencies and problems.”
Canada brought in specialised equipment, including hyperbaric chambers and technicians to assist with the diving operations, as well as advanced sonar equipment for the search at greater depths, according to the documents.
The Canadian Department of National Defense told CBC News in May that it estimated it had spent more than $2.4 million in operational costs on the search operation.
The Coast Guard estimated the operation cost more than $600,000 in total, though both services said those figures were not additional expenses but were part of the budgeted operating costs of helping respond to distress calls.
The high-profile search has raised questions about who should foot the bill for such an effort.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is also investigating the incident and is currently preparing a report of its findings.
