Titan: The OceanGate Disaster airs on Netflix

WEB PAGE: Titan: The OceanGate Disaster, a documentary on Netflix, focuses on how a company’s egotistical leader got himself and others killed at the bottom of the ocean by cutting corners and evading safety measures.

The 2023 disappearance of the Titan submersible, operated by OceanGate Expedition, during a commercial dive to the Titanic wreck shocked the world.

The vessel vanished in the North Atlantic, sparking a massive search operation. But it was soon confirmed that Titan had imploded just 90 minutes into its dive, at a depth of 3,300 meters.

All five onboard, British explorer Hamish Harding, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman, French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, died instantly.

Netflix’s documentary isn’t really about the implosion itself or those that died onboard. Instead it focuses on OceanGate as a company and Rush as its stereotypically egotistical leader.

The former employees interviewed by the filmmakers tell it, Rush was just another born-rich businessman afflicted with the “move fast and break things” mentality—one who ended up doing exactly that. It all moved quickly, then broke.

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The film puts most of the blame on Stockton Rush, whose poor decisions and refusal to hear safety concerns cost lives.

Footage from testing phases, employee warnings, and public hearing clips clearly show that the sub’s structure wasn’t built to survive the crushing deep-sea pressure.

Much of the nearly two-hour film is filled with real life accounts from former OceanGate employees, many of whom quit before the final dive.

These insiders reveal how Rush dismissed warnings, fired those who raised red flags, and kept pushing commercial trips without proper certification.

Even during the search for Titan, serious questions were raised about OceanGate’s safety practices.

According to the documentary, Titan’s design made its failure inevitable. Monroe, the director, said it was shocking the sub even managed to complete 80 dives. 13 of them to Titanic’s depth — between 2021 and 2022.