Video of Submersible Expert Describing Titan's 'Cracking' Hull Goes Viral

A video of a submersible expert describing how he heard "loud noises" during a trip on OceanGate's Titan, prompting him to write an email in 2019 voicing concern to company CEO Stockton Rush, has been widely shared on social media.

Karl Stanley, who organizes "deep diving submarine" trips in the Caribbean, made the remarks during an appearance on Anderson Cooper's CNN show on Friday, where he claimed the "real failure" on Titan was caused by "cracking over time."

Rush was one of five people killed when Titan suffered a "catastrophic implosion" after setting off to visit the wreck of the Titanic on May 18, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. In 2017, Rush told CBS News the submersible was "pretty much invulnerable." But admitted in a 2021 interview with a Mexican travel vlogger that he had "broken some rules" to make the craft.

Describing his April 2019 trip on Titan to Cooper, Stanley said: "Stockton warned us ahead of time to prepare us; he told us that when he was down there the submarine had made many loud noises and that this was to be expected and it was not anywhere near to catastrophic.

"He had also tested models at this point, and he knew exactly where the models failed and so I didn't feel that our life was really in grave danger at that point.

"I feel the real failure came with cracking over time, and also with the joint...and water getting in there, and another thing that happened was electrolysis, because even though carbon fiber is not a metal, in some ways it behaves like a metal and is conductive, so the salt water in between there and the titanium flange over time would have corroded things," Stanley said.

Electrolysis is the process by which water is split into its constituent elements of oxygen and hydrogen, which can cause some materials to corrode over time.

Cooper then read out an email Stanley wrote to Rush after his trip, laying out his concerns.

It said: "What we heard, in my opinion...sounded like a flaw/defect in one area being acted on by the tremendous pressures and being crushed/damaged.

"From the intensity of the sounds, the fact that they never totally stopped at depth, and the fact that there were sounds at about 300 feet that indicated a relaxing of stored energy would indicate that there is an area of the hull that is breaking down/getting spongy."

Stanley said he put his concerns in writing because he did not want a "heated exchange" with Rush, claiming the deceased explorer was "not the kind of character that would take criticism very well."

However, he said Rush did take additional safety measures, including canceling the rest of the year's dives and fixing a carbon fiber tube "at the cost, I believe, of well over $1 million."

A video of the interview was posted on CNN's official Twitter account, where it has received more than 225,000 views.

Newsweek has contacted OceanGate by email for comment about Stanley's remarks.

In addition to Rush, those killed onboard Titan were French pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet; British explorer Hamish Harding; British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood; and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood.