Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster

I'm a bit of a white-knuckle ride lover myself, indeed later this year I'm hoping to hook up with a chum who's promised to take me up in his two-seater gyrocopter. I can also remember walking around Tenerife harbour years ago and coming across a "yellow submarine" vessel taking passengers for brief underwater trips and wishing I'd gone on it.

Maybe not so much now after watching this chilling one-hour BBC documentary on US entrepreuner and inventor Stockton Rush's ambition to build a carbon-fibre submersible capable of exploring the depths of the oceans. His OceanGate company was set up to take anyone willing and able to cough up the $250000 to take the trip down to see at first hand the wreck of the legendary Titanic where it sank in 1912, two and a half miles below the Atlantic Ocean.

As we now know, Dive no. 88 ended tragically when the Titan vessel imploded near the bottom of the ocean instantly killing its five passengers, including Rush himself and a British father and his young son. In a programme filled with interviews, that with the wife and mother of the latter goes hardest, as she just about manages to balance her anger at Rush with her deep sorrow for her loss.

There's an ongoing official US Coastguard enquiry into the disaster, so that this mini-documentary, which has access to some of the actual witness testimony, somewhat pre-empts the outcome but I personally didn't get the impression that the events leading up to it were presented in a partial way. We get Rush's back-story, that of a clearly ambitious individual, born to wealth but determined to make his own way in the world. Like his family predecessors, it's unsurprising that he looked to bend the great seas to his will, although we do learn that his first interest was actually in space travel.

Finally, he completes the design of his prototype mini-sub but there are clear signs along the way that his checks weren't anywhere near as rigorous as such a dangerous enterprise demanded. Past colleagues and employees relate to camera and the official investigation their concerns, especially on the matter of the potentially calamitous lapidation of the carbon-fibre core, although some of these claims are disputed. The centrepiece of the programme is the actual footage of OceanGate's own video feed of the moment catastrophe struck, as we see Rush's wife reacting to the noise of the bang when the implosion occurred, heartbreakingly followed by a delayed message from the Titan vessel indicating things might be okay.

In the end this is a tale of one man's extreme hubris blinding him to his duty of care to the unfortunate individuals who put their trust in him. Yes, he too paid his own personal price in the process, but in actively marketing a place on his little ship as the "safest place on the planet", he was misguided in the extreme and inflicted lasting heartache on the surviving friends and family of those who sadly perished with him.

If you only loosely followed the headlines of the Titan submersible disaster, you'll probably find some interesting discussions about the delamination and negligence on previous dives leading up to the fatal implosion. If you actively followed and read as much as you could, this documentary offers little new information. One thing that feels left out entirely is technical details about the hull's construction and design. There are videos of the actual Titan hull being wound in carbon, with discussions from the designers who assisted in production of the hull with Stockton - yet that is completely absent from this documentary. Where are those people today and why were they never interviewed by the USCG?

The bulk of this documentary focuses on portraying Stockton as a narcissist who ignores all warnings and safety, to parallel the USCG's investigation that inevitably will draw the same conclusion. The interviews don't seem like they're acknowledging the whole truth, or are leaving out certain details. There seems more to the story that we are not being told. Ultimately Stockton may be responsible, but one man was not able to design, build, and operate a submersible sub without the assistance of at least a hundred other people over the last decade. The documentary also leaves out that OceanGate operated other submersibles.

This documentary is 90 minutes of "Stockton bad", instead of 90 minutes of telling the story beyond Stockton, which is what a lot of people wanted.

I enjoyed watching this. When the rich or the innovators of this world take on tasks which could be dangerous, I applaud them. When they do things for profit that can endanger the public, I'm angered. There was NO REASON for this other than ego. He was already rich and if this venture failed without killing anyone except himself we would understand. In the movie The Poseidon Adventure the company owners want the ship to meet a deadline, despite the captain telling them it was dangerous. Then disaster. This was the same and as one of the former employees referenced, " The Emperor Has No Clothes On!" Great Documentary! 2 thumbs up.

The documentary tells the story of OceanGate and the thrill seekers who apparently aren't claustrophobic. How anyone could feel safe locked in a vessel such as that is beyond me. It also brings others who had an obligation to act (but didn't) to the forefront of this strange odyssey. With the exception of Josh Gates and the men and women of the USCG, everyone else who was interviewed seem like they're still hiding details, or just don't have a conscience. They all continue pointing the finger at Stockton, yet they were all part of the team, they just can't accept responsibility.

And who on earth was responsible for the on-screen effects? Every time they show a date they immediately rewind it 1, 2 or 3 years. Just show the date as it is, it's extremely annoying.

Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster is a gripping documentary that attempts to delve into one of the most tragic and bizarre maritime incidents in recent history - the catastrophic loss of the Titan submersible. The film deserves credit for its slick production, emotional interviews, and chilling underwater soundscapes that amplify the tension. It offers a strong human element, focusing on the lives of the five victims and their motivations for embarking on such a perilous journey.

However, the documentary falls short in several key areas. While it does well recounting the timeline of the disaster, it occasionally veers into sensationalism, leaning too heavily on dramatized speculation instead of sticking to verified facts. Some viewers may find its pacing uneven, with extended sequences that feel padded and repetitive, as if trying to stretch a 45-minute story into a feature-length runtime.

Additionally, the film could have dug deeper into the systemic issues that allowed OceanGate's risky practices to go unchecked, instead of lightly brushing over regulatory gaps. Experts are featured, but often in soundbites rather than substantive analysis. The ending leaves you unsettled, not just from the tragedy, but from a sense of incompletion.

Ultimately, Implosion is worth watching for its emotional resonance and eerie atmosphere, but it doesn't fully live up to its potential as a comprehensive or investigative documentary. It's a respectful tribute, but not a revelatory one.