OceanGate deleted all of its social media accounts in an attempt to wipe its existence from the internet after the doomed Titan submarine imploded, killing all five men on board.
After the disaster last month, the sea exploration company deleted its Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts and stripped down its website.
The Washington-based company website now shows a black background with the logo and a single line of text that reads, “OceanGate Expeditions has suspended all exploration and commercial operations.”
The OceanGate Expeditions Instagram account also appears to have been deleted.
Likewise, LinkedIn said, “The page you’re looking for no longer exists,” and Twitter posted a message that the @OceanGate “account doesn’t exist.”
The company’s website has gone dark and it simply reads, ‘OceanGate Expeditions has suspended all exploration and commercial activities’
Twitter showed a notification that the @OceanGate ‘account does not exist’
French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet (left) sat on the submarine with Stockton Rush (right), CEO of the OceanGate Expedition
There were five people on board, including British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding (left) and Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who was just 19.
A separate OceanGate Instagram account could still be found, but all posts were deleted and settings were private.
The company’s website was still live last week when the company announced it was suspending all exploration and commercial activities.
The decision came weeks after tourists Hamish Harding, 58, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Sulaiman Dawood, 19, French Navy pilot Paul-Henry (PH) Nargeolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush died aboard the submarine.
The Expedition was marketed at $250,000 per passenger.
The disaster raised questions about OceanGate’s safety past, concerns about past practices and the future of tourism at the famous 1912 wreck.
CEO Stockton Rush reportedly believed going to the depths of the Atlantic in the Titan was “safer than crossing the street,” despite being warned in 2018 by dozens of experts that his company’s “experimental” approaches would be “catastrophic.” can be.
The submarine’s safety and OceanGate’s rejection of several warnings has drawn widespread criticism after the Titan went missing on June 18 while on a mission to the Titanic shipwreck.
Rush was also begged to suspend operations in 2019 after a submarine expert heard cracking noises during one of the Titan’s dives in the Bahamas.
The five men on board all died after the Titan submarine, pictured here, imploded during its expedition
Debris from the OceanGate submarine is recovered after the implosion at the Titanic wreck site
The OceanGate submarine launched into the Atlantic Ocean around 8 a.m. 400 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, at the site of the Titanic shipwreck.
The five passengers began to descend while Rush piloted the ship.
An hour and 45 minutes after the dive, the ship lost contact with its mothership, the Polar Prince.
OceanGate took eight hours to report the missing submarine to the US Coast Guard after it lost contact.
That sparked a massive international response to rescue the five passengers. Ships from around the world began making the trek to help search for the missing submarine as the hours and estimated oxygen ticked.
Days later, it was announced that the five people aboard the submarine would have died in a probable implosion.
It was also revealed that a US Navy tracking system picked up a possible noise from the implosion during descent, but search efforts continued.
After the announcement of the five passengers’ deaths, it was later revealed that debris from the imploded submarine had been found near the Titanic’s site.
Canadian police are considering whether “criminal, federal or provincial laws” were broken in the run-up to the Titan submarine disaster.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are investigating “the circumstances leading to the deaths” of the five crew members aboard the submarine and are deciding “whether or not a full investigation is warranted.”
Their investigation started at the end of June, a day after human remains were found during the recovery mission and parts of the ship were brought ashore.
Families of the Titan’s submarine victims could sue operator OceanGate, the ship’s maker, and companies that supplied parts, legal experts have said.