Terrifying Titan communication logs that ‘detailed chaos between the doomed submersible and its mother ship’ revealed to be fake following year-long investigation

A transcript allegedly detailing communications between the people aboard the doomed Titan submarine and its mothership as it descended to the Titanic wreck last June has turned out to be completely fake.

The communications log had already aroused suspicion when it was released last summer because it documented a series of alarming events that turned a dive to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean into a desperate fight for survival.

This logbook served to document the five travelers’ futile attempts to return to the surface.

But the head of the US federal investigation team has now declared the transcript completely fictional.

After nearly a year of exhaustive investigation, the team found no evidence to suggest that the Titan’s occupants had any warning of the catastrophic implosion that was about to occur and ultimately claim their lives.

At the immense depth of two miles below the surface where the incident occurred, the pressure would have caused the submarine’s hull to collapse immediately.

‘I am convinced it is a false transcript. It was fabricated,” said Capt. Jason D. Neubauer, a retired U.S. Coast Guard officer and chairman of the Marine Board of Investigation. It is not clear who the original source of the false document was.

The fake transcript, which emerged in late June, contained detailed supposed minute-by-minute communications, filled with technical jargon and realistic descriptions, including acronyms unique to the Titan, giving it an air of authenticity.

It suggested the Titan’s crew was in a state of panic, experiencing hull alarms and cracking noises before communications abruptly stopped.

The transcript focused on the RTM or Real Time Hull Health Monitoring system.

The OceanGate company described the system as patented with “an unparalleled safety feature that assesses the integrity of the hull during every dive,” which would warn of any problems.

In part of the Titan transcript, the mothership was informed of several hull alarms, along with crackling noises.

A message toward the end of the fake communication related to the sensor and read: “RTM alert active, all red.”

But the fake transcript ended in silence as the mothership sent seven messages asking about its fate.

The alleged last message read: ‘Please respond if you are able.’

“Someone did it well enough to make it seem plausible,” Neubauer said, adding the block gave the adventurers “the impression that they were panicking.”

Dr. Alfred S. McLaren, a retired Navy submariner and pilot, initially found the transcript plausible, but later speculated that it may have been fabricated to discredit OceanGate or inconvenience the victims’ relatives.

“Maybe this was done to embarrass OceanGate,” he told the newspaper New York times. ‘It was guaranteed to cause unrest among the relatives.’

Despite the convincing appearance detailing the back-and-forth communications between the submarine and the mothership, the federal team identified several discrepancies.

Crucially, they had access to actual communications data between the Titan and its mothership, which remains confidential.

Official records, as seen by the National Transportation Safety Board, showed no evidence that the crew was aware of their impending fate.

Neubauer hopes the truth can provide some comfort to the victims’ families and ease the anguish their loved ones suffered in their final moments.

“It doesn’t make it any less painful, but it can help,” he told the newspaper New York Times.

The revelations about the doctored transcript are the first to emerge from an extensive investigation that began last summer.

While there was hope to conclude the investigation on the one-year anniversary of the Titan’s loss, a final report could take years.

Neubauer highlighted the complexity of the investigation, including the lack of witnesses, new ship technologies and legal challenges resulting from the disaster occurring in international waters.

The investigation involves multiple international partners and assistance from the U.S. Navy in the recovery of debris.

Although the original goal was to complete the report within a year, Neubauer indicated that this would likely take two to three years – a typical time frame for such extensive research.

He stressed that despite the long process, the findings could lead to new safety regulations, which could provide some comfort to the families of the victims, knowing that their tragedy could help prevent future disasters.

The five men on board the submarine were Shahzada Dawood, 48, a British-Pakistani businessman; his son Suleman, 19; Hamish Harding, 58, a British airline executive; Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, a French Titanic expert and Stockton Rush, 61, the founder and CEO of OceanGate, the American company that built the submarine and provided the diving for tourists. He also piloted the Titan on the day of the tragedy.

Rush, who piloted the Titan, had previously dismissed concerns about the submarine’s experimental design and that it was destined to fail.

Despite being called an ‘experimental’ vessel, it had been submerged beneath the waves a total of 90 times and had reached the depths of the Titanic 13 times.

The Titan went missing on June 18, 2023, and the debris was found five days later near the Titanic wreckage in the North Atlantic Ocean, tragically confirming that a catastrophic implosion had occurred.

During the search, there was brief hope that those on board might still be alive, fueled by reports of underwater sounds and discussions about the submarine’s remaining oxygen.

It led to a fleet of international ships coming to search for the lost submarine.

On June 22, five days later, the Coast Guard confirmed their worst fears after debris from the Titan was discovered and the submarine imploded.