The memorandum of understanding also says the marine institute would show off OceanGate's submersible to visitors, in an effort to promote ocean literacy and the 'blue economy.'
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — A research institute at Newfoundland and Labrador's Memorial University threw open its "proverbial doors" last year to the company that owned the doomed Titan submersible, less than a year before the vessel suffered a catastrophic implosion while diving to the Titanic shipwreck.
The Titan submersible is believed to have imploded on a descent to the Titanic shipwreck on June 18. Scattered pieces of the sub were found days later about 500 metres from the Titanic's bow, almost four kilometres below the ocean's surface. OceanGate founder and chief executive officer Stockton Rush died along with the four passengers on board.
"With no plans for students or staff to be aboard the Titan, there was no rationale to vet OceanGate," Chad Pelley, the school's manager of media relations, said in a statement emailed Tuesday. The emails, which cover four years between Jan. 1, 2019, and Jan. 1, 2023, show that Rush was eager to arrive at an agreement to store the Titan and accompanying equipment at the Marine Institute. However, there were several apparent snags the school officials had to work through in order to produce the final memorandum of understanding, dated Dec. 21, 2022. There are lengthy email chains between finance, contracts and customs officials with the school.
The report includes Rush showing off the Titan's bare-bones interior, which included a single power button, two video screens and a repurposed gaming controller to steer the 6.7-metre vessel. That same year, a report by OceanGate's then-director of marine operations outlining serious safety concerns about the Titan wound up at the centre of a lawsuit filed in Washington state.
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