The last messages from the OceanGate submersible before its, well, rather dramatic exit have been uncovered. It was June 2023, and the OceanGate crew—comprising British billionaire Hamish Harding, British businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teen son Suleman, ex-French Navy diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet, and Stockton Rush, the head honcho of OceanGate—were gearing up for an underwater adventure to the Titanic wreck. Spoiler alert: Things didn’t go as planned.
So, imagine this: the submersible, which we’ll affectionately call “Titan,” was on its grand voyage to the Titanic, deep down in the ocean where the sun’s rays don’t bother to visit. Just as things were getting interesting, the sub decided to have an impromptu collapse party at thousands of meters below sea level.
Fast forward to the epic two-week hearing starting September 16, where the U.S. Coast Guard finally spilled the tea on Titan’s last words. Turns out, while Titan was hanging out with the Titanic, it was also having a little chat with the surface ship, Polar Prince, which was twiddling its nautical thumbs above the water.
Polar Prince kept messaging Titan, like a concerned parent asking if their kid had seen the latest TikTok trend. But Titan wasn’t responding. After a bit of radio silence, Titan finally checked in, giving Polar Prince a thumbs up. Well, sort of. They confirmed, “We got your messages, but we’re having some technical hiccups,” and then hilariously typoed “lost system oand [sic] chat settings.” Classic.
Polar Prince, trying to keep the conversation going, asked, “Status? Do you see us on your screen?” Titan assured them, “Yep, all good here!”—which, in hindsight, was probably the ocean’s way of giving them a wry smile.
Things were going smoothly until 10:47 am, when Titan’s final text read, “dropped two wts.” No, “wts” is not short for “witty text messages” but “weights.” This is where the expert comes in with a bit of naval wisdom: when a sub is diving, it’s heavy to sink. As it nears the bottom, it drops weights to avoid crashing into things like, oh, say, the Titanic.
So, before the grand finale, Titan was just shedding some extra weight to glide around like an underwater ballerina, not signaling an impending doom. So, while it’s a bit of a tragic tale, at least the Titan went out with a typo and a weight drop, staying true to its quirky underwater escapade.
