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The final report from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has shed new light on the catastrophic implosion of the OceanGate Titan submersible in 2023. While an undamaged SanDisk memory card was surprisingly recovered from the wreckage, the submersible’s core computer systems suffered a far more severe fate, transforming into a dense, twisted mass of metal and electronics, with investigators also noting signs of thermal damage.
Catastrophic Damage to Onboard Electronics
According to Docket #60 of the NTSB’s comprehensive report, the Titan’s crucial computer equipment, including its trio of Nuvo-5000LP series fan-less PCs, was almost entirely unrecognizable. These systems, once responsible for logging vessel performance, acoustic hull monitoring, and other critical diagnostic information, were compressed into what the report describes as a “Large Electronic and Metal Mass.”
Images within the incident report illustrate a “compilation of compressed metal, compressed plastic, compressed electronic components and compressed other materials.” Remnants of the red metal plating and cooling fins, characteristic of the fanless Nuvo PC chassis, were barely discernible within the wreckage.
This 100-pound (~45kg) mass represents what was formerly three sophisticated mission computers, pulverized by the immense pressures of the deep-sea implosion. A smaller, similarly compressed lump of electronics was also examined, though investigators confirmed “no human remains were externally visible anywhere on the mass.”
Challenges in Data Recovery Efforts
Faced with the extreme compression and tangling of these electronic remnants, investigators employed computed tomography (CT) scans as an initial step. The hope was to image compressed memory components and establish a path for destructive tools to extract them. This was crucial for potentially finding “survivable space” where an SSD PCB might remain intact and yield data.
However, a third-party lab’s 320 kilovolts (kV) CT scanner proved insufficient, unable to penetrate deep enough to identify any such void spaces or memory devices. Investigators consciously avoided using more powerful CT scanners, fearing that the increased energy could inadvertently damage data stored on any surviving non-volatile memory (NVM) chips.
SSDs Recovered, But Data Lost
Ultimately, the large electronic mass was transferred to the Fire Research Laboratory (FRL) at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Specialists at the ATF were able to extract two PCBs, believed to originate from a pair of 2.5-inch Solid State Drives (SSDs).
Despite these efforts, all attempts at data recovery have been unsuccessful. The retrieved PCBs exhibited severe deformations across three axes, and three BGA NVM chips were missing from each board. Furthermore, the remaining flash memory chips showed clear signs of cracks and distortion, consistent with the overwhelming forces of the implosion.
Similar investigations into the smaller electronics mass, as well as storage components collected in other boxes, also yielded no retrievable data, underscoring the total destruction of the Titan’s digital records.