People talk about the Titan submersible like it was this brand-new, untested prototype that failed on its first real try. That's not exactly true. It had a history. A spotty, controversial, and honestly kind of terrifying history, but a history nonetheless. If you're looking for a simple number, the answer to how many dives did the Titan make isn't as straightforward as a car’s odometer because "dives" and "Titanic missions" are two very different things in the world of deep-sea exploration.
By the time the vessel disappeared in June 2023, it had completed over 50 test dives. But when we talk about the big ones—the trips all the way down to the Titanic wreck at 12,500 feet—the number is much smaller. OceanGate actually managed to get the Titan to the Titanic about 13 times over the course of 2021 and 2022.
Think about that for a second.
Thirteen successful trips to the bottom of the North Atlantic and back. For some, those successful missions were proof the carbon fiber hull worked. For experts like David Lochridge, the former director of marine operations at OceanGate who sounded the alarm years earlier, those thirteen trips were just a countdown. Every successful dive wasn't proof of safety; it was a cycle of "cyclic fatigue" that weakened the experimental hull a little bit more each time.
The breakdown of the Titan's dive history
To really understand the timeline, you have to look at the experimental phases. The Titan wasn't just built and dropped in the ocean. It went through iterations. There was a "Cyclops 2" phase that eventually became the Titan we all know from the news.
In 2018 and 2019, the testing was rigorous but fraught with issues. During a test in the Bahamas, a lightning strike actually damaged the sub's electronics. You don't usually think about lightning being a problem for a submarine, but when it’s sitting on a barge in a tropical storm, things happen. They had to rebuild the electronics, which pushed their Titanic dreams back significantly.
When 2021 rolled around, OceanGate finally started their commercial "expeditions." That first year, they completed several successful dives to the wreck. It seemed like Stockton Rush had beaten the odds. He’d ignored the industry standards, bypassed third-party certification (classification), and actually reached the most famous shipwreck in the world.
But it wasn't smooth.
During one 2021 dive, the sub had a battery issue and had to be manually attached to its lifting platform. In 2022, there were even more dives—roughly seven to the wreck—but the stories coming back were getting weirder. One crew got lost for hours because the communication system kept failing. Another dive saw a thruster accidentally installed backward, meaning the pilot had to use a video game controller to move in the opposite direction just to stay level.
It’s easy to look back now and see these as red flags. At the time, they were just "innovation growing pains."
Why the "successful" dives were actually dangerous
There’s a concept in engineering called "margin of safety." Most deep-sea submersibles, like the famous Alvin or James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger, use titanium or thick steel. These materials are predictable. They bend slightly under pressure and snap back. Carbon fiber, the material Stockton Rush chose for the Titan's hull, is different. It’s stiff. It’s light. And it doesn't like to be squeezed repeatedly.
Every time the Titan went down, the hull was subjected to 6,000 pounds of pressure per square inch. Imagine the weight of an elephant standing on your thumb. Now imagine that pressure across the entire surface of a 22-foot cylinder.
Experts believe that how many dives did the Titan make was the most critical factor in its destruction. It wasn't that the sub couldn't handle the pressure once. It was that it couldn't handle the pressure repeatedly. Each dive created microscopic cracks in the epoxy resin holding the carbon fibers together. This is called delamination.
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In a 2020 interview, Rush even admitted that the hull had shown signs of fatigue and that he had to downgrade its depth rating temporarily. He eventually had the hull rebuilt by aerospace contractors, but the fundamental design—a carbon fiber tube joined to titanium endcaps—remained the same. The join between those two materials is a nightmare for engineers because they compress at different rates.
The 2023 season: The final count
The 2023 season was supposed to be OceanGate's biggest yet. They had a backlog of "Mission Specialists" (the customers paying up to $250,000) ready to go. But the weather in the North Atlantic was brutal that year. The mission that ended in tragedy was actually one of the first successful attempts to even get the sub in the water that summer.
When the Titan began its descent on June 18, 2023, it was technically its 14th attempt at a Titanic-depth mission for that specific hull configuration. It never made it to the bottom. At 1 hour and 45 minutes into the dive, communication ceased.
The U.S. Navy later confirmed that their acoustic sensors detected an implosion at that exact moment. The hull had finally reached its limit. The cumulative stress of those previous 13 successful dives, combined with the flaws in the experimental design, resulted in a catastrophic failure that happened in a fraction of a millisecond.
What we can learn from the numbers
Looking at the raw data, the Titan was an outlier. Most submersibles that go to these depths have a "factor of safety" of at least 1.5 or 2.25. This means they are built to withstand much more than the actual pressure they will encounter. Because the Titan was experimental and unclassed, we don't know what its actual margin was.
What we do know is that "success" in deep-sea exploration is a dangerous metric. If you fly a plane 10 times and it doesn't crash, you assume it's a good plane. But in the deep ocean, 10 successful trips can sometimes mean the machine is actually getting closer to failure, not proving its reliability.
If you're following the ongoing investigations by the Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation, the focus has shifted from "what happened" to "why was it allowed to happen." The testimony from former employees has been harrowing. They’ve described a culture where "fast and cheap" was prioritized over "slow and certified."
Practical Takeaways for the Future of Submersibles
Deep-sea exploration isn't going to stop. In fact, people are still going to the Titanic. But the Titan disaster changed the "wild west" era of private submersibles. Here is what's changing:
- Classification is no longer optional: In the industry, "unclassed" is now a massive red flag. Any reputable expedition company will use vessels certified by groups like DNV or the American Bureau of Shipping.
- Material Science Scrutiny: The use of carbon fiber for deep-sea pressure hulls is effectively dead for the foreseeable future. The unpredictability of the material under "cyclic loading" (repeated dives) is too high a risk.
- Acoustic Monitoring isn't enough: OceanGate touted an "acoustic monitoring system" that was supposed to warn the pilot if the hull started to crack. We now know that by the time you hear the carbon fiber snapping, it’s already too late to surface.
The Titan made enough dives to convince its creators they were right, but not enough to prove the technology was sustainable. It’s a somber reminder that the ocean doesn't care about "disrupting" industries or breaking rules. It only cares about physics.
If you are interested in the technical side of this, look into the transcripts from the September 2024 Coast Guard hearings. The testimony from engineers who worked on the original Boeing-OceanGate collaborations (which Boeing later distanced itself from) provides a chilling look at how the dive count was a ticking clock from day one.
Stay informed by looking at official reports rather than social media speculation. The data shows that the Titan was a vessel that worked—until it didn't. And in the abyss, "until it didn't" is a finality no one can recover from.
Actionable Insights for Following the Investigation:
- Follow the MBI (Marine Board of Investigation): The U.S. Coast Guard maintains a public record of the Titan hearings. This is the only source for verified technical data regarding the number of dives and the hull's specific failure points.
- Differentiate between "Hull 1" and "Hull 2": When researching, remember that the Titan had its carbon fiber middle section replaced at least once. Dives made on the first hull don't count toward the fatigue of the second hull, which is the one that imploded.
- Check Certification Status: If you ever find yourself booking a deep-sea tour (which is still a thing!), demand to see the "Certificate of Inspection" and the classification society's stamp. If a company claims they are "too innovative" for certification, walk away.