Everyone remembers the headlines from June 2023. The world watched, breathless, as the search for the Titan submersible turned from a rescue mission into a recovery operation. It was a tragedy that sparked a million questions about deep-sea exploration and the billionaire-led "new space race" under the waves. But amidst the chaos, one question kept popping up: How many times did the Titan go to the Titanic before that final, catastrophic dive?
People usually assume these things are like airplanes—tested thousands of times before they ever carry a passenger.
That wasn't the case here. Not even close.
Honestly, the numbers are a bit surprising when you actually dig into the logbooks and the testimony from the subsequent Coast Guard hearings. It wasn't a well-oiled machine making routine trips. It was an experimental craft. Depending on who you ask and how you define a "successful" trip, the answer changes slightly, but the hard data tells a very specific story of a vessel that was pushed to its absolute limit long before it finally gave out.
Breaking Down the Dive Log: How Many Times Did the Titan Go to the Titanic?
To get the real answer, you have to separate the "test dives" from the "mission dives."
OceanGate, the company behind the sub, started its Titanic Survey Expeditions in 2021. According to internal records and reports from the Marine Board of Investigation, the Titan made a total of 13 successful dives to the Titanic wreckage across two years.
Thirteen. That's it.
If you count the final, fatal descent in 2023, the number technically hits 14, but that dive never reached the debris field. It ended at roughly 3,500 meters, about 300 meters short of the target.
In 2021, the Titan completed six successful dives to the wreck.
In 2022, it managed another seven.
👉 See also: How to Access Hotspot on iPhone: What Most People Get Wrong
By the time the 2023 season rolled around, the hull had already been through a staggering amount of pressure cycles. Every time a carbon fiber hull goes down to 3,800 meters, it's under immense stress. The water pressure at the Titanic site is roughly 6,000 pounds per square inch (psi). Imagine a large elephant standing on your thumb. Now imagine thousands of them.
The Problem With "Successful" Dives
We call them "successful" because the sub reached the bottom and the people inside came back alive. But were they actually successful? Not always.
During many of those 13 trips, things went wrong. Frequently. In 2022, on one of the dives documented by a BBC crew, the sub’s thrusters were accidentally installed backward. The pilot, Stockton Rush, had to use a gaming controller to remap the buttons on the fly while sitting on the ocean floor. Another time, the sub got lost for hours because the acoustic positioning system failed.
You've got to wonder how much the physical structure was degrading during those "minor" mishaps. Carbon fiber is famous for being strong but brittle. Unlike steel or titanium, which might bend or show visible cracks, carbon fiber can fail "catastrophically." This means it looks fine right up until the micro-second it explodes—or in this case, implodes.
The Design Flaw That Everyone Ignored
Stockton Rush, the CEO who died on the sub, was vocal about his disdain for "excessive" regulation. He famously told journalist David Pogue that "at some point, safety is just pure waste."
He believed that carbon fiber was the future of deep-sea exploration because it was lighter and cheaper than the massive titanium spheres used by vehicles like the Alvin or James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger. Most experts in the field, including members of the Marine Technology Society, warned him that he was playing with fire.
The issue wasn't that carbon fiber couldn't handle the pressure. It was that it couldn't handle the repeated pressure.
Every time the Titan went down, the bond between the carbon fiber hull and the titanium end-caps was stressed. These two materials expand and contract at different rates. Over those 13 successful trips, it's highly likely that microscopic delamination was occurring. The hull was essentially a ticking time bomb.
✨ Don't miss: Who is my ISP? How to find out and why you actually need to know
2021 vs. 2022: A Tale of Two Seasons
In 2021, the Titan was the shiny new toy. OceanGate was desperate to prove the concept. They had struggled for years with earlier versions of the sub—like the Cyclops 1—and several failed attempts to reach the Titanic in 2018 and 2019 due to technical issues and weather.
When they finally made it down in 2021, it was seen as a triumph. They took "Mission Specialists" (the term they used for paying customers to avoid being classified as a common carrier) down to see the bow and the stern.
By 2022, the cracks—figuratively speaking—were starting to show.
Ex-employees like David Lochridge had already raised red flags. Lochridge was the Director of Marine Operations and he basically got fired for saying the hull wasn't safe. He wanted non-destructive testing, like ultrasound scans, to check for voids in the carbon fiber. OceanGate refused, claiming the "Real-Time Monitoring" system would warn the pilot if the hull was failing.
Spoiler alert: By the time the sensors hear the carbon fiber cracking, you have milliseconds to live. It's not a warning system; it's a "prepare to meet your maker" system.
What the World Got Wrong About the Titan
There's a common misconception that the Titan was a brand-new, untested vessel when it vanished.
In reality, it was an old vessel in terms of its lifecycle. For a craft made of experimental materials, 13 trips to the most hostile environment on Earth is a lot. It was a "veteran" sub that was being treated like it was invincible.
Another weird detail? The sub actually had its hull replaced at one point.
🔗 Read more: Why the CH 46E Sea Knight Helicopter Refused to Quit
The original hull, which had undergone testing in 2018 and 2019, showed signs of fatigue and was replaced before the successful 2021 missions. So, the specific hull that imploded in 2023 had likely only seen about two dozen deep-water cycles (including unmanned test dives). In the world of deep-sea exploration, that is a terrifyingly low number for a catastrophic failure to occur.
The Timeline of the Final Dive
- 8:00 AM: The Titan is launched from the support ship, Polar Prince.
- 9:00 AM: Descent is proceeding normally.
- 10:47 AM: The last communication is received. The sub was at approximately 3,500 meters.
- 11:00 AM: The sub fails to surface at the expected time.
- Days later: Debris is found 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic.
The Navy later revealed that their top-secret underwater sensors had picked up an "acoustic anomaly" consistent with an implosion at the exact time communications were lost. The hull had simply reached its limit. The 14th trip was one too many.
Why 13 Dives Matter
The number 13 is significant because it shows a pattern of "normalization of deviance." This is a term NASA uses to describe how people get used to things going wrong until they stop seeing them as red flags.
Because the Titan had made it to the Titanic 13 times before, the team likely felt it was safe. They had survived thruster failures, battery issues, and communication blackouts. They thought they had "beaten" the ocean.
But the ocean doesn't care about your track record. It only takes one microscopic flaw in the hull to end everything.
Actionable Lessons from the Titan Tragedy
If you’re someone fascinated by extreme tourism or the technology of the deep, there are some pretty heavy takeaways here. Innovation is great, but physics is final.
- Certification isn't optional: Most deep-sea submersibles are "classed" by organizations like the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) or DNV. The Titan was not. If you’re ever offered a ride on an experimental craft, check the certification papers.
- Material matters: Carbon fiber is amazing for bikes and planes. For deep-sea pressure vessels? The jury is still out, and the Titan disaster is a massive piece of evidence against it.
- Listen to the "No" men: Every company needs someone who is allowed to say "This isn't safe." When David Lochridge was silenced, the fate of the Titan was basically sealed.
The 13 successful trips the Titan made to the Titanic weren't proof of the sub's safety. In hindsight, they were just a countdown. Every successful dive brought the hull closer to its breaking point, proving that in the deep ocean, experience is no substitute for rigorous engineering and independent oversight.
If you're looking into the history of deep-sea exploration, start by researching the "Trieste" or the "Alvin." Those vessels have made thousands of dives safely because they followed the rules Stockton Rush thought he could break. The history of the Titanic is now inextricably linked to the Titan, a reminder that the ship that "couldn't be sunk" is now surrounded by the debris of a sub that "couldn't be crushed."