I’ve often been critical of Netflix documentaries because, while they’re visually stunning, they tend to be unbalanced. In other words, they often feel like self-promotional dossiers or one-sided narratives — not true documentaries in the traditional sense. At first glance, Titan: The OceanGate Disaster seems to fall into that same category. But there’s something deeper at play here, especially given that it arrives on the platform nearly two years after the tragedy that continues to shock the world.

In June 2023, the world watched with a mix of morbid fascination and disbelief as the Titan submersible vanished during yet another tourist expedition to the wreck of the Titanic. The news cycle turned into a real-time thriller: speculations, theories, countdown headlines reminding us of the 96 hours of oxygen left, and a near-cinematic narrative of rescue. But it was no movie. It was a tragedy. The sub imploded 3,300 meters below the surface just 90 minutes into its descent. No one survived.

Two years later, Netflix’s new documentary Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster reframes the story not as spectacle, but as a warning — and the result is both infuriating and deeply unsettling. The film doesn’t focus on the final dive or dramatize the implosion. Instead, it reveals how this tragedy was the result of a decade of reckless decisions, aggressive marketing, and a cult of genius that pushed science aside in the name of ambition.

Director Mark Monroe says it plainly: “The Titan could have imploded at any time.” What’s terrifying is realizing it didn’t happen earlier simply by chance. Between 2021 and 2022, the sub made over 80 attempted dives, 13 of them to Titanic depth. The documentary reveals internal recordings, reports, and whistleblower accounts showing how OceanGate ignored warnings, bypassed independent certifications, fired dissenting employees, and tried to normalize the hull’s ominous cracking noises as “part of carbon’s maturation process.” It was the sound of death approaching.

One of the film’s most chilling moments is the exclusive audio recording of David Lochridge’s dismissal — OceanGate’s former director of marine operations. After warning of critical hull flaws and urging CEO Stockton Rush not to board the sub for testing, Lochridge was swiftly fired. The documentary also features deep-sea expert Rob McCallum, who draws a clear contrast: “We didn’t go public until we knew it was possible. They went public before they knew it was safe.”

Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster also raises a more uncomfortable question: Who will be held accountable? While investigations remain ongoing and civil lawsuits wait in the wings, the core issue lingers: will anyone face legal consequences for the deaths of Hamish Harding, Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and Rush himself?

The U.S. Coast Guard and Canada’s Transportation Safety Board launched formal investigations shortly after the incident, since the sub launched from a Canadian ship and was operated by a U.S. company. The U.S. Department of Justice is reportedly also looking into OceanGate’s financial practices. But as of June 2025, no final report has been released. Monroe explains that a Coast Guard hearing was expected to be followed by a report within two to three months, but the January firing of Admiral Linda Fagan has stalled the process. “Right now, we’re in a holding pattern,” he says.

No criminal charges have been filed to date. According to Monroe, several civil suits are ready to go — pending the results of the official report. “The moment someone is officially blamed, the lawsuits will pile on,” he says. “Until then, everything is frozen.”

From a technical standpoint, the cause of the implosion is now clear: structural failure. The carbon fiber hull — a material never tested under extreme deep-sea pressure — began showing signs of fatigue from the earliest dives. Acoustic sensors, designed to detect hull stress in real time, were routinely ignored. In one key moment, Coast Guard investigator Jason Neubauer points to the growing crackling noises recorded over successive dives, calling them “the smoking gun.” OceanGate had promoted these sensors as cutting-edge safety measures, yet seemingly never analyzed the data seriously.

In a 2024 hearing, diver Karl Stanley recalls hearing ominous cracking during a 2019 test dive. When asked if the data from the monitoring system had ever been shared or reviewed collectively, he simply replied, “That information was not shared with me.”

The film includes the haunting audio of a massive underwater sound recorded 16 minutes after Titan lost contact. “We know how sound travels in water,” Monroe explains. “We know that an implosion of that magnitude would make a huge noise. My belief is that what we hear in the film is the sound of the sub imploding — it was important to include it to give the audience a sense of resolution.”

Stockton Rush emerges in the film as a charismatic, visionary entrepreneur obsessed with bending — or breaking — the rules. He disregarded certifications, brushed off technical concerns, and promoted a messianic image of himself as a genius disruptor. “He felt the pressure to fulfill what he’d promised,” Monroe says. “And as the years passed and the tech kept failing, that pressure turned into obsession.” He saw himself as the Elon Musk of the deep — but took the “move fast and break things” mindset to its deadly extreme.

The documentary also gives space to Sydney Nargeolet, daughter of renowned Titanic explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet. Her testimony adds emotional weight and ensures the film doesn’t reduce the victims to headlines. “From the beginning, we knew we couldn’t make this film unless we had someone connected to the families,” Monroe says.

Two years after the implosion, Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster is more than a documentary — it’s a case study in arrogance, omission, and the fragility of seemingly solid systems. The implosion was sudden. The moral collapse wasn’t.