Missing ‘Suicide Mission’ Submarine That Passengers Paid $250k to Be on Was Apparently Made With ‘Off-The-Shelf’ Parts
The Titanic tour submarine that has gone missing with five passengers was reportedly built with “off-the-shelf” components and piloted with a Logitech video game controller.
The details about the Titan submersible were uncovered from a CBS TV report released last November. CBS correspondent David Pogue toured the vessel and interview Ocean Gate CEO Stockton Rush, one of the five individuals currently lost in the Atlantic Ocean.
“This is not your grandfather’s submersible,” Rush says in the segment while pointing out the only button on the vessel. “It should be like an elevator, it shouldn’t take a lot of skill.”
“We run the whole thing with this game controller,” the CEO informed Pogue as he held up a 2011 modified Logitech gamepad controller. Rush also told the CBS reporter some of the vessel is made from “off-the-shelf” material.
It is not uncommon for submarines to operate with a video game controller. According to a report by the Washington Post’s Gene Park, the U.S. Navy piloted the USS Colorado with an Xbox 360 controller and the British Army has used 360 controllers to pilot unmanned aerial vehicles for over a decade.
It is not known at this time if the controller shown in the CBS segment is the same one used to operate the Titan submarine that went earlier this week.
In addition, Park notes that the video game controller identified in the segment operates wirelessly with Bluetooth, which may have the potential cause issues.
What is notable, however, is the specific kind of controller the Titanic vessel used. It’s been identified as a Logitech G-F710 controller, released in 2011. Logitech is known for high-quality video game paraphernalia. The most worrying detail of the controller is that it operates wirelessly through Bluetooth. All of the military applications described above have controllers wired in, so there’s no risk of disconnection and any issues regarding radio transmission.
The Titanic submarine expedition sold tickets at a reported cost of $250,000 per person. Rescue teams continue to search for the missing submersible as Coast Guard officials estimate the passengers have approximately less than 20 hours of breathable air remaining in the vessel.
Moreover, Arthur Loibl, a German man who paid Ocean Gate to see the Titanic wreck on Titan two years ago called the adventure a “suicide mission.” In August 2021, Loibl dived 12,500 feet into the Atlantic Ocean to discover the wreck site, but tells the German tabloid Bild that he was “incredibly lucky” to survive.
Loibl, according to the Daily Mail, noted that during a second attempted dive parts fell off the submarine and electrical issues occurred, causing the mission to be abandoned.
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