Tragic Titan sub may have crumbled under 'micro

Experts have revealed the explanation for why the doomed Titan submarine imploded on its expedition to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. 

OceanGate's Titan submersible disappeared on June 18, 2023, after it plunged into the ocean to explore the wreck of the Titanic.

New reports from researchers at the University of Houston who studied how thin-walled structures can buckle due to tiny imperfections in the materials, Newsweek reported. 

In a paper in the journal of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), research lead and professor of civil and environmental engineering, Roberto Ballarini, suggested that imperfections in the carbon fiber used to build the Titan sub's hull could be to blame for the devastating implosion.

He further suggested that any damage that had built up from the vessel's previous dives could have made it vulnerable to 'micro-buckling.'

OceanGate 's Titan submersible disappeared on June 18, 2023, after it plunged into the ocean to explore the wreck of the Titanic

'Buckling in the simplest explanation: you take a long spaghetti and you push on it with two fingers. What's going to happen? It's going to buckle essentially, it's going to snap,' Roberto Ballarini.

READ MORE: HOW TITAN SUB DISASTER KILLED FIVE IN DOOMED DIVE

Pictured: Two of the five killed on the doomed deep sea expedition

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'That's what buckling is. It's when you compress something and it deforms by a significant amount because it's an instability.'  

Researchers were not able to examine whether micro-buckling was behind the Titan failure - but they looked at vessels of similar shapes and materials. 

There are still other theories for why the submarine imploded - including the hull's carbon fiber composite material.

Small imperfections that could go undetected make vessels, like the Titan, at risk of collapsing under intense pressure. 

Now that the ship has completely imploded, researchers will likely never determine the exact location of the flaw that caused the tragic event. 

The Titan submersible lost communications with its support vessel on Sunday, June 18, during a descent to the wreck of the Titanic 12,500 feet beneath the surface. 

Days later, its debris was recovered. It was said to have suffered a 'catastrophic implosion'. 

Tourists Hamish Harding, 58, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Sulaiman Dawood, 19, French Navy pilot Paul-Henry (PH) Nargeolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush all died on the submersible. 

The US Coast Guard confirmed the victims' deaths four days later and an investigation into the implosion is ongoing.

On June 18, the OceanGate sub was launched around 8am in the Atlantic Ocean above the site of the Titanic shipwreck.

The five passengers started to descend as Rush piloted the vessel. At 9:45am, it lost contact with its mothership, the Polar Prince.

Debris from the Titan submersible recovered from the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic, is unloaded from a ship

Graphic showing the parts of the Titan submersible that have been found following 'catastrophic implosion'

British explorer Hamish Harding was among those killed in the 'catastrophic implosion'

French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet (left) was in the sub along with Stockton Rush (right), CEO of the OceanGate Expedition

OceanGate Expeditions took eight hours to report the missing sub to the US Coast Guard after it lost contact. 

That led to a massive international response to rescue the five passengers. Ships from across the globe started to make the trek to help search for the missing sub while the hours and estimated oxygen ticked down. 

It was also revealed that a US Navy monitoring system picked up a possible sound of the implosion in the descent - but search efforts continued. 

After announcing the death of the five passengers, it was later revealed that debris form the imploded sub was found near the site of the Titanic. 

The Titan submersible tragedy is set to be made into a motion picture. The film, titled Salvaged, comes from the mind of one of the main producers behind Black-ish, and will cover periods before, during and after the five-day tragedy.

A pair of relatively unknown writers have been pegged to craft the narrative, which serves as one installment of an upcoming slate of docuseries projects from the presiding studio.

Other films in the work include a project based around Seattle's rising underground rap scene, and another about various Girl Scouts troupes across North America and abroad.

Salvaged, though - as its name might suggest - seeks to clean up any doubts about the tragedy, by providing a clean-cut narrative surrounding the five who died.