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Credit: NTSB
The final report from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) regarding the implosion of the OceanGate Titan submersible in 2023 has now been published (h/t Scott Manley on YouTube). Earlier this week, we were surprised to see the tragic Titan submersible’s $62 SanDisk memory card found undamaged at the wreckage site. However, Docket #60 (PDF) of the final report shows that the computer equipment was far more severely damaged in the implosion. Specifically, the onboard trio of Nuvo-5000LP series fan-less PCs, for example, are almost unrecognizable in a “Large Electronic and Metal Mass.”
Before and after: We’ve put what is described by the incident report as “a compilation of compressed metal, compressed plastic, compressed electronic components and compressed other materials” next to what is thought to have been its form, pre-implosion. | Credit: NTSB
Above we can just about see some remnants of the red metal plating and cooling fins from the fanless Nuvo PC chassis.
According to the report, the above clump of electronic materials and their supporting structure(s) weighs approximately 100 pounds (~45kg). This used to be three Nuvo-5000LP series fan-less PCs that acted as the submersible’s mission computer. The OceanGate Titan computer system was used to log vessel performance as well as acoustic hull monitoring and other diagnostic information.
Page four of report Docket #60 shows a smaller, compressed mass of electronics. While some fabric or carpet seems to be visible in this lump, we are assured that “no human remains were externally visible anywhere on the mass.”
Investigations into the electronic remnants: CT scanning
Due to the extremely compressed, tangled nature of these two large remnants, the investigators decided to use computed tomography (CT) scans as a first step. They reasoned that “If the compressed memory components could be imaged in the CT scan, then a pathway could be established that provided a route for using destructive tools that could reach and extract the memory components.”
Of course, the thrust of the investigation was still to find out more about the Titan’s succumbing to the immense pressures it was under. So, they looked for ‘survivable space’ in the scans, where an SSD PCB could potentially survive intact.
Unfortunately, the third-party lab’s 320 kilovolts (kV) CT scanner couldn’t penetrate deep enough to find any ‘survivable void’ spaces, and no memory devices could be identified. The investigators ruled out using more powerful CT scanners as they thought the extra power could actually “damage data stored on any surviving NVM chips.”
The ATF extracts two SSD PCBs
Eventually, the large mass was passed onto the Fire Research Laboratory (FRL) at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), notes the report. Eventually, the ATF extracted the two PCBs pictured below, thought to have come from a pair of 2.5-inch SSDs.
SSDs were unrecoverable | Credit: NTSB
By the time of the source report’s publication, all data recovery efforts have been unsuccessful. It is explained that both PCBs saw deformations across three axes, and three BGA NVM chips were missing from each of the PCBs. Moreover, the remaining flash memory chips showed signs of cracks and distortion.
Finally, no data was forthcoming from similar investigations into the smaller electronics mass. Looking for storage components among electronics parts collected into Box One and Box 2, was also fruitless.
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