A report into the Titan submersible disaster slammed the owners of the company behind the vessel, claiming the voyage had "critically flawed" safety practices.

OceanGate's Titan submersible had its first expedition on June 13, 2023. Five passengers, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, were aboard to visit the Titanic wreckage. Contact with the crew was lost during its descent and it was later confirmed that the submersible had imploded, killing all passengers.

After a two-year investigation, the Coast Guard Marine Board found a "primary causal factor" for the implosion as the "failure to follow established engineering protocols for safety, testing and maintenance of their submersible". The report lists the "primary contributing factors" as "inadequate design, certification, maintenance and inspection process".

It found that OceanGate "failed to properly investigate and address" "known hull anomalies" identified a year before the tragedy. It said the Titan's real-time monitoring system produced data that "should have been...acted on".

These "hull anomalies" were responsible for a "loss of structural integrity" which led to the submersible's "sudden catastrophic implosion".

Those on board were "exposed to approximately 4,930 pounds per square inch of water pressure, resulting in the instantaneous death of all five occupants". Because of this, chair of the board, Jason Neubauer, said the "marine casualty and the loss of five lives was preventable".

The report concluded: "The lack of both third-party oversight and experienced OceanGate employees on staff during their 2023 Titan operations allowed OceanGate’s Chief Executive Officer to completely ignore vital inspections, data analyses, and preventative maintenance procedures, culminating in a catastrophic event."

The company leveraged "intimidation tactics, allowances for scientific operations, and the company’s favorable reputation" to evade regulatory scrutiny. By "strategically creating and exploiting regulatory confusion and oversight challenges", OceanGate was able to operate Titan "completely outside of the established deep-sea protocols".

It also cited "a toxic workplace culture at OceanGate, an inadequate domestic and international regulatory framework for submersible operations and vessels of novel design, and an ineffective whistleblower process".

The family of Titan sub passengers Shahzada and Suleman Dawood have released a statement calling for tougher regulation and oversight. It said: "No report can alter the heartbreaking outcome, nor fill the immeasurable void left by two cherished members of our family."

“We believe that accountability and regulatory change must follow such a catastrophic failure," it says, adding the family hopes the tragedy will serve as a turning point to bring "meaningful reform, rigorous safety standards, and effective oversight" to the submersible industry.

"If Shahzada and Suleman’s legacy can be a catalyst for regulatory change that helps prevent such a loss from ever happening again, it will bring us some measure of peace."