No audio recordings of the missing Titan submarine have been released

Context

On June 24, 2023, the U.S. Coast Guard reported that a debris field had been discovered while searching for the missing Titan submarine. Efforts to locate the submarine and its five inhabitants had been underway since June 18, after contact with the vessel was lost, and it failed to resurface at the scheduled time.  

The Titan submarine was operated by the company OceanGate, which offers customers the opportunity to dive to the site of the Titanic. At its disappearance, it was carrying OceanGate's CEO and four clients. The disappearance of the submarine and its inhabitants has sparked considerable speculation online, with media outlets and social media users airing numerous accounts of what may have occurred. 

As the search for the submarine unfolded, news emerged that the U.S. Coast Guard had detected "banging noises." Assuming this was noise related to the missing vehicle, social media began to speculate that this demonstrated that its inhabitants were still alive. In this context, some shared an audio recording they claimed was related to this announcement. The recording consists of sound waves that could be consistent with knocking on a metallic surface. 

While this recording was shared widely on social media, it cannot be attributed to the Titan submarine or its passengers.  

In Fact

From publicly available information, it can safely be concluded that the recording does not include audio produced by the missing submarine or its inhabitants. 

To date, no audio of the banging noise reported by the Coast Guard has been publicly released. The organization confirmed this, telling the Associated Press, "The Coast Guard has not released any audio in relation to the search efforts."

Given what is now known about the events that unfolded concerning the missing submarine, it is unlikely that the audio detected by the Coast Guard had anything to do with the craft. At a press conference on June 22, the Coast Guard's Rear Admiral John Mauger stated that the recently discovered debris was consistent with "catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber." 

Since the discovery of debris from the Titan submersible was discovered, it is thought that the craft imploded due to structural issues. A loss of pressure such as this would unfold exceptionally rapidly. Speaking to Insider, Stefan Williams, a Professor of Marine robotics, stated that a failure such as this "would happen quite quickly, and there would be little chance of surviving." Under this scenario, it is improbable that the submarine's inhabitants would have been afforded sufficient time to generate noises that resemble those in the recording.

The Verdict

This recording does not contain noises reported by the Coast Guard during the search for the missing Titan submarine. The organization has stated that no such recordings have been released. Under what appears to be the most likely explanation for the submarine's failure, it is extremely unlikely its inhabitants would have had the opportunity to make noises of this nature. This claim has therefore been marked as false.