Footage of Titanic shipwreck falsely shared as 'Titan sub tragedy debris'

This article is more than one year old.
Published on June 29, 2023 at 07:19
3 min read
By AFP Indonesia

Footage of an underwater expedition to the Titanic in 2021 has circulated in posts falsely claiming it shows debris from the Titan sub that suffered a catastrophic implosion in June 2023. The video, which has been viewed millions of times in false posts, was previously uploaded on the Facebook account of the operator of the ill-fated sub on a previous trip.

"The debris of the Titan submarine with 5 passengers has been found," reads Indonesian-language sticker text that appears on this TikTok post, shared on June 24, 2023.

The post's caption partly reads: "Rescue team found debris which is believed to belong to OceanGate's Titan submersible on Thursday (June 22, 2023), near the remnants of the Titanic. Debris which is believed to belong to the Titanic explorer submersible was found by Arctic Horizon's ROV machine in the depth of 4.000 meter."

The one-minute, 10-second footage, which shows an underwater wreckage, has more than 3.9 million views.

Screenshot of the false post, taken on June 26, 2023

The video was also shared in similar posts on YouTube, Facebook and TikTok here and here, garnering an additional 642.000 views.

On June 22, 2023, the US Coast Guard said that all five people aboard the Titan submersible had died after the vessel suffered a "catastrophic implosion".

A debris field was found on the seafloor, 1,600 feet (500 meters) from the bow of the Titanic, which sits more than two miles (nearly four kilometers) below the ocean's surface and 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

However, the video shared on social media does not show debris from the Titan.

Unrelated footage

A reverse image search of the video found the same video was posted on the Facebook page of OceanGate Expeditions on January 31, 2023 -- months before the Titan sub went missing. (archived link).

The video's description partly reads: "The Titanic's debris field tells the human story of the ship in a way no other area of the wreck can."

OceanGate was the operator of the Titan submersible and the firm's CEO Stockton Rush was one of the passengers onboard.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the genuine Facebook video (right):

Screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the genuine Facebook video (right)

Some of the shots in the Facebook footage also appeared in a clip posted on OceanGate's YouTube channel on February 11, 2022 (archived link).

According to the OceanGate video's description, it was filmed during an expedition to the Titanic in 2021.

"During our 2021 expedition to the world's most iconic shipwreck, we were able to capture incredible footage of the Titanic wreck's debris field with the onboard SubC Rayfin Camera," the description says.

The 35-second mark of the clip in the false post (left) corresponds with the 1:49-minute mark of the genuine YouTube video (right):

Screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the genuine YouTube video (right)

An image seen 45 seconds into the video shared in the false post (left) matches the 3:14-minute mark of the genuine YouTube video (right):

Screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the genuine YouTube video (right)

It was only on June 28, 2023 that authorities announced they offloaded mangled debris recovered from the Titan in eastern Canada, including what experts said were "presumed human remains".

The first images of the Titan debris were aired on the same day (archived links here and here).

AFP has previously debunked misinformation about the tragedy here and here.

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