Fact Check: Did Titan Implosion Cause Vessel to Become as Hot as the Sun?

A deep-sea submersible that was traveling to the iconic wreck of the Titanic experienced a "catastrophic implosion" that killed all five people onboard, U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger told reporters Thursday.

Debris from the submersible, known as Titan, was observed by a remotely operated diving vehicle on Thursday morning on the seabed of the North Atlantic, about 1,600 feet from the shipwreck, which lies roughly 2.5 miles below the surface.

Titan lost contact with its support ship on Sunday, sparking a multinational five-day search that made headlines all over the world.

The Claim

Since the news emerged that the debris field of the Titan is consistent with a "catastrophic implosion" of the submersible, a video claiming to show what the incident might have looked like was posted to social media.

The video, posted to the starfieldstudio TikTok account, has received more than 54 million views on the platform at the time of writing, as well as 2.9 million likes, while generating tens of thousands of comments. It has also been shared on other social media networks, such as Twitter, gaining millions of additional views.

The video shows a basic animation of the submersible imploding as it descends, accompanied by the following text:

"The instant collapse of the pressure, the hull would immediately heat the air in the sub to around the surface of the sun's temperature, as a wall of metal and seawater smashed one end of the boat to the other, all in around 30 milliseconds."

The Facts

The typical atmospheric pressure at sea level is 14.7 pounds per square inch (psi). But the deeper into the ocean you go, the pressure increases. Water pressure in the region of the Titanic is estimated to be about 6,000 psi, for example.

While it is not clear what caused the implosion of Titan, in such extreme pressure environments, even a tiny structural flaw in the deep-sea craft could have been responsible.

The implosion would have been rapid, resulting in almost instant death of the five people onboard. But is the claim from the video that the air in the submersible would have reached temperatures comparable to the sun's surface—about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit—as it imploded true?

According to Jasper Graham-Jones, an associate professor of mechanical and marine engineering at Plymouth University, in the United Kingdom, the claim is "totally false".

"For a start, the water temperature around the Titanic is around 4 degrees Celsius [around 39 degrees Fahrenheit], which acts as a cooling effect," Graham-Jones told Newsweek.

"The collapse of the composite or metal structure would just produce theoretical heat energy due to friction, but this is very low and would not be visible or measurable with the mass of cold water around it."

The Ruling

False.

The air inside the submersible did not reach temperatures comparable to those at the surface of the sun, according to an expert.

FACT CHECK BY NEWSWEEK