On June 22, 2023, Titan, a deep-sea submersible with five passengers went missing after hours it started a voyage to see the remains of Titanic, a cruise ship that sank more than 100 years ago. After five days of search and rescue operation, the U.S. Coast Guard declared that the submersible imploded and that all its passengers were already dead.

4 Lessons Christians Should Learn from the Titan Disaster Video

Here’s a video to help you better understand what happened to the OceanGate Titan accident, who was onboard the sea vessel, and what lessons we can learn from this great tragedy.

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Who was on board the OceanGate Titan?

The news has caught the attention of mainstream media since the passengers are high-profile personalities. First is Hamish Harding, who is a well-known British billionaire. He was the Action Aviation chairman.

The second and third passengers were Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman Dawood. Shahzada was the vice chairman of Engro Corporation, which is one of the largest conglomerates in Pakistan.

The fourth passenger is Paul-Henri Nargeolet. He was a 77-year-old retired navy commander of the French Navy. He served as an explorer and director of underwater research for the Titanic wreck.

Finally, the fifth passenger is Stockton Rush, the CEO and founder of OceanGate, the same company that operates Titan, the submersible that went missing.

The passengers paid $250,000 to board Titan.

What happened to the OceanGate Titan Submersible?

The US Coast Guard confirmed that the 5 passengers of the Titan submersible are already dead. They described that the Titan experienced a “catastrophic implosion.” But how did this happen?

As you may know, Titan went to the Titanic wreck area, which is located almost 13,000 feet deep in the Atlantic Ocean. With that depth, the pressure is about 400 times stronger than at sea level. A minor leak or damage to the hull of Titan could lead to implosion.

Implosion is opposite to explosion. An explosion happens when pressure is moving outward. Implosion happens when pressure is moving inward. According to experts, if the Titan did really implode, it crumbled down in just 1/20th of a second. It means that the passengers didn’t even know what happened before they died.

Controversies surrounding OceanGate Expeditions

Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, made some interesting claims in the past regarding OceanGate. According to a report made by Daily Mail UK, Rush was recorded to have said that he doesn’t want to hire “50-year-old white guys” with military expertise because they are not “inspirational.” Stockton made the remark in an interview with Teledyne Marine. He reportedly said that He wanted to hire young people to inspire others.

He explained, “I wanted our team to be younger to be inspirational, and I’m not going to inspire a 16-year-old to go pursue marine technology, but a 25-year-old, you know, who’s a sub pilot or a platform operator or one of our techs can be inspirational.”

“So we’ve really tried to get very intelligent, motivated, younger individuals involved because we’re doing things that are completely new.”

Aside from that, a report revealed that Stockton didn’t want to put Titan through independent testing anymore as he believed that would just delay the rapid innovation of his company. He even fired a director who wanted to put Titan through more meticulous safety testing.

Lessons for Christians from the Oceangate Titan disaster

As Christians, there are a lot of lessons we can learn from the tragedy that befell OceanGate’s Titan and its passengers. Here are some of them:

Choose the right people

This news reminds me of King Rehoboam, the son of King Solomon. When King Solomon died, King Rehoboam succeeded him.

The people of Israel gathered together to ask King Rehoboam to lighten the burden which Solomon put on them. King Rehoboam then asked the elders who have been with King Solomon for a long time. He also consulted his friends who grew up with him.

The elders advised King Rehoboam to serve the people and they will be loyal to him. The young friends of Rehoboam advised him to put more burden on the people.

King Rehoboam had two options. Should he follow the more experienced and knowledgeable elders or his close friends who don’t have the necessary wisdom to run a kingdom?

You can read the story in 1 Kings 12:1-24 and you may already know, King Rehoboam heeded his friends and rejected the advice of the elder. His decision led to the division of the Kingdom of Israel into the northern kingdom and southern kingdom.

There are some parallelisms in the story of Stockton Rush and King Rehoboam. When we choose people based on feelings rather than objective reasoning and common sense, we are choosing destruction for ourselves.

Sadly, the wrong decision of Rush led to his demise along with other people in the submersible. While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be inspirational and hiring young and passionate individuals, we must not do it at the expense of quality and safe results.

As Christians, we must learn from this incident that there is wisdom in choosing people based on what they know not who they know. Sadly, that’s something we see in many corporations and businesses. People get promoted not based on performance, but based on who backs them up.

Choose the right advice

I believe the most important lesson we can learn from both Stockton Rush and King Rehoboam is to know who to consult. It is commendable to seek advice, but it is equally important to know where you should get advice.

Above all, asking people’s advice may work, but we should never forget the most vital advice we should get and that advice is something we can get from God. We shouldn’t simply consult with ourselves or with other people, but we must consult God in every decision we make.

We read in James 1:5:

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

If you need wisdom, go to God. He is more than happy to give us wisdom and help us make better decisions in our lives.

Money can only do so much

While there are a lot of things money can buy, money is not everything. Yes, money can afford you to do things that other ordinary people won’t be able to do. It allows you to experience expensive trips such as touring the Titanic wreck. Imagine, paying $250,000 just to get a glimpse of the glorious past of what they once called the unsinkable ship.

Yet, we see here that no matter how rich you are, your money can’t save you when facing death or when you are in a desperate situation. Death is no respecter of who you are. Whether you are a billionaire or a minimum wage earner, you would still one day have to face death.

Notice what Hebrews 9:27:

And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.

So, instead of focusing our time and energy on becoming rich, what should we do instead? We read Proverbs 11:4:

Riches do not profit in the day of wrath,
But righteousness delivers from death.

You never know when your time is up

The 5 passengers who paid to get on board the Titan didn’t know that it will be their last voyage. Nobody knows that it will lead to their death. Because if they do, they would have never taken the trip.

The youngest passenger of Titan was 19 years old while the oldest is 77 years old. This tells us that you can die young or old. No one actually has a guarantee whether they will still be here tomorrow, next week, or next year. Tomorrow is not promised to everyone.

That’s why we need to take into heart what Psalms 90:12 tells us:

So teach us to number our days,
That we may gain a heart of wisdom. 

When we understand how fragile life is, we start to appreciate it. We become more careful. We become more intentional about how we spend our time. We become more conscious and do our best to spend our time wisely. So, eventually, it helps us to gain a heart of wisdom.

Final words

It is always tragic when people lose their lives in an accident. We don’t want anyone losing their lives in the way the five passengers did in the submersible. May we all learn the lessons from these accidents and do our best so that they will never happen again.

Of course, as long as we are humans, accidents will happen. That’s why we should always go to Yahweh for wisdom, guidance, and protection.