The family of French explorer Paul-Henri Narjolet has filed a wrongful death lawsuit totaling $50 million following the June 2023 explosion of the OceanGate Titan exploration submersible.
Narjollet, 77, was one of five people aboard the Titan submersible that exploded during a dive to explore the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic on June 18, 2023. All five people present were killed instantly.
The families of the French sailors have accused Ocean Gate, the owners of the sunken ship, of “continued carelessness, recklessness and negligence.”
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The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Washington state, also alleges that Ocean Gate failed to disclose important information about the durability and history of its Titan submersibles.
The U.S. Coast Guard is actively investigating the explosion, with an investigation expected to conclude in June 2024. “It will take longer to complete than originally planned.”
Paul-Henri Narjolet, head of the Titanic deep sea research project, poses inside a new exhibition on the wreck at Expo 2013 in Paris, May 31, 2013. More than a century after the famous ship sank, a Titanic exhibition in Paris will be open to the public from June 1 to September 15 and promises to showcase “real objects and real stories.” (Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images)
“The lawsuit further alleges that despite Ocean Gate designating Mr. Narjollet as a crew member on the vessel, many details regarding the vessel’s defects and shortcomings were withheld and intentionally concealed,” lawyers for Mr. Narjollet’s family said in a statement to the New York Post.
Paul-Henri Narjolet was the underwater exploration manager for the RMS Titanic, and his family says he would never have agreed to join the OceanGate Titan expedition if the company had been more transparent about the ship.
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“While Mr. Narjolet may have died doing what he loved, his death, and the deaths of the other crew members of the Titan, were wrongful,” the family argues in the lawsuit.
An Ocean Gate spokesman declined to comment on the lawsuit when asked by The Associated Press.
Paul-Henri Narjolet, head of the Titanic deep sea research project, poses inside a new exhibition on the wreck at Expo 2013 in Paris, May 31, 2013. More than a century after the famous ship sank, the Titanic exhibition in Paris will be open to the public from June 1 to September 15 and promises to showcase “real objects and real stories.” (Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images)
The ill-fated Titan submersible expedition on June 18, 2023 killed four people, including Narjolet, Stockton Rush, Hamish Harding, and father-son duo Shahzada Daoud and Suleiman Daoud.
Coast Guard Marine Investigation Board (MBI) Chairman Jason Neubauer announced in June 2024 that “MBI is committed to fully understanding the factors that led to this tragedy in order to prevent similar incidents in the future.”
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OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush piloted the Titan submersible during the failed expedition.
