The crew onboard the Titan submersible that imploded last year while diving toward the wreck of the Titanic were probably aware during their final moments they were going to die, a newly filed wrongful death lawsuit alleges. The lawsuit was filed by the family of the French explorer who died in the implosion, Paul-Henri Nargeolet. Known as “Mr Titanic”, he had participated in 37 previous dives to the wreckage and was onboard the submersible when it failed catastrophically in June 2023 during a voyage to the Titanic wreckage site. All five crew members died. The others were the British explorer Hamish Harding, the British Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, and the CEO of Oceangate, Stockton Rush. Nargeolet’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit earlier this week against OceanGate, which manufactured the submersible and ran the voyage and has since ceased operations, according to its website. The lawsuit accuses OceanGate and Rush of negligence and alleges that many of the particulars about the vessel’s flaws and shortcomings were purposely concealed from Nargeolet. “The catastrophic implosion that claimed Nargeolet’s life was due directly to the persistent carelessness, recklessness and negligence” of OceanGate, Rush and other defendants, the lawsuit states, seeking at least $50m. It also alleges that it is likely that they would have known the submersible was about to implode. “While the exact cause of failure may never be determined, experts agree that the Titan’s crew would have realized exactly what was happening,” the lawsuit states. “The vaunted ‘acoustic safety system’ would have alerted the crew that the carbon-fiber hull was cracking under extreme pressure – prompting the pilot to release weight and attempt to abort,” it alleges. “Common sense dictates that the crew were well aware they were going to die, before dying.” As the safety mechanism to drop the weight in response to the hull cracking did not work, the lawsuit alleges that the crew “may well have heard the carbon fiber’s crackling noise grow more intense as the weight of the water pressed on Titan’s hull. “By experts’ reckoning, they would have continued to descend, in full knowledge of the vessel’s irreversible failures, experiencing terror and mental anguish prior to the Titan ultimately imploding.” A spokesperson for OceanGate declined to comment to the Associated Press. Last week, Rory Golden, who was onboard the support ship for the submersible when the disaster occurred, spoke out about the fear and atmosphere of false hope during the doomed rescue effort. “We had this image in our heads of them being down there, running out of oxygen in the freezing cold, getting terribly frightened and scared,” Golden, who was a close friend of Nargeolet, told BBC News. After the disaster the US Coast Guard opened a Marine Board of Investigation into the incident to determine its cause. A public hearing is scheduled for September.