Following the "catastrophic implosion" of the Titan submersible this week, experts in the public relations field spoke to Newsweek about how OceanGate Expeditions should respond to the tragedy.
"From a PR perspective, the first thing OceanGate Expeditions should do is publicly reveal how they are going to launch a comprehensive investigation into the lost sub and present a report detailing everything that went wrong," Ryan McCormick, a crisis communication expert at Goldman McCormick PR, told Newsweek on Friday.
On Thursday, U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger confirmed that the Titan submersible, operated by OceanGate Expeditions had been lost after it initially disappeared on Sunday. The vessel was traveling to the wreckage of the RMS Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean and had five passengers on board, identified as Captain Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood, Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Stockton Rush.
"The debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber. Upon this determination, we immediately notified the families on behalf of the United States Coast Guard and the entire unified command," Mauger said during a press conference on Thursday.
However, prior to the Titan's failed voyage this week, OceanGate Expeditions was sued by a former employee who alleged that the company failed to address his safety concerns about the vessel.
In regard to responding to the recent tragedy, McCormick told Newsweek on Friday that OceanGate Expeditions will need to immediately terminate all employees involved in checking the safety protocols of the vessel.
"Can OceanGate Expeditions' reputation recover? Absolutely not. A week's worth of negative press (which revealed numerous instances of safety protocols being flagrantly ignored) has sealed their fate," McCormick said, adding that instead, the remnants of the entity can possibly form a new company in the future.
"This new organization can boast comprehensive safety measures and should strive to get the seal of approval from respected deep dive experts," McCormick told Newsweek.
Anthony D'Angelo, a public relations professor at Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications also made similar comments about a potential response and said, "It will be almost impossible for OceanGate to recover, especially given the safety concerns expressed by industry leaders in 2018 and current criticism by James Cameron and others accusing the company of recklessness and hubris."
Among different remedies, D'Angelo told Newsweek that OceanGate Expeditions will need to speak with the families of the deceased and offer their assistance, be transparent about exactly what happened to the vessel and why it failed and to determine how to prevent any similar tragedies from happening in the future.
"To have even a chance of survival, OceanGate has to re-establish trust, recognizing it's now operating at a trust deficit as deep as the awful tragedy," D'Angelo told Newsweek.
Newsweek reached out to OceanGate Expeditions via email for further comment.
