Newfoundland University Threw Open Its Doors to Titanic Dive Operator, Emails Show

Debris from the Titan submersible, recovered from the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic, is unloaded from the ship Horizon Arctic at the Canadian Coast Guard pier in St. John’s on June 28, 2023. The Canadian Press/Paul Daly

A research institute at Newfoundland and Labrador’s Memorial University threw open its “proverbial doors” last year to the company that owned the doomed Titan submersible, less than a year before the vessel suffered a catastrophic implosion while diving to the Titanic shipwreck.

Emails obtained by The Canadian Press show officials with Memorial’s Fisheries and Marine Institute signed an agreement with OceanGate in December allowing the company to store equipment with the university and promising that students and faculty would have opportunities “to join OceanGate expeditions to support research endeavours.”