Does viral video show Titan submersible before catastrophic implosion? Here's the truth

A viral Facebook video claimed to show what appeared to be footage of the Titan submersible before it was destroyed in a catastrophic implosion, killing all the five passengers aboard the vessel. The deceased passengers were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, French diver Paul Henry Nargeolet, and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman.

The clip, published on the same day that the US Coast Guard announced the implosion of the Titan submersible, garnered over 1.3 million views. The reel, which appears to have been taken down now, was captioned, “MISSING TITANIC SUBMARINE FOOTAGE BEFORE DISAPPEARANCE!!" The video appeared to show someone filming a shipwreck through a porthole.

What is the truth behind the video?

AFP has discovered that the clip is fake. The video is reportedly from a guided tour of the Lord Willoughby shipwreck near Barbados, where tourists are able to view the remains of the ship that sank in 1976. It has no connection with the Titan submersible that was destroyed.

The video was tagged with some obvious hashtags like submarine and Titanic, but also an odd one like UFO. The hashtags possibly led to the clip quickly going viral.

Meanwhile, an underwater robot had recently been combing the floor for debris from the catastrophic implosion of the submersible. Following the tragedy, investigators from the US Coast Guard, the US National Transportation Safety Board, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, the French marine casualties investigation board and the United Kingdom Marine Accident Investigation Branch have been working closely on the probe.

The world has been obsessed with the tragedy ever since it came to light. The incident has been making headlines, and people and experts across the globe have been talking about nothing but the submersible and how the passengers may have met their fate. The words “Titan,” “Titan sub,” and “OceanGate” have been trending on Twitter.

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