Game controller used in Titan submersible has not been located on the ocean floor

CLAIM: An image shows the video game controller used to steer the Titan submersible lying on the ocean floor.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: Altered image. An underwater photo from a 2020 BBC story has been altered to include the controller. A marine researcher whose team captured the original image as part of a deep sea study confirmed it dates to 2015 and shows the Pacific Ocean floor, not the Atlantic Ocean, where the submersible imploded earlier this month near the wreck of the Titanic. The U.S. Coast Guard has also said no images of the Titan have been released by the international team of investigators looking into the cause of the disaster.

THE FACTS: As investigators probe how the Titan imploded, killing all five people on board, social media users are claiming that a much-discussed part of the submersible has already been located: the repurposed video game controller that served as its steering wheel.

OceanGate, which owned and operated the Titan, has acknowledged the commercially available controller was among many off-the-shelf parts used in the vessel.

Many people are sharing a photo that purports to show the controller resting on the bottom of the sea. The image shows a sandy ocean bottom with a part of the photo magnified to supposedly show a close up of the controller.

“The cheapest part survived,” wrote one Twitter user who shared the grainy, pixelated image.

But the image does not depict debris from the Titan wreckage. It has been digitally altered to add the controller into the seafloor scene.

A Google reverse image search shows the original photo was part of a 2020 BBC story about research into the effects of deep sea mining.

“These deliberate marks in the seabed were 26 years old in this photo taken in 2015,” reads the caption on the photo in the BBC article, which was titled: “The unseen man-made ‘tracks’ on the deep ocean floor.”

Matthias Haeckel, the lead researcher on the study, confirmed in an email Monday that the photo was taken in the Peru Basin of the Pacific Ocean.

A lower-resolution version of the image, he noted, is also found on a 2016 fact sheet on the study, which wrapped up last year. The photo was captured by a remotely operated vehicle owned by GEOMAR, an ocean research institute in Kiel, Germany, where Haeckel works.

“No game controller on it,” he added, referring to the original image.

The U.S. Coast Guard, which has been leading the Titan rescue and recovery efforts, didn’t respond to an email seeking comment Monday.

But investigators said Sunday that they would not be releasing evidence from their investigation as it’s collected. The armed services branch has also previously said no public images of the submersible wreckage have been released, despite social media posts claiming otherwise.

“Unless released from our official press releases or our social media, these photos are unconfirmed,” the Coast Guard said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press on Friday, responding to other fake images.

U.S. officials have said five pieces of the submersible have so far been located, including the nose cone and part of the pressure chamber.

The debris was found Thursday, roughly 1,600 feet (488 meters) from the Titanic shipwreck and some 12,500 feet (3,810 meters) at the bottom of the North Atlantic.

On Sunday, officials said salvage operations from the seafloor are ongoing.

Investigators from the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, the French marine casualties investigation board and the United Kingdom Marine Accident Investigation Branch are involved in the efforts.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

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