Earlier pictures of the submersible's interior on OceanGate's website had also shown the use of a different unidentified controller. — Handout/OceanGate Expeditions/AFP
A video on the CBS Sunday Morning YouTube channel from December 2022 revealed that the missing Titan submersible might have been piloted using a video game controller priced at about RM150.
In the video, OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush showed off the interior of the the company's Titan vessel and held in hand a gamepad, saying: “We run the whole thing with this game controller.”
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The gamepad held by Rush was a Logitech F710, a wireless controller originally released back in 2010 for the Xbox 360 and PC that had been modified to have longer joysticks.
It also runs on AA batteries.
The Logitech F710 was originally released in 2010 and runs on AA batteries. — Logitech
Earlier pictures of the submersible's interior on OceanGate's website had also shown the use of a different unidentified controller, while a 2014 video showed the vessel's development using a PlayStation 3 DualShock controller.
There is currently no confirmation on which model was used in the latest incident, or if the control system had changed since the 2022 video.
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The gamepad comes alongside other commonly available components used in the submersible's construction, including construction pipes that were repurposed as ballasts and parts from a recreational vehicle store.
Rush had claimed the pressure-sealed hull was made with input from the aerospace industry with the involvement of NASA and Boeing, saying that "everything else can fail".
"Thrusters can go, your lights can go, you’re still gonna be safe."
Passengers on the Titan would be bolted in from the outside with 17 bolts, with no way out barring external assistance. Experts had raised safety concerns on the vessel as far back as 2018.
The submersible first went missing on Sunday (June 18) following an attempt at descending to the wreck of the Titanic at a depth of 3,810 meters in the North Atlantic.
It is estimated that the vessel contains around four days worth of emergency oxygen for the five-person crew, with rescue efforts effectively being a race against time in the ongoing search.
