What a testimony the disaster of the submersible Titan revealed

Last year, five people hoping to see the wreck of the Titanic died when their submersible exploded in the Atlantic Ocean. A Coast Guard panel investigating the Titan submersible disaster heard two weeks of testimony that ended Friday. Previous witnesses have given testimony that has raised serious questions about whether the warning signs were ignored.

Here’s what witnesses have said so far:

The public hearing ends, but not without a few surprises

The Marine Board of Inquiry ended two weeks of testimony on Friday with a moment of silence for the five victims who died on the submersible Titan. The president said more work needs to be done before a final list of recommendations is presented to Coast Guard leadership.

The final day brought some dramatic moments, including when a former OceanGate employee testified the company’s co-founder Stockton Rush put aside concerns about the US Coast Guard. Rush said that “if the Coast Guard became a problem, then he would buy a congressman and make it go away,” according to Matthew McCoy, who resigned after the interaction.

Also Friday, Capt. Jamie Frederick, commander of the Boston-based Coast Guard Sector, appeared stunned to learn that the captain of the Titan’s support ship felt, in retrospect, that there was a slight shudder when the submersible exploded on road. at the wreck of the Titanic last year.

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Frederick said it was “unthinkable not to share that” in real time and said it could have “changed the equation” in terms of the Coast Guard’s rescue response.

NASA and Boeing describe limited roles in creating the submersible Titan

NASA and Boeing officials on Thursday described what they called their limited roles in the creation of the doomed Titan submersible, even as the OceanGate co-founder previously touted ties to NASA and aerospace manufacturers.

Materials engineer Justin Jackson said NASA was unable to play a role in building and testing the carbon fiber shell due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He said NASA officials were uncomfortable being tied to the experimental submersible, saying “our people had heartburn” when OceanGate suggested NASA approval.

Boeing was involved in an early feasibility study of using carbon fiber for Titan’s hull and OceanGate’s acoustic sensors on the hull before the relationship ended. Mark Negley, a materials and process engineer at Boeing, said OceanGate eventually moved away from some of its pressure hull recommendations.

Key employee says there was ‘urgency’ to complete dives, but not if it meant putting lives at risk

A key employee of the company that owned the experimental submersible that exploded dismissed a question from a Coast Guard investigator focusing on whether OceanGate felt a sense of “desperation” to complete the dives because of the high price.

Amber Bay, chief administrative officer for OceanGate, insisted on Tuesday that the company would not “conduct dives that would be risky just to fill a need.” That said, he told the Coast Guard group, “There was certainly an urgency to accomplish what we provided and a dedication and persistence to that goal.”

She also referred to customers as “mission specialists” and “explorers,” not passengers. She tearfully noted that she knew them all. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about them, their families and the loss,” she said through tears.

The company’s co-founder hopes for renewed interest in exploration

The co-founder of the company that owned the experimental submersible that exploded en route to the wreck of the Titanic told a Coast Guard panel Monday that he hopes the tragedy will spark renewed interest in exploration.

“This cannot be the end of deep ocean exploration,” said businessman Guillermo Sohnlein, who helped found OceanGate with Stockton Rush. He said the company started with a laudable goal: “We wanted to give humanity greater access to the ocean, especially the deep ocean,” Sohnlein said.

The expert says carbon fiber is susceptible to fatigue failure

Roy Thomas of the American Bureau of Shipping testified about the challenges associated with carbon fiber, which was the material used for the pressure hull of the doomed Titan submersible. He noted that carbon fiber is difficult to produce, and salt water can damage and weaken the material in several ways.

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He said there is no recognized standard for a submersible carbon fiber pressure hull for human occupancy and that carbon fiber is “susceptible to fatigue failure under repeated external pressurization.”

The lead engineer says it wouldn’t go into Titan

When testifying about a dive that took place several years before the fatal accident, chief engineer Tony Nissen said he felt pressured to prepare the Titan and refused to fly it.

“I’m not getting involved,” Nissen said he told Rush. Nissen said Rush was difficult to work with, made requests that often changed from day to day, and focused on cost and schedule. Nissen said he tried to keep confrontations with Rush under wraps so that others in the company would not be aware of the friction.

The Titan malfunctioned days before its fatal sinking

Science director Steven Ross said that in a dive just days before Titan imploded, the ship had a problem with its ballast, which keeps ships stable. The problem caused passengers to “twist” and crash into the bulkhead, he said.

“A passenger was hanging upside down. The other two managed to wedge themselves into the bow,” Ross testified.

He said no one was hurt, but it took an hour to get the vessel out of the water. He said he did not know if a safety assessment or hull inspection had been carried out after the incident.

It wasn’t the first time the Titan had been in trouble

A paid passenger on a 2021 Titanic mission said the trip was cut short when the ship began experiencing mechanical problems.

“We realized all he could do was go around in circles, make right turns,” Fred Hagen said. “At this point, we obviously won’t be able to sail to the Titanic.”

He said the Titan had respawned and the mission was abandoned. Hagen said he was aware of the risks involved in diving.

“Anyone who wanted to go was either delusional if they didn’t think it was dangerous or accepted the risk,” he said.

One employee said authorities ignored his concerns

Chief Operating Officer David Lochridge said the tragedy could have been prevented if a federal agency had investigated the concerns he had repeatedly raised.

Lochridge said that eight months after he filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a caseworker told him that the agency had not started an investigation and that there were 11 cases before him. By that time, OceanGate was suing Lochridge, and he countersued. A few months later, Lochridge said, he decided to drop the complaint. He said the case was closed and both lawsuits were dropped.

“The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge testified. “There was very little in science.”

After Lochridge’s testimony this week, the federal agency responded that at the time it “promptly referred” its safety concerns to the Coast Guard.

Some people had a rosier view

Renata Rojas, a member of the Explorers Club, which lost two paying passengers in the fatal sinking, set a different tone with her testimony. She said she felt OceanGate was transparent in the run-up to the dive and never felt the operation was unsafe. A passenger on a previous dive, Rojas was volunteering with the surface crew when the Titan exploded.

“Some of these people are very hardworking individuals who were just trying to make dreams come true,” she said.

Top photo: This June 2023 U.S. Coast Guard still frame from a video provided by Pelagic Research Services shows the remains of the submersible Titan, center, on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. (US Coast Guard video courtesy of Pelagic Research Services via AP)

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