The submersible that imploded while descending toward the wreck of the Titanic last year, instantly killing all five people on board, had malfunctioned just six days before its final doomed dive, a former OceanGate scientific director testified Thursday.
Steven Ross, a marine scientist and crew member on Titan's 87th dive in 2023, said a malfunction during that dive caused all five people on board to “spin around” and crash into the stern of the ship for at least an hour. CNN reported.
The dive, piloted by the late OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush, was aborted after a problem with the variable ballast tank (which controls the submersible's buoyancy) caused the rig to invert 45 degrees, tilting the rear of the craft upward.
Rush “crashed into the rear bulkhead, the rest of the passengers fell to the ground, I ended up standing on the rear bulkhead, one passenger was hanging upside down, the other two managed to wedge themselves onto the bow end cap,” Ross told the U.S. Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Inquiry.
Ross told the passengers what he believed had gone wrong and after taking a significant amount of time to try to fix the problem, he decided to ascend to the surface to address it.
The former employee added that he did not know whether the Titan's hull was ever inspected for damage after the failed dive, which occurred on June 12, six days before the fatal plunge and about 460 miles from the Titanic site.
He admitted that he knew the Titan submersible had not been inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard in 2021, 2022 or 2023.
Ross also recalled two incidents during the 2022 Titanic expedition dives, including a loud “bang” heard upon surfacing on dive 80, according to CNN.
“There was a discussion about the rumble with the crew, mission specialists and scientists. The theory of the sound was that it was probably due to the pressure hull shifting on its metal support, which when it snapped back into place could have made that loud noise,” Ross testified.
Then, on dive 81, Ross said there was a malfunction with the craft's thrusters.
His confessions came to light during a US Coast Guard investigation. A Coast Guard panel will hear two weeks of evidence about the Titan submarine disaster.
Since the disaster, numerous accounts have emerged of Rush's alleged negligence, including taking safety shortcuts with the ship and his business.
Rush and four others – adventurer Hamish Harding, Titanic explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son Suleman Dawood – died when the enormous water pressure destroyed the submersible on June 18, 2023.
Four days later, the mangled remains of the Titan were discovered on the ocean floor about 1,100 feet (330 meters) off the Titanic's bow, Coast Guard officials said.
Tony Nissen, OceanGate's lead engineer on the fatal mission, said Monday that he often clashed with Rush as his boss recklessly pressured his team to get the high-tech underwater vehicle up and running.
On Tuesday, former OceanGate marine operations director David Lochridge detailed the “appalling” flaws of the original model of the doomed Titan submersible.
“The idea of the company was to make money. There was very little in the way of science,” Lochridge said.
The U.S. Coast Guard will continue its hearings on Friday and next week.
