The scientific director of the company that owns the Titan submersible that imploded Last year, while heading toward the wreck of the Titanic, he testified Thursday that the submarine had experienced a malfunction just before the fatal dive.
Appearing before a U.S. Coast Guard panel, Steven Ross told the board about a rig problem the experimental submersible experienced in June 2023, just days before it imploded on its way to the Titanic site. The malfunction caused passengers aboard the submersible to “stagger” and it took an hour to get them out of the water.
The submersible's pilot, OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush, crashed into the bulkhead during the malfunction, Ross said. No one was injured in the incident, Ross said, though he described it as uncomfortable.
“One passenger was left hanging upside down. The other two managed to wedge themselves into the bow end cap,” Ross said, adding that he did not know whether a safety assessment of the Titan or an inspection of its hull had been conducted after the incident.
An investigative panel has heard from three Days of testimony which raised questions about the company's operations before the failed mission. Rush was among Five people who died when the submersible imploded en route to the Titanic wreck site in June 2023.
On Thursday morning, Renata Rojas, a mission specialist for the company, told the Coast Guard that the company had competent personnel who wanted to “make dreams come true.” Rojas’ testimony struck a different tone than some of the previous witnesses, who described the company as troubled from the top down and focused more on profits than science or safety.
“I was learning a lot and working with amazing people,” Rojas said. “Some of those people are very hard-working people who were just trying to make their dreams come true.”
Rojas also said he felt the company had been sufficiently transparent during the lead-up to the Titanic dive. His testimony was emotional at times, and the Coast Guard panel offered him a short break at one point so he could compose himself.
Rojas is a member of the Explorers Club, which lost members Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargeolet in the Titan implosion. The club described Rush as “a friend of the Explorers Club” after the implosion.
“I knew what I was doing was very risky. At no point did I feel unsafe about the operation,” Rojas said in his testimony on Thursday.
Earlier this month, the Coast Guard opened a public hearing that is part of a high-profile investigation into the cause of the implosion. The public hearing began on Sept. 16, and some of the testimony has focused on problems the company was having before the fatal 2023 collapse.
Researchers also released underwater images of the submersible wreck, in which the submersible's tail cone and other debris can be seen on the ocean floor.
During the hearing, former OceanGate chief operating officer David Lochridge said Tuesday that he frequently clashed with Rush and felt the company was only out to make money.
“The idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge testified. “There was very little in the way of science.”
The hearing is expected to continue until Friday, with more witnesses still to be heard, and is expected to resume next week.
Lochridge and other witnesses have painted a picture of a company run by people who were eager to get their hands on the unconventional design craftsmanship The fatal accident sparked a global debate about the future of private underwater exploration.
Coast Guard officials noted at the start of the hearing that the submersible had not been independently evaluated, as is standard practice. That and the Titan’s unusual design brought it under scrutiny from the underwater exploration community.
Washington State-based OceanGate suspended operations after the implosion. The company has no full-time employees at the moment, but has been represented by a lawyer During the hearing.
During the submersible's final dive on June 18, 2023, the crew lost contact after an exchange of text messages about the depth and weight of the Titan as it descended. The support ship Polar Prince then sent repeated messages asking if the Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display.
One of the Titan crew's last messages to the Polar Prince before the submersible imploded read “all good here,” according to a visual recreation presented earlier in the hearing.
When the submersible was reported missing, rescuers sent ships, planes and other equipment to an area about 700 kilometres south of St. John's, Newfoundland. Four days later, wreckage from the Titan was found on the ocean floor about 300 metres from the Titanic's bow, Coast Guard officials said.
No one on board survived. Shahzada Dawood and her son Suleman were the other two people killed in the implosion.
OceanGate said it has been fully cooperating with the Coast Guard and NTSB investigations since they began. The Titan had been conducting trips to the Titanic wreck site since 2021.
