A public hearing began today into the Titan submersible’s disastrous deep-sea voyage following its implosion on its journey to the wreck of the Titanic, killing all five passengers on board.
Ten former employees of Oceangate – the US submersible company that operated the expedition – are among 24 witnesses giving testimony to the Titan Marine Board of Investigation.
An animation of the Titan’s fated journey revealed a chilling final communications between the Titan and the support vessel Polar Prince. The support vessel repeated the same question, prompting that team to ask for “better comms” from the Titan crew. In one of its final messages, the crew wrote: “all good here.”
The Titan sub was attempting to dive 2.4 miles to reach the Titanic shipwreck which lies 380 miles from St John’s in Newfoundland, Canada, when it lost contact on June 18 2023. After four days, debris of the submersible was found close to the wreck.
The implosion claimed the lives of British explorer Hamish Harding, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush and French deep-sea explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
The investigation will detect whether there was criminal activity or “negligence by credentialed mariners,” Jason Neubauer, Titan Marine Board of Investigation’s chairman, said on Sunday.
The hearings will continue tomorrow
The hearings are expected to span two weeks.
They will continue tomorrow starting at 8.30am ET.
We are pausing our blog until then…
Kelly Rissman17 September 2024 01:00
Who died in the implosion?
All five members of the doomed submersible lost their lives after the vessel launched on June 18, 2023: founder Stockton Rush, 61, French explorer Paul Henri Nargeolet, 77, British explorer Hamish Harding, 58, UK-based Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son Suleman.
Kelly Rissman17 September 2024 00:30
MBI created an animated model of the Titan’s doomed voyage
Kelly Rissman17 September 2024 00:00
ICYMI: Titan crew’s final three-word text revealed in haunting animation of submersible’s journey
Kelly Rissman16 September 2024 23:30
What to expect at tomorrow’s hearing
8:30 a.m. – Daily Opening
8:45 a.m. – 10 Minute Recess
9:00 a.m. – Mr. David Lochridge
10:30 a.m. – 10 Minute Recess
10:45 a.m. Mr. David Lochridge
1:30 p.m. – Mr. David Lochridge
2:45 p.m. – 10 Minute Recess
Kelly Rissman16 September 2024 23:00
Final communications between the Titan crew and its support vessel, revealed
“All good here” were some of the final words that the doomed Titan submersible crew communicated before the submersible imploded on its mission to the Titanic wreckage site in June 2023.
The message, revealed as part of the Coast Guard’s Monday hearing into the circumstances of the failed mission, was sent to support vessel Polar Prince on June 18, 2023, shortly before the submersible imploded, killing all five of its crew members. It was an incident that captivated both sides of the Atlantic as crews made a mad dash to save the crew after the sub lost contact with the surface – with the world unaware that the lives had been lost.
The Coast Guard played an animated re-enactment of the Titan’s voyage that captured the submersible’s final, spotty exchange with the Polar Prince, during the Monday hearing that shed new light on the sub’s final mission.
Around 10am on June 18, Polar Prince asked the Titan crew whether they were able to see the support vessel on the submersible’s display. The support vessel asked the crew the same question seven times over the course of seven minutes. The Titan crew then sent “k,” meaning it was asking for a communications check.
Kelly Rissman16 September 2024 22:30
Catterson said he had ‘doubts’ — and voiced them
“I had my doubts,” Catterson said about the carbon fiber hull.
“I think that when you put it under compression, they can buckle, they can shift, they can move all these directions three-directionally,” he added.
When aksed if he had voiced his concerns about the hull to any OceanGate employees, Catterson said he told Stockton Rush, Tony Nissen, the first witness today who is an engineer, and David Lochridge, who was terminated shortly after detailing his concerns with the Titan’s design in an inspection report.
Kelly Rissman16 September 2024 21:54
A series of unfortunate events after the Titan went undetected
The Canadian Coast Guard had been hearing a consistent “knocking” sound, Catterson said. The witness explained that the consistency signaled that the noise was coming from humans, distinct from the ocean sounds.
He thought the submersible was drifting.
The Polar Prince did not have a remotely operative vehicle (ROV) on board.
When a ROV did arrive, and it was determined that it could help find the submersible, it went to the bottom of the seafloor but died. So efforts then included recovering this “dead ROV,” Catterson said. They then tried to use sonar off the ROV to detect the submersible, but it didn’t work.
Pelagic Research Services’ ROV later arrived at the scene, and found debris within 10 minutes, he said.
Kelly Rissman16 September 2024 21:33
Witness reveals insight into the search and rescue process
Catterson said he was part of the search and rescue operations. He was on the Polar Prince, the support vessel.
“We did everything that we could to determine whether it was a communications issue or something else,” he recalled.
Both the tracking and communications both stopped because OceanGate was using the accoustic modem, which is tied to the depth sensor for tracking purposes, also as a communications link, which was atypical, he said.
“Normally there would have been two devices,” Catterson told the panel. “This is the first case I’ve ever seen” where communications and tracking were tied together, meaning “when one fails, so does the other.”
Kelly Rissman16 September 2024 21:24
‘No red flags’ on launch day, Catterson says
The expediton was repeatedly “weathered out,” he said, given the intense fog.
On June 18th, he said it was sunny, so it was really the only day they could have gone. It was like the day was “blessed,” he said.
OceanGate had an “extensive pre-dive,” Catterson told the panel. They started at 4am, four hours before the submersible’ launched.
He said he had never experienced such a lengthy process: “There were so many things that had to be checked. Subs do not have that many things to check over.”
Catterson was tasked with the dive checks.
“There were no red flags,” he said. “It was a good day.”
Kelly Rissman16 September 2024 21:11