After they left, the Titan was rebuilt with a brand new hull that was by no means examined to business norms nor licensed by an unbiased third-party company. Patrick Lahey, CEO of submersible maker Triton Submarines, mentioned that certifying a novel hull was not solely potential however important for security.
“We had been growing and certifying the deepest diving sub on the earth on the identical time they had been growing this amateurish contraption,” he testified. “There was completely no cause they couldn’t have gotten it licensed.”
A Historical past of Troubled Titanic Missions
OceanGate’s first missions to the Titanic in 2021 had been beset with issues, together with the Titan’s ahead titanium dome falling off after a dive, worrying readings on the acoustic monitoring system, and a thruster failing at 3,500 meters’ depth. One Coast Guard proof slide confirmed 70 gear points requiring correction from the season’s dives. Issues improved barely the next yr, with solely 48 recorded points. However these included lifeless batteries extending a mission from round seven to 27 hours, and the sub itself being broken on restoration.
One dive in 2022 ended with a mysterious loud bang and cracking noise upon surfacing. Antonella Wilby, an OceanGate engineering contractor, was so apprehensive about this bang she thought-about alerting OceanGate’s board of administrators. She testified that one other worker warned her that she risked being sued if she did so. “Anybody ought to be happy to talk up about security with out worry of retribution, and that’s not in any respect what I noticed,” she mentioned. “I used to be solely dismissed.”
On the Titan’s penultimate dive in 2023, contractor Tym Catterson admitted to failing to hold out a security verify; the Titan was left itemizing at a 45-degree angle for an hour, piling up these on board.
Conflicting Views on the Carbon Fiber Hull
There was conflicting testimony on the protection of the Titan’s distinctive carbon fiber hull. Dyer identified that carbon fiber might be match for deep submersibles, and Nissen was adamant that laptop modeling and the acoustic monitoring warning system meant that it might be used indefinitely. Lochridge, Catterson, and former HR director Bonnie Carl had been all way more skeptical in regards to the hull’s design and implementation. However all three acknowledged that they weren’t engineers.
Subsequent week’s appearances by Nissen’s successor, Phil Brooks, extra submersible engineers, and a carbon fiber knowledgeable from Boeing ought to deal with many of those questions. Particularly, testimony subsequent Wednesday from an engineer on the Nationwide Transportation Security Board’s Supplies Laboratory in regards to the Titan’s wreckage could determine the bodily reason behind the implosion.
The place Was the Coast Guard?
At a number of factors, investigators identified that the Titan ought to have been inspected by the US Coast Guard earlier than carrying paying passengers. None of these questioned might say why it was not, regardless of OceanGate apparently contacting the Coast Guard on a number of events to supply discover of its underwater operations.
Lochridge additionally testified that OSHA had advised him in 2018 that it had communicated his security complaints to the Coast Guard. At the least one of many 5 US Coast Guard witnesses being referred to as subsequent week is predicated within the Puget Sound, close to OceanGate’s headquarters, and might be able to converse to this.
US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Lockwood, who joined OceanGate’s board in 2013, just isn’t on the witness record. Lochridge and Carl testified that Lockwood’s position was to supply oversight and clean interactions with the Coast Guard.
Lacking Witnesses
Neither is Lockwood the one notable absentee from the witness field. A number of witnesses this week testified to the important thing roles of OceanGate staff, together with Wendy Rush, Scott Griffith, and Neil McCurdy, in making essential enterprise, regulatory, and operational selections all through OceanGate’s historical past and on the day of the accident. None are being referred to as to testify. Nor have any of the hulls’ producers been referred to as. The Coast Guard has not offered a cause for this aside from to disclaim that it’s as a result of these witnesses would have asserted their Fifth Modification rights to refuse to reply questions.
