Titan sub hearing live: OceanGate mission specialist breaks down and declares nothing will ‘bring our friends back’
Coast Guard announces ‘newly added witness’ to Titan Submersible Marine Board of Investigation’s hearing as OceanGate mission specialist gets set to testify
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A tearful mission specialist recounted collecting personal belongings from the victims of the Titan submersible before it dove under the water and found tragedy.
Renata Rojas, the mission specialist from US submersible company that operated the expedition OceanGate, tearfully addressed the US Coast Guard Titan Marine Board of Investigations panel on Thursday.
She talked about her role in preparing missions, her own trips down to the Titanic wreckage, and lamented the loss of her “friends” that died the catastrophic implosion”.
“What we’ve all gone through is still very raw. Nothing is ever going to bring our friends back,” she said.
Former OceanGate scientific director Dr Steven Ross testified next about a previous mission that left him and other passengers trapped inside the Titan sub. “The rest of the passengers tumbled about,” he said. “I ended up standing on the rear bulkhead. One passenger was hanging upside down.”
Coast Guard announced a “newly added witness” to Friday’s hearing which will see testimonies from OceanGate mission specialist Fred Hagen, engineer from the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Lab Dave Dyer and co-founder of Triton Submarines Patrick Lahey.
Coast Guard adds ‘new witness’ to schedule ahead of Friday’s hearing
Ex-contractor recalls drop weight problems
Catterson recalled drop weight issues on the two test dives he was a part of years before the ill-fated Titan set sail.
He described how drop weights work. “The sub became neutral so the sub became neutral...They were only able to drop 70 pounds. That’s not enough to do what they needed to have happen,” Catterson told the panel.
‘Like a bathtub compared to the North Atlantic’: Catterson said the training wasn’t reflective of the conditions the Titan would see on its mission
When asked whether OceanGate staffing in Expedition 2023 was “sufficient to ensure safety,” Catterson paused before responding: “I think training and operations at sea could have been better.”
They did their training out of Everett which is “like a bathtub compared to the North Atlantic,” he said. They didn’t have practice in rougher conditions, like fog. “The training probably didn’t reflect as good as a base of knowledge for out there,” referring to where the Titan set sail.
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.
Read the full story...
Final messages revealed from the Titan sub before tragic implosion
The anticipated two-week-long hearings kicked off with testimony from a former OceanGate engineer, who said he was fired after warning about the ship’s carbon fiber hull years before its catastrophic voyage
Lochridge forced to sign new contract after ‘embarrassing’ Rush in front of client, he testifies
He said that he and Stockton Rush “pretty much stopped talking to me rationally” after the Andrea Doria incident.
At the end of the summer 2016, Rush and others told him OceanGate was “no longer willing to pay” for his wife and daughter’s permanent residence. Lochridge believed it was because he “embarrassed him in front of clients,” referring to the Andrea Doria crash, which was a “turning point” in his and Rush’s relationship.
The following day, Rush presented him with a new contract that he sign a new contract that stipulated he would have to reimburse the company if he left within the next 12 months. Rush instructed him not to tell his immigration attorney about the new arrangement.
MBI created an animated model of the Titan’s doomed voyage
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.
WATCH: Titan crew's final three-word text revealed in haunting animation of submersible's journey
In photos: Key moments from the hearings so far
Watch: Coast Guard releases footage that provided ‘conclusive evidence’ that Titan passengers died
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