Titan Submersible: Former Passenger Speaks Out About Malfunction

A passenger who paid for an expedition to the Titanic with the company that owns the Titan submersible testified before a U.S. Coast Guard investigative panel Friday that the mission he took part in was aborted because of an apparent mechanical failure.

The Titan submersible imploded last year during another trip to the Titanic wreck site. A Coast Guard investigative panel heard four days of testimony that raised questions about the company’s operations before the failed mission.

Fred Hagen was the first to testify Friday and was identified as a “mission specialist,” which he and other witnesses have characterized as people who paid a fee to participate in OceanGate’s underwater exploration. He said their 2021 mission to the Titanic was aborted underwater when the Titanic began malfunctioning and it was clear they weren’t going to reach the legendary wreck site.

The Titan appeared to be off course on its way to the Titanic, so the crew decided to use thrusters to get the submersible to the wreck, Hagen said. The starboard thruster did not activate, he said.

“We realized that the only thing we could do was go around in circles and turn right,” Hagen said. “At that point, we obviously weren’t going to be able to sail to the Titanic.”

Hagen said the Titan dropped the weights, returned to the surface and the mission was called off. He said he was aware of the potentially unsafe nature of boarding the experimental submersible.

“Anyone who wanted to go was either delusional if they didn’t think it was dangerous, or they were taking the risk,” he said.

OceanGate co-founder and Titan pilot Stockton Rush was among five people killed when the submersible imploded en route to the Titanic wreck site in June 2023.

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 Sept. 16, and some of the testimony has focused on problems the Washington state company was having before the fatal 2023 crash.

During testimony Thursday, the company’s chief scientific officer, Steven Ross, told investigators that the submarine suffered a breakdown just days before the Titanic dive. Earlier in the week, OceanGate’s former chief operating officer, David Lochridge, said he frequently clashed with Rush and felt the company was only in it for making 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 resume next week and continue until September 27.

Among other witnesses who appeared Friday was former OceanGate contractor Antonella Wilby, who worked in operations and engineering for the company. Wilby said she was criticized by company officials when she raised concerns about loud noise during a submersible dive in 2022.

Hagen said during her own testimony that she feared the hull had cracked when she heard a loud bang during a dive in 2022. Wilby said OceanGate’s director of stewardship told her “you don’t seem to have an explorer’s mindset” after she raised concerns about the noise.

He also said he did not see anyone inspecting the submarine’s hull after the noise, which he described as similar to an explosion.

“I saw what I would classify as security theater,” Wilby said.

Dave Dyer of the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory also testified Friday to provide details about the lab’s relationship with OceanGate while its submersible was in development and said the company and the lab disagreed over fundamental aspects of its engineering.

OceanGate felt it was best to end the relationship and take over the engineering, Dyer said.

“It was an engineering problem. We were crashing too much,” Dyer said.

Another witness on Friday, Triton Submarines CEO Patrick Lahey, said he met with OceanGate staff in 2019 and saw their submersible when it was in development. He said he was “not particularly impressed” by what he saw.

Lahey stressed that it is important for submersibles to be accredited to ensure safety.

“I just said that it felt like a lot of things weren’t quite ready for the big moment and there were a lot of things that weren’t executed as properly as they should have been,” Lahey said.

Lochridge and other witnesses have painted a picture of a company run by people who were eager to get the unconventionally designed vessel on the water. Lochridge said he filed a complaint with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration about the company. OSHA “quickly referred its safety allegations regarding the Titan submersible to the Coast Guard,” an agency spokesman said Thursday.

The deadly 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 in the underwater exploration community.

OceanGate suspended operations after the implosion. The company currently has no full-time employees, 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 is well 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.

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.