Key Moments from the Titan Sub Implosion Investigation

Over the past week, plenty of new particulars and revelations have been made public as a part of the U.S. Coast Guard’s ongoing investigation into how the Titan submersible imploded throughout a doomed dive final summer time, killing all 5 folks onboard.

The headline-grabbing moments on the listening to — which started in Charleston, S.C., on Sept. 16 and ends on Friday, Sept. 27 — included affirmation of the Titan’s ultimate messages to the surfaces, images and video of how restoration groups later found the submersible’s stays on the ocean flooring and plenty of firsthand accounts about what it was like working or diving with Titan operator OceanGate, which has now ceased operations and is cooperating with the Coast Guard.

Investigators will submit a ultimate report as soon as their work is full, which is anticipated to transcend the two-week listening to.

Officers might additionally make suggestions about deep-sea diving and personal submersibles, just like the Titan — whose design has attracted widespread scrutiny and criticism by different consultants who say it didn’t conform to trade norms.

Listed below are a few of the highlights from the Titan listening to to this point.

The Titan Sub Despatched Ultimate Message Seconds Earlier than Dropping Contact

The final texts exchanged between the Titan and its help ship, the Polar Prince, have been confirmed as a part of a recreation of the Titan dive to see the Titanic wreckage that was proven by U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation officers on Sept. 16, close to the beginning of the listening to.

The animated video detailed how the Titan started diving down from the Polar Prince off the coast of Canada round 9:20 a.m. native time on June 18, 2023.

At 10:47 a.m., at a depth of about 3,350 meters and a strain of 4,900 kilos per sq. inch, the Titan messaged that they “dropped two wts,” referring to their weights — and make contact with was then misplaced nearly instantly, at 10:47:32 a.m., based on the Coast Guard.

An professional has informed PEOPLE that dropping the burden was doubtless simply to assist the Titan traverse the water across the Titanic.

Eerie Photograph and Video of Titan Particles Helped Affirm Implosion

Final week, authorities launched the primary photograph of what remained of the Titan on the ground of the North Atlantic Ocean after the submersible imploded.

The picture, which options the vessel’s tail cone embedded into the seabed greater than 12,000 ft beneath the floor, was offered by U.S. Coast Guard officers on Sept. 16.

The photographic proof, from a remotely operated automobile (ROV), led to “conclusive proof of a catastrophic loss” of the Titan and the loss of life of its 5 passengers, officers stated of their presentation.

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The victims have been Paul-Henri Nargeolet and one other adventurer, Hamish Hardin; father and son Shahzada and Suleiman Dawood; and Stockton Rush, who co-founded OceanGate, the corporate behind the Titan.

In keeping with the Coast Guard’s presentation, the ROV, referred to as the Pelagic Analysis Providers 6000, found the aft tail cone and different particles after in depth looking out on June 22, 2023, 4 days after the submersible misplaced contact with the floor.

Video additionally launched by the U.S. Coast Guard gave a more in-depth take a look at what remained of the Titan — its “dome, aft ring, hull remnants and carbon fiber particles on the seafloor” as discovered by an ROV, the Coast Guard stated.

Dueling Footage of OceanGate Founder and Titan Pilot

Years earlier than the ultimate dive, Rush took one other small group of passengers to see one other famed ship beneath the waves — however fell into “panic” as a consequence of an absence of expertise, a former operations director claimed.

David Lochridge, who labored at OceanGate till 2018, which Rush co-founded and ran as CEO, testified on Sept. 17. He didn’t mince phrases about his views on Rush or OceanGate.

“The entire concept behind the corporate was to earn cash,” Lochridge stated at one level. “That’s it.”

He was no much less blunt in recounting a earlier voyage, reportedly in 2016, through which Rush insisted on piloting one other of OceanGate’s submersibles, referred to as the Cyclops 1, right down to see the stays of the Andrea Doria ocean liner.

Lochridge stated he had anticipated to be the pilot, because the “most skilled” such member of OceanGate’s group.

“Sadly, the CEO determined that he wished to take it down,” Lochridge stated. “I objected as a result of I knew typically he might do issues to please himself.”

Later, nevertheless, a former OceanGate mission specialist — the title given to paying passengers or observers of its underwater dives — struck a defensive and typically tearful tone and pushed again on Lochridge’s account in her personal testimony on Sept. 19. 

Renata Rojas, a self-described Titanic obsessive, was aboard the journey right down to the Andrea Doria that Lochridge described.

“He should have gone on a special dive,” she stated. “No person was panicking. No person was crying and there was positively no swearing or yelling.”

On the day of the ultimate Titan voyage final yr, Rojas was working as a “platform assistant” and recalled seeing all 5 passengers, together with Rush, “smiling” as they boarded the sub. “They have been simply completely happy to go,” she stated.

As her testimony got here to a detailed, Rojas cried as she mirrored on how, “nothing goes to carry our buddies again.”

Nonetheless, Rojas went on to state that she hoped the investigation “creates an understanding that with exploration there may be threat.”

Issues Concerning the Sub Had Been Mentioned Earlier than

Rush had insisted on doing the Titan sub’s first crewed take a look at dive by himself, simply in case one thing occurred, based on the person he co-founded OceanGate with.

Guillermo Söhnlein, who began OceanGate with Rush in 2009 and left the corporate in 2013, testified on Monday, Sept. 23, that Rush informed him he did not “need anyone else on that sub” for the primary dive to 4,000 meters.

“If something occurs, I would like it to solely influence me,” Söhnlein, who didn’t specify when the dive happened, recalled Rush saying. “It is my design. I consider in it. I belief it, however I do not wish to threat anyone else and I am gonna go on my own.”

Rush had additionally been confronted in additional direct methods by those that feared his work was harmful: Throughout a 2018 assembly with Lochridge, his former operations director, he challenged Lochridge’s criticism.

“I’ve no need to die,” Rush stated then, based on a transcript of their assembly shared by the Coast Guard.

“I perceive this type of threat, and I am going into it with eyes open and I feel this is among the most secure issues I’ll ever do.”