Director Of Titan Submersible Company That Killed Five Persons Says Sub Had Fault Before Fatal Dive
Over a year after a Titan Submersible killed five persons, the scientific director for the company that owned the Titan submersible that imploded while on its way to the Titanic wreckage testified Thursday that the sub had malfunctioned just prior to the fatal dive.
The incident killed OceanGate CEO, Stockton Rush, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, 19, British businessman Hamish Harding, 58, and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 77, a former French navy diver.
Appearing before a U.S. Coast Guard panel, Steven Ross told the board about a platform issue the experimental submersible experienced in June 2023, just days before it imploded on its way to the Titanic site.
The malfunction caused passengers onboard the submersible to “tumble about,” and it took an hour to get them out of the water.
The submersible pilot, OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush, crashed into bulkheading during the malfunction, Ross said.
“One passenger was hanging upside down. The other two managed to wedge themselves into the bow end cap,” Ross said, adding that he did not know if an assessment of the Titan hull was performed after the incident.
Earlier Thursday, Renata Rojas, a mission specialist for the company, told the Coast Guard the firm was staffed by competent people who wanted to “make dreams come true.”
An investigatory panel had previously listened to two days of testimony that raised questions about the company’s operations before the doomed mission.
Rojas’ testimony struck a different tone than some of the earlier witnesses, who described the company as troubled from the top down and focused more on profit than science or safety.
