The U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) released additional video of the Titan submersible wreckage at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean after the vessel imploded in June 2023 on its way to the Titanic site and claimed the lives of all five people on board.
Remotely operated vehicle footage shows the submersible’s aft dome, aft ring, hull remnants and carbon fiber debris resting on the bottom of the ocean off Newfoundland, Canada.
The MBI had previously released footage of the vessel’s tail cone sitting some 2½ miles below the surface on the ocean floor. Next to the tail cone was a piece of carbon fiber.
The Titan imploded less than two hours after beginning its descent toward the wreck of the Titanic on June 18, 2023.
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The Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) releases remotely operated vehicle footage of the Titan submersible’s aft dome, aft ring, hull remnants and carbon fiber debris on the seafloor before upcoming technical testimony for the Titan MBI hearing in North Charleston, S.C., Wednesday. (U.S. Coast Guard video courtesy of Pelagic Research Services)
On Thursday, the scientific director for the company that owned the Titan testified that the sub malfunctioned just prior to the fatal dive.
Steve Ross, while appearing before a U.S. Coast Guard panel, spoke about a platform issue the experimental submersible experienced in June 2023, just days before it imploded on its final voyage. The malfunction, Ross explained, caused the passengers onboard the submersible to “tumble about,” and it took an hour to get them out of the water.
Ross said OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush was piloting the submersible when he crashed into a bulkhead during the malfunction. No one was injured, though Ross described the incident as uncomfortable.
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The Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) releases remotely operated vehicle footage of the Titan submersible’s aft dome, aft ring, hull remnants and carbon fiber debris on the seafloor before upcoming technical testimony for the Titan MBI hearing in North Charleston, S.C. (U.S. Coast Guard video courtesy of Pelagic Research Services)
“One passenger was hanging upside down,” Ross said. “The others managed to wedge themselves into the bow end cap.”
Ross said he was not sure if a safety assessment of the Titan or its hull was performed after the incident.
By the end of Thursday, an investigatory panel had listened to three days of testimony that raised questions about the company’s operations before the ill-fated mission that killed Rush, father-son pair Shahzada Dawood and Suleman Dawood, and French mariner Paul-Henry Nargeolet.
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An image of the Titan tail cone sitting at the bottom of the ocean, as seen in June 2023. (US Coast Guard / Pelagic Research Services)
Earlier on Thursday, Renata Rojas, a mission specialist for OceanGate, told the Coast Guard the firm was staffed by competent people who wanted to “make dreams come true.”
Rojas testimony struck a different tone than earlier witnesses, who described the company as troubled from the top down and focused more on profit than science or safety.
“I was learning a lot and working with amazing people,” Rojas said. “Some of those people are very hardworking individuals that were just trying to make dreams come true.”
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The Titan submersible in the Bahamas in May 2018. (Becky Kagan Schott)
She also said she felt the company was sufficiently transparent during the run-up to the Titanic dive.
“I knew what I was doing was very risky. I never at any point felt unsafe by the operation,” Rojas said in testimony Thursday.
Former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge, who labeled the experimental submersible Titan unsafe prior to its last, deadly voyage, told Coast Guard investigators on Tuesday about a previous mission in which he clashed with CEO Stockton Rush that ended badly.
Lochridge, who was responsible for the safety of all crew and training pilots, said he was the only qualified submersible pilot within OceanGate. Nevertheless, he recalled, Rush insisted on piloting a 2016 voyage using the Cyclops 1 vessel to the site of the Andrea Doria shipwreck.
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The shipwreck of the RMS Titanic was found on this day in history, Sept. 1, 1985. (Mathieu Polak/Sygma/ Sygma via Getty Images)
He said there were many system failures with Cyclops 1, and he was “phased out” after he embarrassed Rush by telling him that he should not pilot a sub.
Lochridge said Rush took three people in a submersible to the wreck site of the Andrea Doria despite his warning, and wrecked the vessel before Lochridge tried to take the controls from him. Lochridge said Rush refused to turn over the controls until a client aboard shouted at him. He said Rush then threw the controller, described as a PlayStation controller, at his head.
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OceanGate, based in Washington state, suspended its operations after last year’s implosion. The company has no full-time employees at this time but is represented by an attorney during the hearing, the company said in a statement to the Associated Press.
The company said it has been fully cooperating with the Coast Guard and NTSB investigations since they began.
The hearing is expected to run through Friday and into next week, with more witnesses expected to take the stand.
Fox News Digital’s Pilar Arias and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
