The first photo of the Titan submersible wreck has been released to the public, showing a large portion of the hull sticking upright on the ocean floor, thousands of metres below the waves.
The image was released Monday by the U.S. Coast Guard during a lengthy hearing, expected to last two weeks, that will examine the causes of the Titan sub’s implosion in June 2023.
All five passengers on board died when the vessel collapsed in on itself during an underwater voyage to the wreck of the Titanic.
The submersible’s tail cone is seen standing upright in the sand with another ripped fragment of the vessel lying beside it.
The wreckage was found about 300 metres away from the bow of the Titanic, coast guard officials said, and 3,775 metres below sea level. The photo was taken last year after days of searching for the sub.
During Monday’s hearing, coast guard officials also revealed some of the last communications sent between the Titan sub and its support staff on board the Polar Prince, a former Canadian Coast Guard vessel that was chartered by OceanGate, the company that engineered and operated the Titan submersible.
“All good here,” reads one of the final messages sent by the crew as the sub descended in the Atlantic Ocean.
Earlier in the dive, the Titan crew wrote to the Polar Prince that it had temporarily “lost system (and) chat settings” after the support staff wrote they “needed better comms” from the Titan sub.
The final message from the sub came through at 10:47 a.m. local time, notifying the Polar Prince that it had “dropped two wts,” referring to the vessel’s weights.
The Polar Prince lost tracking of the sub about two minutes after the final message.
It’s believed the messages were written by Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a Titanic expert and deep-sea explorer who was serving as the sub’s co-pilot. The co-founder of OceanGate, Stockton Rush, was the primary pilot of the vessel. Three other people were on board the tourist expedition: Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood, both members of a wealthy Pakistani business family, and Hamish Harding, a British businessman and adventurer. All five passengers died in the implosion.
The incident became the subject of intense scrutiny and the undersea exploration community questioned its seemingly ad hoc design and Rush’s refusal to undergo standard, independent checks. It also sparked worldwide debate about the future of private undersea exploration.
The hearing’s first witness, OceanGate’s former engineering director, Tony Nissen, testified Monday that Rush could be difficult to work for and was often very concerned with costs and project schedules, among other issues.
“Most people would eventually just back down to Stockton,” he said at the hearing in North Charleston, S.C.
Nissen also noted that the Titan was struck by lightning during a test mission in 2018, and that might have compromised its hull.
When asked if there was pressure to get the Titan into the water, he responded, “100 per cent.”
He said that he refused to pilot the Titan years ago because he didn’t trust the operations staff, and that he stopped the submersible from going to the Titanic in 2019, telling Rush that the Titan was “not working like we thought it would.” He was fired that year.
“I stopped the 2019 Titanic dive because of the data, and I was fired for it,” he said.
The Titan did undergo additional testing before it made later dives to the Titanic, Nissen added.
In other testimony Monday, coast guard officials said the Titan was left exposed to weather and elements while in storage for seven months in 2022 and 2023. The hull was also never reviewed by any third parties as is standard procedure, they said.
OceanGate’s former operations director, David Lochridge, addressed the hearing on Tuesday and also testified that he clashed with Rush.
“The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge said. “There was very little in the way of science.”
Scheduled to appear later in the hearing are OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein and former scientific director Steven Ross, according to a list compiled by the coast guard. Numerous guard officials, scientists, and government and industry officials are also expected to testify.
Among those not on the hearing witness list is Rush’s widow, Wendy Rush, the company’s communications director. Asked about her absence, a spokesperson said the coast guard does not comment on the reasons for not calling specific individuals to a particular hearing during ongoing investigations. She said it’s common for a Marine Board of Investigation to “hold multiple hearing sessions or conduct additional witness depositions for complex cases.”
OceanGate has no full-time employees at this time but will be represented by a lawyer during the hearing, the company said in a statement. The company said it has been fully co-operating with the coast guard and NTSB investigations since they began. OceanGate suspended operations shortly after the implosion.
The time frame for the investigation was initially a year, but the inquiry has taken longer. The ongoing Marine Board of Investigation is the highest level of marine casualty investigation conducted by the coast guard. When the hearing concludes, recommendations will be submitted to the coast guard’s commandant. The National Transportation Safety Board is also conducting an investigation.
— With files from Global News’ Michelle Butterfield and The Associated Press