The scientific director for the company that owned the Titan submersible that imploded last year while on its way to the Titanic wreckage has told a hearing that the vehicle malfunctioned a short time before the fatal dive.
Appearing before a US Coast Guard panel, Steven Ross outlined a platform issue the experimental vehicle experienced in June 2023, just days before it imploded on its way to the Titanic site.
The malfunction caused passengers onboard the Titan 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, Mr Ross said.
“One passenger was hanging upside down. The other two managed to wedge themselves into the bow end cap,” he said, adding that he did not know if an assessment of the Titan hull was carried out after the incident.
British adventurer Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood died alongside OceanGate Expeditions’ Chief Executive Stockton Rush and Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
Earlier, Renata Rojas, a mission specialist for the company, told the inquiry that the firm was staffed by competent people who wanted to “make dreams come true”.
An investigatory panel had previously heard two days of evidence that raised questions about OceanGate’s operations before the doomed mission.
Ms Rojas’ evidence struck a different tone from some of the 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,” Ms Rojas said. “Some of those people are very hardworking individuals that were just trying to make dreams come true.”
She also said that she felt the company was sufficiently transparent during the run-up to the Titanic dive.
Her testimony was emotional at times, with the panel proposing a brief break at one point so she could collect herself.
Ms Rojas is a member of the Explorers Club, as were Mr Harding and Mr Nargeolet. The club described Mr Rush as “a friend of The Explorers Club” after the implosion.
“I knew what I was doing was very risky. I never at any point felt unsafe by the operation,” Ms Rojas said.
Earlier this month, the US Coast Guard opened a public hearing that is part of a high-level investigation into the cause of the implosion.
The public hearing began on 16 September and some of the testimony has focused on problems the company had prior to the fatal dive.
Investigators also released underwater footage of the submersible wreck. The footage shows the vehicle’s tail cone and other debris on the ocean floor.
Coast guard officials noted at the start of the hearing that the submersible had not been independently reviewed, as is standard practice.
This and the Titan’s unusual design subjected it to scrutiny in the undersea exploration community.
OceanGate, based in Washington state, suspended its operations after the implosion.
The company has no full-time employees currently, but has been represented by a lawyer at the hearing.
During the submersible’s final dive on 18 June 2023, the crew lost contact after an exchange of texts about the Titan’s depth and weight as it descended.
Support ship Polar Prince then sent repeated messages asking if the submersible could still see the ship on its onboard display.
One of the last messages from the crew to Polar Prince before the implosion stated “all good here” according to a visual recreation presented earlier in the hearing.
When Titan was reported missing, rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to an area about 700km south of St John’s, Newfoundland in Canada.
Four days later, wreckage was found on the ocean floor about 300m off the bow of the Titanic, coast guard officials said.
Nobody on board survived.
OceanGate said it has been co-operating with the US Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board investigations since they began.
Titan had been making voyages to the Titanic wreckage site since 2021.