(NewsNation) — The Titan submersible hearing is scheduled to resume Friday with testimony from another mission specialist who went on a dive aboard the OceanGate vessel that imploded last year while on its way to the wreckage of the Titanic.
Mission specialist Fred Hagen is scheduled to be the first to testify Friday. Other witnesses have characterized mission specialists as people who paid a fee to play a role in OceanGate’s underwater explorations.
The Coast Guard’s investigatory panel has listened to three days of testimony that raised questions about the company’s operations before the doomed mission. The public hearing is part of a high-level investigation into the cause of the implosion.
OceanGate co-founder and CEO Stockton Rush was among five people who died when the submersible imploded en route to the site of the Titanic wreck in June 2023.
What has been learned so far?
Mission specialist Renata Rojas was the latest person to testify before the investigatory panel Thursday.
Rojas refuted testimony from previous witness David Lochridge regarding the OceanGate mission to the wreck of the Andrea Doria. She said that while the submersible did crash into the side of the wreck, there was no panicking or crying from passengers as Lochridge described.
Lochridge labeled the experimental submersible unsafe before its last, fatal voyage.
During questioning about her role in various dives, Rojas described the role she and other passengers played. She also likened the project to NASA’s Apollo program of the 1960s, saying it was “testing by doing.”
In an emotional closing statement, Rojas said the loss of her friends was still very raw but “exploration takes risks” and she hopes the implosion does not dampen innovation or other projects involving citizen scientists.
On Monday, witnesses painted a picture of a troubled company that was impatient to get its unconventionally designed craft into the water. The accident sparked a worldwide debate about the future of private undersea exploration.
OceanGate said it has been fully cooperating with the Coast Guard and NTSB investigations since they began. The Titan had been making voyages to the Titanic wreckage site going back to 2021.
OceanGate Scientific Director Steven Ross also testified before the hearing wrapped Thursday. More witnesses are expected to testify with the hearing set to continue into next week.
Titan submersible implosion
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Debris from the Titan submersible, recovered from the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic, is unloaded from the ship Horizon Arctic at the Canadian Coast Guard pier in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Wednesday, June 28, 2023. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP) -
Debris from the Titan submersible, recovered from the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic, is unloaded from the ship Horizon Arctic at the Canadian Coast Guard pier in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Wednesday, June 28, 2023. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP) -
Debris from the Titan submersible, recovered from the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic, is unloaded from the ship Horizon Arctic at the Canadian Coast Guard pier in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Wednesday, June 28, 2023. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP) -
Debris from the Titan submersible, recovered from the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic, is unloaded from the ship Horizon Arctic at the Canadian Coast Guard pier in St. John’s, Newfoundland on Wednesday, June 28, 2023. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP) -
A U.S. Coast Guard ship arrives in the harbor of St. John’s, Newfoundland, on Wednesday, June 28, 2023, following the arrival of the ship Horizon Arctic carrying debris from the Titan submersible. The submersible owned by OceanGate Expeditions imploded on its way to the wreck of the Titanic. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP) -
The Titan is a five-person submersible designed to go to depths of 13,000 feet for site survey, inspection, research and data collection. (OceanGate Expeditions) -
In this image released by Action Aviation, the submersible Titan is prepared for a dive into a remote area of the Atlantic Ocean on an expedition to the Titanic on Sunday, June 18, 2023. Rescuers are racing against time to find the missing submersible carrying five people, who were reported overdue Sunday night. (Action Aviation via AP, File) -
In this satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies, from top to bottom, the vessels Horizon Arctic, Deep Energy and Skandi Vinland search for the missing submersible Titan, Thursday, June 22, 2023 in the Atlantic Ocean. (Satellite image ©2023 Maxar Technologies via AP) -
Morning newspapers publish an ad of condolence massages for two victims of Titan submersible incident, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, by their family and firm, displayed at a roadside stall, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Tuesday, June 27, 2023. As an international group of agencies investigates why the Titan submersible imploded while carrying five people to the Titanic wreckage, U.S. maritime officials say they’ll issue a report aimed at improving the safety of submersibles worldwide. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
The Titan, owned by OceanGate, made its last dive June 18, 2023. The craft lost contact with its support vessel an hour and 45 minutes into the dive. Five people were on board, diving 12,000 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
The loss of communication launched a four-day search for the vessel, which ended when evidence of an implosion was found on the ocean floor. Officials concluded that the craft had been destroyed and all five people on board were killed.
Few vessels dive that deep into the ocean, and engineers and experts in the field noted previous problems with the Titan as well as warnings that the submersible was unsafe.
The search-and-recovery mission is estimated to have cost up to $1.6 million.
The Coast Guard quickly convened a high-level investigation into what happened. Concerns leading up to the investigation included the Titan’s unconventional design and its creator’s decision to forgo standard independent checks.
The investigation into the Titan implosion originally had a 12-month timeline but has been extended multiple times.
In addition to Rush, the implosion killed two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
