Exploring within the Titan, the supposedly secure venture, was never intended, asserts the mission specialist, regarding the experimental submersible.
Pat Lahey, the big cheese at Triton Submarines, spoke at the hearing on Friday and shared his worries about the Titan's lack of certification.
Lahey had a look at the Titan in March 2019 while chilling in the Bahamas and wasn't all that impressed. He voiced his thoughts to the OceanGate team, telling them the sub seemed poorly thought out and executed. "It just looked like it was cobbled together by amateurs," he said. He left the encounter thinking the Titan wasn't up to the task of deep-sea dives, but boy was he wrong.
OceanGate dropped some serious coin on a few submarines from Triton Submarines.
Lahey thinks human-occupied submersibles should be accredited and was concerned that Stockton Rush, OceanGate's boss, didn't give the Titan a fair shake and didn't seek outside advice to ensure it was safe.
Lahey also spilled that Rush thought the certification process was a total waste of time and an obstacle to innovation.
"The certification process works, and we know it does. Our safety record proves it," said Lahey. "We shouldn't be playing with fire in the deep sea with untested machines, it's a recipe for disaster."
Fred Hagen, OceanGate's dive specialist, testified on Friday that diving in the Titan "was never meant to be safe."
"Anyone who thought it was safe to dive in that thing was either out of their minds or just didn't know what they were getting into," Hagen said. "It was an experimental vessel, and it was clear that it was dangerous."
The Titan submarine had its fair share of problems over the years
Hagen spilled some tea about a mishap in 2021, just a few days before a dive he was part of. The Titan was being hauled onto the ramp when it started rocking back and forth, and the crane operator abruptly let go, slamming the sub onto the deck.
The impact shot off several bolts and peeled off the titanium dome. Only four of 18 bolts had been installed on the 3,500-pound titanium dome.
During that dive, they figured out the Titan was off-balance and descended in a spiral, free-falling for about two and a half hours. Commissions were glitchy, they went off-course, and the starboard thrusters failed, leaving them spinning in circles.
On another dive during the 2022 Titanic expedition, they got tangled up in the Titanic wreckage for about a minute or two.
Antonella Wilby, an ex-OceanGate engineering contractor, spoke at the hearing and shared her concerns about the Titan's safety.
During Dive 79 of the 2022 Titanic expedition in July, Wilby noticed some issues with the Titan's navigation and acoustic communication systems. When she raised concerns, she was told she didn't have the right mindset. She feared speaking to the board of directors would violate her nondisclosure agreement.
She was also told she wasn't "solution-oriented" and was eventually removed from the navigation and communications teams. At one point, Wilby said she told them, "This is a ridiculous way to do navigation."
"I didn't feel safe at any point," she said. "When you answer questions with what the company founder wants instead of facts and data, it's a red flag for me."
Steven Ross, an ex-OceanGate scientific director, spoke at the hearing and shared that the Titan submersible had malfunctioned six days before it imploded in June 2023.
A platform malfunction during Dive 87 on the Titan's fourth mission in 2023 caused all five people onboard to slam into the back of the submersible for at least an hour.
Ross also mentioned two incidents during the 2022 Titanic expedition dives, including a loud bang heard while surfacing in Dive 80. On Dive 81, Ross said there was a malfunction of the thrusters.
Triton Submarines and other members of the Marine Technology Society (MTS) wrote a letter expressing their concerns about the Titan. The full letter was never sent to OceanGate because Rush and the chair of MTS disagreed about its contents.
David Lochridge, a former director of marine operations for OceanGate who voiced concerns about the Titan, testified earlier this week that the Titan tragedy could have been prevented if US safety authorities had investigated his complaints. He also blasted OceanGate's company culture as being all about "making money" and offering "very little in the way of science."
"I believe that if OSHA had looked into the seriousness of the concerns I raised on multiple occasions, this tragedy may have been prevented," Lochridge said.
Lahey expressed his concern that Rush, OceanGate's boss, didn't consult external experts to ensure the Titan's safety, as he believed in the importance of accreditation for human-occupied submersibles. Us, as Triton Submarines, had previously voiced our concerns about the Titan's safety to OceanGate, highlighting its poor construction and execution.
