Hearings continue and new details emerge

The trial into the disaster aboard OceanGate’s Titan submarine, which occurred more than a year ago, began last week. It includes the Coast Guard, which searched for the missing ship and eventually found the wreckage at the bottom of the ocean. The investigation is revealing details that no one had ever heard before. As Sky News reports, we had previously seen footage from the search, shot for the first time by an underwater drone, and now more intriguing details have emerged.

Now the investigation has revealed that the company’s founder and director, Stockton Rush, The submarine was wrecked just days before the explosion.

Rush reportedly hit a bulkhead that was part of the Titan submarine’s launch mechanism. The collision capsized the submarine and even left some passengers hanging upside down.

Dr Stephen Ross, OceanGate’s scientific director, said the platform malfunctioned during a dive in June 2023 – just days before the explosion. During a test dive, he heard a “loud bang” and then passengers on the submersible started “tossing and turning”. It took an hour to get people out of the water.

One passenger was hanging upside down. The other two managed to squeeze themselves into the nose cap.
Ross said no one was injured in the crash but that it was “inappropriate and distasteful.”

After the collision, the submarine’s test dive was aborted and it returned to the surface to allow all passengers to exit, but Ross told investigators that “there were a lot of issues for the ground crew to deal with” with the launch pad.

• Asked if the company had conducted any inspections or hull integrity analyses on the ship, Ross said: “I don’t know if they did.”
• When asked if the company had conducted an investigation into the cause of the crash and rollover, he said: “I don’t recall that.”

Just a few days later, OceanGate sent the Titan back to the deep sea with Rush, British explorer Hamish Harding, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, and French diver Paul-Henri Narjolet. All five people on board were killed when the ship’s carbon-plastic hull, which was later found to be over-terminated, failed to withstand the immense pressure and imploded—that is, decompressed and literally exploded in an instant.

The wreckage of the crew compartment is seen in this new image: video