An OceanGate passenger who boarded the Titan submarine two years before its imploding last year said today that his mission was aborted due to a mechanical failure that left the ship “spinning in circles.”
A U.S. Coast Guard investigative panel spent four days hearing testimony that raised questions about the company’s activities before the doomed mission.
Fred Hagen was the first to testify Friday, identified as a “mission specialist.” He and other witnesses have characterized him as people who paid a fee to play a role in OceanGate’s underwater exploration.
He said his mission to the Titanic was cut short in 2021 when the Titan began to malfunction and it was clear they would not reach the legendary wreck site.
The Titan appeared to have veered off course on its way to the Titanic, so the crew decided to use thrusters to move the submarine toward the wreck, Hagen said, but he noted that the starboard thrusters did not activate.
OceanGate passenger aboard the Titan Fred Hagen told a U.S. Coast Guard investigation board today that the mission he was on was aborted due to an apparent mechanical failure that caused the ship to “spin in circles.”
The USCG shared images showing the wreckage of the Titan on the seabed
A 3D simulation attempts to track the Titan’s movements before its fatal implosion
“We realized the only thing it could do was circle and turn right,” Hagen said. “At this point, we clearly couldn’t navigate to the Titanic anymore.”
Hagen said the Titan dropped weights, surfaced and the mission was canceled. He said he was aware of the potentially unsafe nature of boarding the experimental submarine.
“Anyone who wanted to go was either delusional that it wasn’t dangerous or they embraced the risk,” he said.
OceanGate co-founder and Titan pilot Stockton Rush was one of five people killed when the submarine imploded en route to the Titanic wreck site in June 2023.
Earlier this month, the 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 Sept. 16, and some of the testimony focused on problems the company had in Washington state before the fatal plunge in 2023.
Fred Hagen was the first to testify Friday and was identified as a “mission specialist,” which he and other witnesses have characterized as people who paid a fee to play a role in OceanGate’s underwater exploration
The Titan disappeared on June 18, 2023. There were five people inside when it imploded
All five people on board the ship died in the tragedy, including OceanGate founder Stockton Rush (top right), three Britons including adventurer Hamish Harding (top left) and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood (bottom right), as well as Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet (bottom left)
During Thursday’s testimony, Steven Ross, the company’s chief scientific officer, told investigators that the submarine malfunctioned just days before the Titanic dive. Earlier in the week, former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge said he clashed frequently with Rush and felt the company was only interested in making money.
“The whole idea of the company was to make money,” Lochridge testified. “There was very little in the way of science.”
Meanwhile, another former OceanGate mission specialist, Renata Rojas, broke down in tears yesterday as she recounted her agonizing wait for the doomed Titan submarine to surface.
Describing her role at the launch last June, she said everyone on board was aware of the risks involved in diving deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean.
“This was never sold as a Disney ride,” she said. “It was an expedition where … things happen and you have to adapt to change.”
Ms Rojas was aboard the icebreaker Polar Prince on the surface when the Titan lost contact on June 18 last year.
She said one of their last reports was, “All is well here.”
But the witness became emotional and began to cry when he said the submarine had stopped sending updates.
The US Coast Guard shared images of the tail cone of the Titan wreck
She burst into tears during her testimony in North Charleston on Thursday
Wreckage from the Titan submarine, recovered from the seabed 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.
The US Coast Guard has released a chilling 3D reconstruction of the Titan’s final voyage, showing the ship’s final movements. New images of the wreck on the seabed were also revealed, taken just days after the tragedy.
The hearing is expected to resume next week and last until September 27.
Other witnesses Friday included engineer Dave Dyer of the University of Washington Applied Physics Lab. Dyer provided details about the lab’s relationship with OceanGate while the submarine was in development.
“The intention was to provide OceanGate with technical expertise,” Dyer said.
Lochridge and other witnesses painted a picture of a company run by people impatient to get the unconventionally designed vessel in the water. Lochridge said he has filed a complaint with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration about the company. OSHA “promptly forwarded its safety concerns regarding the Titan submarine to the Coast Guard,” an agency spokesman said Thursday.
The fatal accident sparked a global debate about the future of private undersea exploration. Coast Guard officials noted at the beginning of the hearing that the submarine had not been independently assessed, as is customary. That and Titan’s unusual design drew scrutiny from the undersea exploration community.
But Renata Rojas, a mission specialist for the company, told the Coast Guard that the company was staffed by competent people who wanted to “make dreams come true.” Rojas’s testimony struck a different tone than some previous witnesses.
“I learned a lot and worked with great people,” Rojas said. “Some of those people are very hardworking people who just wanted to make their dreams come true.”
Polar Prince desperately tried to reach Titan after they lost contact on the morning of June 18
OceanGate has suspended operations following the implosion. The company currently has no full-time employees, but is represented by counsel at the hearing.
During the submarine’s final dive on June 18, 2023, the crew lost contact after exchanging texts about Titan’s depth and weight during the descent. The support ship Polar Prince then repeatedly sent messages asking if Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display.
One of the last messages from Titan’s crew to Polar Prince before the submarine imploded read, “All is well here,” according to a visual reconstruction presented earlier in the hearing.
When the submarine was reported missing, rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to an area about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Four days later, the wreckage of the Titanic was found on the ocean floor about 330 yards (300 meters) from the Titanic’s bow, Coast Guard officials said. No one on board survived.
OceanGate said it has been fully cooperating with the Coast Guard and NTSB investigations since they began. The Titan has been making voyages to the Titanic wreck site since 2021.