The Titan Submersible Hearings End With Few Solid Answers. Here’s What Comes Next

The US Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) into the loss of the Titan submersible concluded today with testimony from two Coast Guard search-and-recovery personnel, Captain Jamie Frederick and Scott Talbot.

They described the Coast Guard’s response after the Titan went missing on a dive to the Titanic wreck on Sunday, June 18, 2023. This was the Coast Guard’s first subsurface search-and-rescue operation for at least 30 years, said Frederick, and “if OceanGate had a rescue plan, it was never presented to us.”

The Coast Guard was nevertheless able to quickly mobilize flights over the Titanic area, with some aircraft deploying sonar buoys, which detected knocking noises underwater. On Monday, June 19, the Navy informed the Coast Guard that it had detected “an anomaly” that could have been an implosion around the time the Titan went missing. But because the information was both inconclusive and classified, and because the planes were hearing knocking, Frederick did not inform families or the public.

The Coast Guard panel then read a statement from the captain of the Polar Prince, Titan’s surface support vessel. It reported that in hindsight, he had felt the ship shudder at around the time communications with the Titan were lost, but thought nothing of it at the time.

It would take the arrival of a deepwater robot, the Odysseus, on the morning of June 22 to find and film wreckage of the Titan on the seafloor. At that point, it was clear that OceanGate pilot and CEO Stockton Rush and his four passengers were dead.

There was no public testimony from any of OceanGate’s senior team, including expedition director Kyle Bingham, operations director Scott Griffith, or Rush’s wife Wendy, who was in charge of communications with the sub, nor from any crew of the Polar Prince. What little we know about the Titan’s final mission comes from testimony from former directors, who left before the Titan implosion, junior OceanGate employees, and contractors who could not testify to many events and decisions.

Did the Coast Guard Do Enough?

Two other Coast Guard employees provided testimony over the last couple of days, focused on the Coast Guard’s oversight of submersible operations. One noted that OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush had “never attempted to circumvent any regulations or provisions” in using the Titan’s predecessors for shallower tourist dives off the US coast.

The Titan itself was registered in the Bahamas and operated in international waters, potentially leaving US authorities powerless to regulate it. However, an officer from the Office of Commercial Vessel Compliance seemed to suggest that by undergoing testing near OceanGate’s HQ in Everett, Washington, the Titan might fall under the Coast Guard’s authority. The MBI said that the Coast Guard would seek legal advice on this point. If the Coast Guard was responsible, that would make its apparent failure to investigate whistleblower David Lochridge’s safety complaints about the submersible in 2018 more concerning.

The Coast Guard panel did not directly ask any of the Coast Guard witnesses about that complaint, made to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and shared with the Coast Guard. Nor did the Coast Guard invite public testimony from former Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Lockwood, who joined OceanGate’s board in 2013.

Another surprising omission was during Thursday’s testimony of Mark Negley, a Boeing engineer. Negley had carried out a preliminary design study for the Titan and assisted OceanGate with testing equipment and advice for nearly a decade. He testified to the challenges of building carbon-fiber structures.

The panel did not ask Negley about an email he sent Rush in 2018 sharing an analysis based on information Rush had provided. “We think you are at a high risk of a significant failure at or before you reach 4,000 meters,” he wrote. The email included a chart showing a skull and crossbones at around that depth.

Many Red Flags, Few Solid Answers

This week also saw technical testimony from other expert witnesses about the design and classification of submersibles. All were skeptical, or outright critical, of OceanGate’s decision to operate Titan using a novel carbon-fiber hull with little testing, and relying on an unproven acoustic monitoring system for live information on the hull’s integrity.

“Instantaneous delamination and collapse can occur in less than a millisecond,” testified Roy Thomas from the American Bureau of Shipping. “Real-time monitoring could not capture this.”

Donald Kramer, a materials engineer at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), testified to there being manufacturing defects in the composite hull. He described the Titan’s wreckage as having peeled into layers of carbon fiber that matched its multistage construction, but he would not offer an opinion on what might have caused the implosion.

Neither the manufacturers of the hull nor OceanGate’s engineering director at the time of its construction were called to testify.

MBI chair Jason Neubauer said at a press conference after the hearings: “We do not have to obtain testimony from every witness. As long as we get factual information and data from the company, through forensics, and from other witnesses, it’s possible we don’t interview every witness that has been identified.”

Kramer noted that data from 2022, when an explosive bang was heard after the Titan surfaced after a dive to the Titanic, showed a worrying shift in strain in the hull. OceanGate’s then director of engineering, Phil Brooks, testified that he was probably not qualified to analyze that data, and that Rush personally cleared the submersible for its final dives.

Over the last two weeks, multiple witnesses had testified to Rush’s primary role in driving business, engineering, and operational decisions and to his abrasive personality and temper. Matthew McCoy, a technician at OceanGate in 2017 and a former Coast Guard officer, testified today about a conversation he had with Rush about getting the Titan registered and inspected.

McCoy recalled that Rush said that if the Coast Guard became a problem, he would “buy a Congressman and the problem would go away.” McCoy handed in his notice the following day.

What Happens Next

With the conclusion of the public hearings, the Coast Guard’s MBI will now start preparing its final report. That could include a definitive cause of the fatal accident, referrals for criminal investigations, and recommendations for future policy and regulations.

The Titan’s hull and viewport featured prominently in expert testimony about potential physical causes of the implosion. Regardless of which component ultimately failed, witnesses have leveled criticism at everyone from designers and manufacturers to OceanGate’s operational team and executive decisionmaking. This might make it difficult to ever fix on a single cause or to single out individuals who were to blame, with the exception of Stockton Rush.

The Coast Guard’s questioning in recent days makes it easier to predict the service’s policy recommendations. It seems likely that the MBI will suggest revamping and updating regulations on submersibles, including expanding oversight of their construction, registration, and operation. Several submersible industry witnesses hoped that the Titan tragedy might even spur changes that make it simpler for responsible organizations to operate underwater vessels in US waters.

All of this is likely to take some time. Neubauer said today that the investigation would continue for months, although some MBI reports have taken much longer to be published. Rule changes will take years more. In the meantime, the NTSB is working on its own report, as are the governments of at least Canada and France.

Apart from appearances by its lawyers at the hearing, OceanGate has ceased all operations. It is facing a $50 million lawsuit from the estate of one of the Titan’s passengers, and further legal action is likely in the months ahead.

For some who paid to dive in the Titan, its loss represents the end of an era for deep ocean adventure. “It was never sold as a Disney ride,” testified Renata Rojas, a customer who went to the Titanic in 2022, last week. “Neil Armstrong didn’t ask if the Apollo rocket was classed. He just got in it and went. It was a voyage of exploration.”

While the Titan is now little more than fragments of carbon fiber and titanium in an NTSB lab, ripples from its implosion will continue to be felt for many years to come.