Submersible experts to testify on seventh day of Titan hearings in N. Charleston

NORTH CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) – A National Transportation Safety Board engineer will be the first to testify Wednesday in a Coast Guard investigation into a deadly submarine tragedy.

Don Kramer is the first name on the witness list on the seventh day of the Marine Board’s investigation into the 2023 implosion of the Titan en route to the Titanic’s shipwreck.

To avoid duplication, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is also participating in the investigation, but an NTSB investigator said the agency will release its own report.

Two other witnesses, William Kohnen, a submersible expert and founder and CEO of Hydrospace Group Inc., and Bart Kemper, chief engineer of Kemper Engineering, will also testify.

OceanGate employee rejects the idea that missions have to be carried out out of “desperation”

A key official at OceanGate, the company that owns the experimental Titan, dismissed a Coast Guard investigator’s question about whether the company felt some kind of “desperation” to conduct the dives because of the high costs.

Amber Bay, OceanGate’s administrative director, stressed on Tuesday that the company “would not conduct risky dives just to meet a need.”

However, she agreed that the company wanted to offer something to those who paid $250,000 and were encouraged to participate as “mission specialists.”

“There was definitely an urgency to implement what we had offered, and we needed dedication and persistence to achieve that goal,” she told a Coast Guard panel.

OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush, two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, British adventurer Hamish Harding and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, died in the submersible’s implosion.

The Coast Guard opened a public hearing earlier this month as part of a high-level investigation into the cause of the implosion, and some of the testimony focused on the company’s problems.

Bay on Tuesday contradicted an earlier statement by Antonella Wilby, a former OceanGate contractor who had told Bay “you don’t seem to have the mindset of an explorer” after she raised safety concerns. Bay said Wilby’s concerns were noted at the time and treated with respect. Bay added that her own duties did not include engineering or operational work.

She later burst into tears as she spoke about the tragedy, which was personal to her as she knew the victims.

“I have had the privilege of knowing the lives of the explorers who lost their lives,” Bay said through tears. “And not a day goes by that I don’t think of them, their families and the loss.”

At the start of the hearings, former OceanGate chief operating officer David Lochridge said he had frequently clashed with Rush and felt the company was only interested in making money. “The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge testified. “Scientific engagement was hardly involved.”

Lochridge and other witnesses painted a picture of a company eager to launch its unconventionally designed vessel. The accident sparked a global debate about the future of private underwater exploration.

Also testifying Tuesday, submersible pilot and designer Karl Stanley of the Roatan Institute of Deepsea Exploration gave his perspective on deep-sea submersible operations and safety. He said the phenomenon of “billionaires courting scientists” has disrupted the economics of the industry.

Stanley also said he viewed OceanGate’s characterization of paid passengers as “mission specialists” as an attempt to evade responsibility.

“This is clearly an attempt to circumvent U.S. regulations regarding passengers,” Stanley said.

In addition, the company’s “entire business plan made no sense at all,” Stanley said. He also said the implosion was ultimately due to Rush’s desire to go down in history.

“It was nothing unexpected. Anyone who had access to some information expected it,” Stanley said.

The hearing is scheduled to last until Friday and will include several other witnesses, some of whom are closely associated with the company.

Businessman Guillermo Sohnlein, who co-founded OceanGate with Rush, said during his testimony on Monday that he hoped the disaster would have a positive side and lead to renewed interest in exploring new marine areas, including the deepest waters of the world’s oceans.

“This cannot be the end of deep-sea exploration. This cannot be the end of deep-sea submersibles and I don’t think it will be,” he said.

Coast Guard officials noted at the start of the hearing that the submersible had not undergone the usual independent testing. This, and Titan’s unusual design, led to it being subjected to critical scrutiny in the underwater research community.

OceanGate, based in Washington state, ceased operations after the implosion. The company currently has no full-time employees but was represented by an attorney during the hearing.

During the submersible’s final dive on June 18, 2023, the crew lost contact after exchanging text messages about Titan’s depth and weight during the descent. The support vessel Polar Prince then sent repeated messages asking if Titan could still see the vessel on its onboard display.

When the submersible’s arrival was reported delayed, rescue crews moved ships, aircraft and other equipment to an area about 435 miles south of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Wreckage from the Titan was later found on the sea floor about 1,000 feet off the Titanic’s bow, Coast Guard officials said. No one on board survived.

OceanGate said it has been cooperating fully with the Coast Guard and NTSB investigations since they began. Titan has been making trips to the Titanic wreck site since 2021.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved.