“Everything is fine here.”
These are some of the last words spoken by the crew of the Titanic submarine before the submarine explodes on a mission to the Titanic wreck site in June 2023.
The message, revealed as part of Monday’s Coast Guard hearing on the circumstances of the failed mission, was sent to support the Polar Prince ship on June 18, 2023, shortly before the submersible exploded, killing all five crew members. It was an incident that stunned both sides of the Atlantic when crew members rescued their crew after their ship lost contact with the surface – with the world unaware that their lives had been lost.
Coast Guard played and animated re-enactment of the Titan’s final submersible journey, a spotty exchange with Prince Polar, during the hearing someone shed new light on the sub’s final mission.
Around 10 a.m. on June 18, the Polar Prince asked the Titan crew if they could see the support vessel on the submersible’s display. The support boat asked the crew the same question seven times in seven minutes. The Titan crew then sent a “k,” meaning they asked to check their communications.
Prince Polar then repeated his question three times before writing: “I need better communication from you.” The crew finally answered “yes” at 10.14am before adding: “Everything is fine here.”
At 10:47 a.m., communication between the two ships was lost.
All five crew members later died in the explosion: founder Stockton Rush, 61, French explorer Paul Henri Nargeolet, 77, British explorer Hamish Harding, 58, UK-based Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48 and 19 years old. -son of Solomon.
In a presentation on Monday, the Coast Guard also revealed the pattern of failures the Titan experienced during test dives before it left for the wreck site.
Test dives in 2021 revealed 70 equipment problems while dives the following year revealed 48 equipment problems, including weight loss errors. On top of the problem, after the last test dive in 2022 until February 6, 2023, the ship was stored uncovered in the dock “without protection from the elements.”
The first witness before the panel, Tony Nissen, OceanGate’s former director of engineering, took the stand on Monday, pulling back the curtain on the company’s internal dynamics as well as some disagreements between Stockton Rush and OceanGate employees.
When Nissen was hired, he was not immediately told that the submarine was headed for the wreck site. He testified: “I was never told he was going to the Titanic.”
Nissen also said he “struggled to find professional words” to describe Rush.
“Stockton is going to fight what they want…And they’re not going to give anything. Basically,” he said. “Most people are going to back down from Stockton. It’s like dying by a thousand wounds.
The submersible was struck by lightning in 2018, partially damaging the hull, Nissen testified. The following year, after discovering that the acoustic tests did not come out “clean”, he objected to the expedition to the site of the Titanic, because he found the ship’s hull to be compromised. After refusing to give his consent, he was fired. He told the panel: “I’m not going in. So I’m fired.”
When asked if there was “pressure” to start operations, Nissen said: “100 percent.”
The Coast Guard is investigating the circumstances that led to the loss of the submersible, said Marine Board Investigations chairman Jason Neubauer.
The investigation will look for the “factors” that caused this disaster and try to learn how to prevent it in the future as well as examine whether “misconduct, negligence, or intentional violation of the law” contributed to the victim. The hearing, expected to last two weeks, will also examine the Coast Guard’s search and rescue operations.
