Were the warning signs ignored? Things to know about this week’s testimony about the Titan submarine disaster

Last year, five people who wanted to see the wreck of the Titanic died when their submarine imploded in the Atlantic Ocean. This week, the Coast Guard commission investigating the Titan disaster heard four days of testimony that raised serious questions about whether warning signs were ignored. The commission plans to hear another five days of testimony next week.

Here’s what witnesses have testified so far:

Giving evidence about a dive that took place several years before the tragic accident, Chief Engineer Tony Nissen said he felt pressured to get the Titan ready for flight and refused to pilot it.

“I’m not involved in that,” Nissen told Stockton Rush, co-founder of OceanGate, the company that owned Titan. Nissen said Rush was difficult to work with, made demands that often changed from day to day and focused on costs and schedules. Nissen said he tried to hide his conflicts with Rush so that others at the company wouldn’t be aware of the friction.

Chief science officer Steven Ross said that during a dive just days before Titan imploded, the ship had a problem with the ballast that keeps the ship stable. The problem caused passengers to “somersault” and hit a bulkhead, he said.

“One of the passengers was hanging upside down. The other two managed to squeeze into the bow,” Ross testified.

He said no one was injured, but it took an hour to get the ship out of the water. He said he did not know if a safety assessment or hull inspection was conducted after the incident.

A passenger who took part in a paid mission to the Titanic in 2021 said the journey was cut short when the ship began to experience mechanical problems.

“We realized that all she could do was go around in circles, turning to the right,” Fred Hagen said. “At that point, of course, we couldn’t get to the Titanic.”

He said the Titan surfaced and the mission was canceled. Hagen said he was aware of the risks involved in the dive.

“Anyone who wanted to go there was either delusional if they didn’t think it was dangerous or they were just accepting the risk,” he said.

Chief Operating Officer David Lochridge said the tragedy likely could have been prevented if the federal agency had investigated issues he repeatedly raised.

Lochridge said that eight months after he filed his complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a caseworker told him the agency had not opened an investigation and that he still had 11 cases pending. By that time, OceanGate had sued Lochridge, and he had filed a countersuit. A few months later, Lochridge said, he decided to withdraw his complaint. He said the case was closed and both lawsuits were dropped.

“The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge testified. “There was very little science involved.”

Following Lochridge’s testimony this week, the federal agency responded that it had “promptly conveyed” his safety concerns to the Coast Guard at the time.

Renata Rojas, a member of the Explorers Club who lost two paying passengers in the fatal dive, struck a different tone in her testimony. She said she felt OceanGate was transparent in the lead-up to the dive and never felt the operation was unsafe. Rojas, a passenger on the previous dive, was a volunteer with the crew on the surface when the Titan imploded.

“Some of these people are very hardworking people who were just trying to make their dreams come true,” she said.