Titan sub hearings live: Haunting new photos show mangled wreckage of OceanGate vessel after it imploded
After hearing evidence from Stockton Rush’s friend, Karl Stanley, yesterday, engineers will give testimony to the US Coast Guard today
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The hearings into the Titan submersible disaster resumed today after a friend of the OceanGate CEO who said the boss “knew it was going to end like this" testified yesterday.
Today’s hearing featured testimony from Dr. Don Kramer, National Transportation Safety Board engineer, who analyzed photos of the Titan sub wreckage for the investigative board. Additional specialists are slated to testify today.
Yesterday’s hearing featured Karl Stanley, the owner of a diving expedition company in Honduras and a close friend of Stockton Rush. He went on the doomed submersible with his friend in April 2019.
The Titan sub imploded last June, killing all five people on board, including Rush.
In a previous interview after the disaster, Stanley said: “[Rush] definitely knew it was going to end like this. He quite literally and figuratively went out with the biggest bang in human history that you could go out with.”
Yesterday Stanley testified hearing cracking noises on the submersible and that he could pinpoint where they were coming from. He told the board that Rush was “scared” during the 2019 dive.
“It was unnerving and then when it kept happening,” Stanley testified, referring to the noises.
“It’s also a clue to me about Stockton’s psychology...he was scared,” he added.
Hearing to resume tomorrow
The Titan submersible hearing will begin again on Wednesday, September 25.
Wednesday’s hearing will feature testimony from Don Kramer, National Transportation Safety Board engineer; William Kohnen of Hydrospace Group Inc. and chairman of the Manned Underwater Vehicles Committee; and Bart Kemper, principal engineer of Kemper Engineering.
This blog will resume on Wednesday morning.
Video: Newly released footage reveals more Titan sub debris post-implosion that killed five
OceanGate’s Titan submarine relied on ‘idiotic’ Excel spreadsheet
OceanGate used a hand-typed Excel spreadsheet to track its ill-fated Titan submersible, according to a former contractor for the firm.
A hearing into OceanGate’s Titan sub, which imploded during an expedition to the wreck of the Titanic last year, revealed that its navigation system allegedly relied on team members manually inputting the coordinate data into a spreadsheet in order to track the vessel.
The incident last July killed all five people on board, including OceanGate’s CEO and co-founder Stockton Rush.
Read more:
OceanGate’s submarine relied on ‘idiotic’ Excel spreadsheet
Former employees tell hearing into sub’s implosion last year that they raised safety concerns
Close friend of Stockton Rush provides insight into former OceanGate CEO’s mind
Karl Stanley, a long-time friend to former OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, described his fears and why he was interested in submersibles.
Stanley testified hearing cracking noises on the submersible when he was on board in 2019 and that he could pinpoint where they were coming from.
“It was unnerving and then when it kept happening,” Stanley testified, referring to the noises. “I remember I was the one that was able to isolate the area where it was coming from and told them, ‘this, this is the area,’ and was listening right there.”
Stanley said Rush was likely scared during that dive.
“It’s also a clue to me about Stockton’s psychology...he was scared. Because if he wasn’t scared, he would have already isolated where the noises were coming from him on his first dive,” he continued.
He also claimed Stockton kept diving because he wanted to go down in history.
“The entire reason this whole operation started was Stockton had a desire to leave his mark on history,” Stanley testified.
“I think that’s why he kept diving, and he knew that eventually it was going to end like this and he wasn’t going to be held accountable, but he was going to be the most famous of all his famous relatives,” he continued.
ICYMI: Final messages revealed from the Titan sub before tragic implosion
“All good here.”
Those were some of the final words that the doomed Titan submersible crew communicated before the submersible imploded on its mission to the Titanic wreckage site in June 2023.
Read more on the chilling last messages from the Titan sub ahead of Wednesday’s hearing:
Titan sub’s haunting final messages before tragic implosion revealed
The anticipated two-week-long hearings kicked off with testimony from a former OceanGate engineer, who said he was fired after warning about the ship’s carbon fiber hull years before its catastrophic voyage
ICYMI: OceanGate specialist sobs as she remembers last time seeing Titan submersible crew
ICYMI: Former OceanGate director of administration says she was asked to let contractor go over ‘erratic’ behavior
Amber Bay, former director of administration for OceanGate, said a former contractor who raised safety concerns was released from her contract because Stockton Rush said she acted erratically.
“I was asked by Stockton to release her from her contract, as she had acted erratically, unprofessionally, and had disturbed our crew during a challenging situation in the communications pit,” Bay testified on Tuesday morning.
She was referring to Antonella Wilby, who testified last week that she reported a customer’s safety concerns following a dive in 2022, PEOPLE reports.
“I felt the customer’s concerns were not taken particularly seriously at that meeting,” Wilby said. “So, following the debrief, I went to Amber Bay, the director of administration, to raise my concerns about what I had just heard. I told her, ‘I am really concerned about what this customer just said and that there was a bang as loud as an explosion.’ I asked, ‘What’s being done?’”
Wilby claimed Bay responded with: “Yes, many people are concerned about you. You don’t seem to have an explorer mindset.”
“I was kind of taken aback by that because she didn’t acknowledge what I had just said and what was going to be done,” Wilby added.
Tuesday’s hearing ends
Today’s Titan submersible hearing has come to a close after testimony from Stockton Rush’s close friend, Karl Stanley, and OceanGate’s former director of administration Amber Bay.
Titan sub implosion was expected, Stockton Rush’s friend says: ‘There was nothing unexpected about this’
Karl Stanley, the owner of a diving expedition company in Honduras and a close friend of Stockton Rush, said the tragic 2023 Titan sub implosion was expected.
“The definition of an accident is something that happened unexpectedly and by sheer chance,” Stanley testified. “There was nothing unexpected about this. This was expected by everybody that had access to a little bit of information.”
“And I think that if it wasn’t an accident, it then has to be some degree of crime,” he continued. “And if it’s a crime, I think to truly understand it, you need to understand the criminal’s motive. The entire reason this whole operation started was Stockton had a desire to leave his mark on history. “
“I think that’s why he kept diving, and he knew that eventually it was going to end like this and he wasn’t going to be held accountable, but he was going to be the most famous of all his famous relatives.”
Stockton Rush 'transparent’ with how deep sub was going, long-time friend says
Karl Stanley said he was not aware that Stockton Rush had taken his sub more than 3,000 meters below the surface before their April 2019 dive.
Rush took Stanley and the others below 3,000 meters on their dive as well.
“Mr. Stanley, were you made aware that you were one of the first crew other than Mr. Rush to be in the submersible to a depth of over 3,000 meters?” a panelist asked.
“I’m actually surprised...to see all the dives before this,” Stanley responded. “He really wasn’t transparent kind of information.”
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