Titan sub hearings live: OceanGate co-founder had said ‘no-one is dying under my watch’ before tragic submersible implosion

Thomas says OceanGate was not involved with the ABS, never requested classification and did not submit a design review or surveys.

To qualify for classification with the American Bureau of Shipping, submersible owners must:

1. Establish and maintain recognized technical standards

2. Check that the design of the submersible is in compliance with the standards

3. Certify material and equipment that will be incorporated into the vessel complies with standards

4. Ensure vessel is in compliance with ABS standards throughout lifetime

A senior principal engineer with the American Bureau of Shipping has been sworn in as a witness.

A senior principal engineer with the American Bureau of Shipping is scheduled to speak next. The agency is one of the few in the country that classify deep sea submersibles.

“This was not supposed to happen,” Sohnlein says during his closing remarks. “Five people should not have lost their lives.”

Despite the efforts of the investigating panel, the former OceanGate CEO says he’s not sure the public will ever know want led to the tragedy.

Still, he’d like the memories of those who died to be preserved by continuing deep ocean exploration.

“Someday in the near future, we’ll look back on this time as a major turning point in human history when the general public took an active interest in our efforts to explore the deep ocean,” he says. “If that happens, then that’s probably the most fitting tribute for the memories of these five individuals.”

After a Coast Guard official asks Sohnlein what he believes is the best way is to regulate submersibles, the co-founder says the topic is not in his “wheelhouse.”

He said dedicating resources to developing new regulations would be a “waste of taxpayer money” because there isn’t a current need. The submersible field is not an “industry,” Sohnlein said, adding there is currently at most 100 submersibles in the world.

The co-founder says he transferred his CEO title to Stockton Rush once it became clear the company wanted to transition from operations to engineering.

Sohnlein says Rush wanted him to stay on but “it didn’t make sense for me stay,” he says, adding that it was beneficial to make Rush the CEO because of fundraising needs.

Sohnlein says he made $120k as CEO. Leaving was “one of the hardest decisions I had to make,” he says.

When the co-founder first met with Stockton Rush in 2009, he said the pair wanted at least four to five submersibles available to charter around the world.

Rush was going to put in money and Sohnlein was going to run the business. They bought a “training-wheel sub” in order to study it and understand the technology, he says.

“Initially, we weren’t even going to build our own subs.”

The company bought its first sub from the Azores in January 2013, which later became “Cyclops,” OceanGate’s first submersible.

The OceanGate co-founder is testifying now.

Sohnlein co-founded the company with Stockton Rush in 2009 and left in January 2013.

“We operated as safely as possible,” he said in an interview with CTV news. “We had a safety conscious culture.”

When asked if he agreed with more regulations surrounding submersible classification, he said: “That’s really not my purview. I’ll leave that to policy makers.”

He reiterated that the company took safety very seriously.

Former OceanGate employees have disagreed with that characterization. David Lochridge, a former OceanGate employee, had raised concerns about the sub since 2018. He was later fired and the company sued him for revealing confidential information. He then countersued for wrongful dismissal.