Titan sub hearings live: OceanGate co-founder says the cause of implosion that killed five may never be known

“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.

The US Coast Guard’s two-week hearing into the OceanGate Titan submersible tragedy is entering its second week.

During the first half of proceedings, the panel of the Marine Board of Investigation heard from OceanGate former employees, one of its rival competitors and marine experts.

David Lochridge, the former director of marine operations for OceanGate, told investigators he had “no confidence” in the way the Titan submersible had been built. Antonella Wilby, the company’s former software contractor, said she felt “brushed to the side” after vocalizing safety concerns following an incident in which a customer reportedly heard a “loud bang.”

Patrick Lahey, the co-founder of Triton Submarines, said he encouraged Stockton Rush to classify the Titan, but said Rush called classification “an impediment to innovation”.

Welcome back as we restart our live coverage of the US Coast Guard’s hearing into the Titan submersible implosion.

Proceedings will start up again this morning at 8.30am ET as part of the Coast Guard’s investigation of the maritime disaster.

Three witnesses are due to give evidence to the panel.

Co-founder of Titan owner OceanGate, Guillermo Sohnlein, is up first and he is expected to give an insight into the inner workings of the company.

Other witnesses expected to testify today include former OceanGate engineering director Phil Brooks and Roy Thomas of the American Bureau of Shipping.

The hearing is expected to run through Friday.

Another mission specialist who worked with the company that owned the Titan submersible that imploded last year while on its way to the Titanic wreckage is scheduled to testify before a U.S. Coast Guard investigatory panel Friday.

Mission specialist Fred Hagen is scheduled to be the first to testify Friday. Other witnesses have characterized mission specialists as people who paid a fee to play a role in OceanGate’s underwater exploration.

Find out more below.