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

Speaking during her emotional testimony on Thursday, a former mission specialist for OceanGate spoke about some of the dangers associated with the voyage down to the Titanic wreck.

Titan, OceanGate’s submersible, was experimental in nature and therefore not classified.

“It was similar to the Apollo program,” she said. “They tested by doing... Neil Armstrong didn’t ask somebody, ‘Is this vessel classed?’ before he went to space. He just got in and went.”

A representative from the National Transportation Safety Board is now examining Hagen about his background and experience with OceanGate.

During a dive in 2022, Hagen says he heard a ‘loud bang’ come from the vessel. After the incident, OceanGate team members discussed what may have happened to the Titan’s hull.

The crew was concerned the “hull had cracked,” he told the hearing’s panelists. “We determined the hull had jumped in the carriage.”

“Anyone that wanted to go was delusional if they thought it wasn’t dangerous,” he says. “It wasn’t supposed to be safe.”

Fred Hagen, a former mission specialist for OceanGate, is recounting his experience. He says he paid OceanGate to be a mission specialist on the company’s first trip to the Titanic wreckage.

Day four of the Titan Submersible Marine Board of Investigation’s hearing commenced at 8.30am ET.

OceanGate mission specialist Fred Hagen is due to give testimony at 8.30am.

The hearing will return at 8.30am ET this morning before first testimony is given from OceanGate mission specialist Fred Hagen at 9am.

The Coast Guard’s panel will then hear from Dave Dyer, an engineer from the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Lab, at approximately 10.45am.

Co-founder and CEO of Triton Submarines Patrick Lahey will testify at 1.30pm with a final break down of the day’s events taking place at 5.15pm.

The hearing break over the weekend and will then return on Monday at 8.30am.

Catterson recalled drop weight issues on the two test dives he was a part of years before the ill-fated Titan set sail.

He described how drop weights work. “The sub became neutral so the sub became neutral...They were only able to drop 70 pounds. That’s not enough to do what they needed to have happen,” Catterson told the panel.

When asked whether OceanGate staffing in Expedition 2023 was “sufficient to ensure safety,” Catterson paused before responding: “I think training and operations at sea could have been better.”

They did their training out of Everett which is “like a bathtub compared to the North Atlantic,” he said. They didn’t have practice in rougher conditions, like fog. “The training probably didn’t reflect as good as a base of knowledge for out there,” referring to where the Titan set sail.

He said that he and Stockton Rush “pretty much stopped talking to me rationally” after the Andrea Doria incident.

At the end of the summer 2016, Rush and others told him OceanGate was “no longer willing to pay” for his wife and daughter’s permanent residence. Lochridge believed it was because he “embarrassed him in front of clients,” referring to the Andrea Doria crash, which was a “turning point” in his and Rush’s relationship.

The following day, Rush presented him with a new contract that he sign a new contract that stipulated he would have to reimburse the company if he left within the next 12 months. Rush instructed him not to tell his immigration attorney about the new arrangement.