Titan sub witness says voyages 'never felt unsafe' during testimony

A former OceanGate mission specialist broke down in tears yesterday before recounting her agonising wait for the doomed Titan submersible to resurface.

New York City-based banker Renata Rojas delivered harrowing testimony about the doomed mission on the fourth day of a public hearing into tragedy, which is being held by the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation in South Carolina.

She described her role in helping the launch last June and said that all on board understood the risks involved in their dive deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean to see the wreck of the Titanic. 'This was never sold as a Disney ride,' she said. 'It was an expedition that … things happen and you have to adapt to change.'

The inquiry, which will last two weeks, has seen new evidence come to light as investigators probe exactly what happened in the hours between the vessel losing contact with its support vessel and its implosion 3,700 metres below the surface.

A chilling 3D reconstruction of the Titan's final journey was released by the US Coast Guard, depicting its final movements, after new footage of the wreckage on the seabed was also revealed, taken days after tragedy unfolded.

Ms Rojas testified that she had herself taken part in test dives before the disaster on June 18, adding: 'I knew what I was doing was very risky,' she said. 'I never at any point felt unsafe by the operation.'

She is one of several people to have appeared before the ongoing hearing, but her testimony was different from others who have largely described a dysfunctional operation destined for failure.

Another witness - OceanGate's scientific director - said that the submersible had malfunctioned just three days before the tragedy, noting that he did not know whether it had been checked over before its fateful voyage.

Over the course of the first week of the hearing, other key witnesses and experts have revealed: 

• Reports of a malfunction during a test just days before the fatal mission;
• New footage of the Titan's tail cone submerged six days after the tragedy;
• The sub had a history of issues and was struck by lightning in 2018, potentially compromising its hull;
• The hull was never reviewed by a third party, engineer warned, adding he refused to get on the Titan over ailing standards;
• Operations director testifies company only existed 'to make money' and 'there was very little in the way of science' 

Ms Rojas was on board the Polar Prince icebreaker on the surface when the Titan lost contact on June 18 last year.

She said that one of their final reports was: 'All good here.'

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But the witness, who worked as a volunteer mission specialist for OceanGate, became emotional and began to cry when recalling how the submersible then stopped sending updates.

'They were due back on the surface at 6pm,' she said. 'I think the conversation was we'd wait another 15 minutes and then call the coastguard.'

'At this point, they are really overdue.'

She had testified that there was no real concern 'until about five or six pm'. 

'Usually, they are allowed at least an hour [of delay],' she explained. 

Ms Rojas said the team tried to re-establish communications and begin searches for the missing vessel.

She had herself taken part in two of the test dives preceding the disaster.

'I knew what I was doing was very risky,' she said. 'I never at any point felt unsafe by the operation.'

Malfunction shakes Titan days before voyage 

The Titan's scientific director testified yesterday that the submersible had malfunctioned days before imploding, leaving one passenger hanging upside down, however.

Steven Ross told the board on Thursday that passengers were left to 'tumble about', and that it took them an hour to get them out of the water.

'One passenger was hanging upside down. The other two managed to wedge themselves into the bow end cap,' he said. 

The Titan was said to have crashed into bulkheading during the malfunction. Ross said he did not know if a safety assessment or inspection was carried out after, before its fateful launch on June 18. 

On day one of the hearing, former contractor Tym Catterson said that he also conducted two test dives with the Titan, and was concerned about its drop weights.

'They were only able to drop 70 pounds. That's not enough to do what they needed to have happen,' he warned. 

Ms Rojas maintained that conditions were 'great' on the day of the launch and said she had not seen anything unusual jeopardizing the journey.

'I saw five people looking forward to their journey, excited,' she said, noting that they were had been made aware of the potential risks.

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61, British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, Titanic expert and navy diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, British-Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, 19, all died when the sub imploded last summer.

A hearing has been underway since September 16 to understand what went wrong.

Footage of wrecked hull emerges 

New footage of the wreckage of the Titan on the seabed was shared earlier this week to support evidence during the hearing.

Officials said the clip shows the 'aft dome, aft ring, remnants of the hull and carbon fiber debris' after it imploded last year as it dived towards the wreck of the Titanic.

A Coast Guard-operated remote-control submarine working at a depth of 3,774 metres was able to identify fragments of the wreckage of the Titan through the murk of the deep ocean.

'This video led to conclusive evidence of the catastrophic loss of the Titan and the death of all five members aboard,' the Coast Guard said. 

It was the second video released during the two-week hearing, with another released earlier in the week showing the vessel's tail fin. 

The OceanGate logo was still clearly visible on the tail of the submersible, seen with cracks running up its side. 

Fears over sub safety from Operations Director

On Tuesday, attention turned to the testimony of ex-OceanGate employee David Lochridge, who had raised concerns about the submersible since 2018.

He claimed it was 'inevitable' that something would go wrong, and cited issues with the materials the sub was made from.

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US court documents from 2018 indeed show Lochridge raised 'serious safety concerns' about the Titan, warning that lack of testing could 'subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible'.

He said he frequently clashed with Rush and felt the company was committed only to making money, and not to the safety of its customers.

'The whole idea behind the company was to make money,' Lochridge testified. 'There was very little in the way of science.'

'I believe that if OSHA had attempted to investigate the seriousness of the concerns I raised on multiple occasions, this tragedy may have been prevented,' he said.

 'As a seafarer, I feel deeply disappointed by the system that is meant to protect not only seafarers but the general public as well.'

Lochridge said during testimony that eight months after he filed an OSHA complaint, a caseworker told him the agency had not begun investigating it yet and there were 11 cases ahead of his. 

By then, OceanGate was suing Lochridge and he had filed a countersuit.

About 10 months after he filed the complaint, he decided to walk away. The case was closed and both lawsuits were dropped.

'I gave them nothing, they gave me nothing,' he said of OceanGate.

Lochridge referenced a 2018 report in which he raised safety issues about OceanGate operations. He said with all of the safety issues he saw 'there was no way I was signing off on this.'

Asked whether he had confidence in the way the Titan was being built, he said: 'No confidence whatsoever.'

Employee turnover was very high at the time, said Lochridge, and leadership dismissed his concerns because they were more focused on 'bad engineering decisions' and a desire to get to the Titanic as quickly as possible and start making money. He eventually was fired after raising the safety concerns, he said.

Engineers from the Marine Technology Society also said the experimental approach to design could result in 'catastrophic' outcomes in a letter shared with victim Stockton Rush.

Rush brushed off the 'safety argument' he said was being used to 'stop innovation', dismissing warnings as 'baseless'.

Earlier OceanGate model got stuck on another shipwreck

Lochridge also told the hearing that Rush had once crashed a different model of OceanGate submersible (called Cyclops I) into another shipwreck, according to a Washington Post report.

The operations director said he was on-board the Titan predecessor with Rush and four other paying customers in 2016 when Rush - piloting the vessel - crashed into the Andrea Doria, a ship that sank in 1956 off Massachusetts.

Lochridge testified that Rush panicked, telling the passengers they were stuck and asked how much life support was left on board.

He also enquired about how far a dive team was away to rescue them.

Lochridge said he told Rush there was no need and asked Rush to hand him the games controller that piloted the submarine so he could free them.

Rush, however, refused. Lochridge said Rush would pull the controller away any time he reached for it, until a passenger got angry and swore at him.

He said Rush then threw the controller at the right side of Lochridge's head, causing it to fall to the ground. The operations director picked up the controller, replaced a button that had popped out, and was able to free the vessel over 10 to 15 minutes.

He went on to say that the pair's relationship soured, and he was fired in January 2018 - five years before Rush's final deadly descent in the Titan.

Did CEO rush the Titan to be ready? 

But not all were convinced. On Monday, engineering director Tony Nissen testified that he had refused to get on board when Rush asked him to pilot the sub.

'I'm not getting on it,' he said he told the OceanGate CEO.

He added that he did not 'trust' Rush and 'we did not have the standards we set forth'. 

He did say that the Titan did undergo additional testing before it made later dives to the Titanic. 

But he added that he '100 per cent' felt pressured into getting the sub ready to dive in the days leading up to June 18.

He also testified that the submersible by struck by lightning in the Bahamas in 2018, and said he warned Rush the hull may have been compromised.

Rush allegedly replied: 'It'll be okay.' 

Mr Nissen was the first witness to testify at the hearing this week.

He said he was fired from OceanGate five years ago after he would not sign off on a damaged hull for the 2019 Titanic expedition.

Fine weather before tragedy 

The Titan had been towed out to sea on June 16 behind the Polar Prince Canadian icebreaker ship, ahead of its voyage to explore the Titanic's watery gravesite.

Three missions involving other teams had already been scrapped due to bad weather in the previous four weeks, but the latest OceanGate Expeditions group was hopeful.

'A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow,' renowned adventurer Hamish Harding wrote on Instagram just days prior. 'More expedition updates to follow IF the weather holds!'

According to Ms Rojas, it did. A team comprising OceanGate's CEO, a diving expert, and three wealthy amateurs wore water-activated life vests, bright orange jackets, helmets and steel-toed boots as they prepared to dive.

Just before a dive, they would change into fleece vests, black flight suits bearing the OceanGate logo and warm socks - no shoes allowed on the submersible.

The Titan submerged at 8am EDT on Sunday, June 18, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. It would not resurface.

The Polar Prince reported losing contact around 10:45am, but Ms Rojas testified that there were no immediate concerns until the late afternoon.

At 5:40pm, nearly three hours after the Titan was expected to resurface and nearly eight hours after the last communication, the Polar Prince notified the U.S. Coast Guard that the vessel was overdue, setting off an intense international search and rescue.

The U.S. Navy analyzed its acoustic data and found an anomaly that was 'consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost,' a senior Navy official later told The Associated Press at the time.

By Monday afternoon, a C-130 Hercules aircraft from North Carolina and a Canadian P8 aircraft with underwater sonar equipment joined the search. 

Tuesday brought better weather and increased visibility, and by that morning, 10,000 square miles (25,900 square kilometers) had been searched.

A U.S. Air National Guard crew arrived that day, as did a Bahamian research vessel, Deep Energy, which deployed camera-equipped, remote-operated robots.

Meanwhile, sonar equipment detected banging noises Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, sparking hope that those aboard the Titan were still alive.

On Thursday morning, four days after the crew had submerged, a robotic vehicle discovered the tail cone of the Titan on the ocean floor, followed by the front and back ends of the Titan´s hull.

'The debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber,' said Rear Adm. John Mauger of the First Coast Guard District.