Final Texts From Titan Sub Before Implosion Shown During Hearing

BOSTON, MA — The final texts from the Titan submersible crew before the sub's catastrophic implosion were released during a Monday hearing led by the United States Coast Guard.

About an hour into the Titan's dive on June 18, 2023, the crew sent an "all good here" text to the Polar Prince, a support vessel that launched the Titan, the Coast Guard said. But around a half hour later, the Titan messaged the Polar Prince that it had just "dropped two wts," meaning weights, from the sub — indicating that the crew might have known they were in danger and were trying to return to the surface.

Within seconds, the Polar Prince pinged the Titan for the final time. The sub was fewer than 500 meters from the Titanic's wreckage when it imploded, killing all five on board, the Coast Guard's Marine Board of Investigation said.

During the presentation, which occurred on day one of a two-week hearing where investigators will reveal details of the probe before releasing a report, the Coast Guard released the first image of what remained of the Titan at the bottom of the ocean. The debris included the tail cone.

Findings could be presented to the Department of Justice if “there’s any detection of a criminal act,” the Coast Guard Chief of Office of Investigations Jason Neubauer said.

Killed in the disaster were the vessel's pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, as well as his passengers—British adventurer Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, and French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet.

The Titan, a 21-foot submersible, was reported overdue on the night of June 18, 2023, about 435 miles south of St. John's, Newfoundland in Canada.

For days, officials, including U.S. Coast Guard teams from Boston, raced against the clock in a vast search and rescue attempt that involved resources from multiple countries.

But on June 22, officials announced that a remote-operated vehicle — or ROV — deployed by the Canadian Vessel Horizon Arctic had found debris consistent with a catastrophic implosion.

The Titan's lead engineer, who was the first to testify Monday, said that he felt pressured to get the vessel ready to dive and refused to pilot it for a journey several years earlier.

“'I'm not getting in it,'” Tony Nissen said he told Stockton Rush, co-founder of the OceanGate company that owned the Titan submersible.

Nissen said Rush could be difficult to work for and was often very concerned with costs and project schedules, among other issues. He said Rush would fight for what he wanted, which often changed day to day. He added that he tried to keep the clashes between the two of them behind closed doors so that others in the company wouldn’t be aware.

“Most people would eventually just back down to Stockton,” he said at the hearing.

Nissen also noted that the Titan was struck by lightning during a test mission in 2018, and that might have compromised its hull.

When asked if there was pressure to get the Titan into the water, he responded, “100%.”

SEE ALSO:

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Nissen said that he refused to pilot the Titan years ago because he didn't trust the operations staff and that he stopped the submersible from going to the Titanic in 2019, telling Rush that the Titan was “not working like we thought it would.” He was fired that year. The Titan did undergo additional testing before it made later dives to the Titanic, Nissen added.

The submersible was left exposed to the elements while in storage for seven months in 2022 and 2023, and the hull was also never reviewed by any third parties, as is standard practice, Coast Guard representatives said in their initial remarks Monday. The absence of an independent review and the submersible's unconventional design subjected the Titan to scrutiny in the undersea exploration community.

The doomed expedition was OceanGate's third annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of the Titanic, which struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew. Since the wreckage's discovery in 1985, it has been slowly succumbing to metal-eating bacteria.

The Titan had been making voyages to the Titanic wreckage site going back to 2021. OceanGate, based in Washington state, suspended operations after the implosion.

When the hearing concludes, recommendations will be submitted to the Coast Guard’s commandant. The National Transportation Safety Board is also conducting an investigation.

“There are no words to ease the loss endured by the families impacted by this tragic incident,” Neubauer said. “But we hope that this hearing will help shed light on the cause of the tragedy and prevent anything like this from happening again.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.