Grim details continue to emerge as part of the U.S. Coast Guard’s ongoing hearing into the doomed Titan submersible, with an engineer with the National Transportation Safety board revealing Wednesday that the sub had imperfections on its carbon fibre hull, dating back to the manufacturing process.
Engineer Don Kramer said there wrinkles, porosity and voids in the carbon fiber used for the pressure hull of OceanGate’s Titan submersible and that the vessel behaved differently after a loud bang was heard on one of the dives a year before it imploded, killing all five passengers on board.
Hull pieces recovered from the sea floor after the June 2023 tragedy showed substantial delamination of the layers of carbon fiber, which were bonded to create the hull of the experimental submersible, he said.
He also revealed a 2022 incident, in which a loud bang was heard as the Titan resurfaced from a dive. He speculated the noise could have been a change occurring in the carbon fibre of the hub.
Carbon fibre is considered to be unreliable in deep water and was a highly unconventional building material. The hearing heard that each dive taken by the Titan likely compressed and damaged the vessel, making it weaker over time.
Kramer also showed photos of the wreckage, which revealed pieces of the hull scattered on the seafloor. He noted that the vessel’s aft dome, aft segment, top rails, side rails and the aft portion of its composite hull were located together, suggesting that the issues lay in the forward part of the sub.
“Much of the forward hull had fragmented into multiple pieces spread around the ocean floor,” he said. “One segment of the hull near the top of the vessel was intact nearly along its entire length and also stayed with the main wreckage.”
Debris from the Titan submersible.
NTSB
Kramer’s statements were followed by testimony from William Kohnen, a longtime submersibles expert and key member of the Marine Technology Society. While he helped to build the window for the Titan as part of the Hydrospace Group Company, Kohnen emerged as a critic of OceanGate in the aftermath of the implosion and has described the disaster as preventable.
Kohnen was one of several experts who sent a letter to OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush in 2018, warning of possible dangers with the Titan.
He told the hearing that OceanGate requested a flat window for visual benefits, despite recommending that an “arched” acrylic window would be structurally sound and are what is usually used for underwater vessels.
His company suggested a “hybrid” flat-round window, he said.
William Kohnen, of Hydrospace Group Inc., testifies Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, at the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation hearing into the June 2023 loss of the Titan submersible, in North Charleston, S.C.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Kate Kilroy/U.S. Coast Guard via AP
“It’s worth looking into it. It’s an idea. We don’t know. It’s a non-standard window,” Kohnen recalled telling OceanGate.
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“You’d have to do testing for it, but it’s worth trying out. If it’s important for your business, figure it out,” he continued, adding that Hydrospace ended up designing the window OceanGate requested, but warning them it would not be able to be certified as is was “non-standard.”
The hearing heard that the window was only rated to a depth of 1,300 metres by Hydrospace, but the Titan was making dives almost three times that depth.
Kohnen also pushed back at the idea the Titan could not have been thoroughly tested before use because of its experimental nature. He also said OceanGate’s operations raised concerns among many people in the industry.
Kohnen said, “I don’t think many people ever told Stockton no.” He described Rush as not receptive to outside scrutiny.
“This is not something where we don’t want you to do it. We want you to do it right,” Kohnen said.
Previous revelations
The Coast Guard’s hearing began earlier this month, and has heard a number of troubling revelations, ranging from clashes between OceanGate employees to concerns about the construction of the sub that were never properly addressed.
Coast Guard officials noted at the start of the hearing that the submersible had not been independently reviewed, as is standard practice. That and Titan’s unusual design subjected it to scrutiny in the undersea exploration community.
Earlier in the hearing, former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge said he frequently clashed with Rush and felt the company was committed only to making money.
“The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge said. “There was very little in the way of science.”
Last week, the hearing was shown the haunting first image of the sub wreck — found just a few hundred metres from the bow of the Titanic, its intended destination. The photo was taken last year after days of searching for the sub.
Image of the wreck of the Titan sub, sticking upright in the sand on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.
U.S. Coast Guard
Coast guard officials also revealed some of the last communications sent between the Titan sub and its support staff on board the Polar Prince, a former Canadian Coast Guard vessel that was chartered by OceanGate.
“All good here,” read one of the final messages sent by the crew as the sub descended in the Atlantic Ocean.
It’s believed the message was by Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a Titanic expert and deep-sea explorer who was serving as the sub’s co-pilot alongside Rush. Three other people were on board the tourist expedition: Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood, both members of a wealthy Pakistani business family, and Hamish Harding, a British businessman and adventurer.
This photo provided by Travel Weekly shows OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush on May 27, 2023.
Arnie Weissmann/Travel Weekly via AP
The Titan lost contact with the Polar Prince on June 18, 2023, more than an hour into its dive. The wreckage was found four days later after a desperate search.
The hearing’s first witness, OceanGate’s former engineering director, Tony Nissen, testified last week that Rush could be difficult to work for and was often very concerned with costs and project schedules, among other issues.
“Most people would eventually just back down to Stockton,” he said at the hearing in North Charleston, S.C.
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 per cent.”
He 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.
“I stopped the 2019 Titanic dive because of the data, and I was fired for it,” he said.
The Titan did undergo additional testing before it made later dives to the Titanic, Nissen added.
In other testimony, coast guard officials said the Titan was left exposed to weather and elements while in storage for seven months in 2022 and 2023. The hull was also never reviewed by any third parties as is standard procedure, they said.
The hearing is expected to wrap up on Sept. 27.
— with files from Global News’ Sarah Do Couto and The Associated Press
