OceanGate
Some of the last words from the people in the ill-fated Titan submersible have been revealed at a hearing by the Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation.
According to an animated recreation of the Titan's journey presented by the Coast Guard in the Monday hearing, the crew sent the message "All good here" to its support ship, Polar Prince, shortly before it lost contact.
The message was sent at about 10:15 a.m. in Newfoundland on June 18, 2023, per the animation.
Shortly before the message, the Polar Prince sent the submersible several messages over the course of 12 minutes, asking if it could see the support vessel on its display, but the Titan did not respond.
When it finally responded about four minutes later, the Polar Prince sent the message, "I need better comms from you," to which Titan responded, "Yes."
The last message that the Titan sent to the Polar Prince was "dropped 2 wts," per the animation. This referred to the weights that the Titan could shed in order to return to the surface, according to CNN.
The animation showed that the Titan lost contact with the Polar Prince at 10:47 a.m.
The hearing in North Charleston, South Carolina, is scheduled to last two weeks.
"It aims to uncover the facts surrounding the incident and develop recommendations to prevent similar tragedies in the future," the Coast Guard's press release on September 6 said of the hearing.
The witness list includes ex-OceanGate staff members like Tony Nissen, its engineering director, Bonnie Carl, its human resources and finance director, and David Lochridge, its operations director.
The hearing takes place more than a year after the Titan submersible set off to explore the wreckage of the RMS Titanic, nearly 13,000 feet underwater.
After the support vessel lost contact with the submersible, a frantic search and rescue operation ensued.
The US Coast Guard and OceanGate announced on June 22, 2023, that debris found on the sea bed confirmed that the submersible had imploded and that the five men on board were dead.
The victims were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, British-Pakistani multimillionaire Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman, and the former French navy diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
