As this week's U.S. Coast Guard hearing uncovers more details about OceanGate's ill-fated Titan submersible expedition, experts tell Fox News Digital that the case could lead to stricter regulations for future companies offering private undersea explorations.
"The NTSB may want to examine the whole issue of certifying ‘millionaire thrill rides,’" former National Transportation Safety Board investigator Alan Diehl told Fox News Digital.
Last June, U.K. billionaire Hamish Harding, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, father-son pair Shahzada Dawood and Suleman Dawood, and French mariner Paul-Henri Nargeolet died when the OceanGate Titan imploded on its way down to see the Titanic on June 18, 2023.
Their last communication with support ship Polar Prince was a message reading, "All good here."
In testimony on Monday, OceanGate's former lead engineer, Tony Nissen, said that he felt pressured to get the vessel ready to dive, and refused to pilot the craft in its initial journey.
"I'm not getting in it," Nissen told Rush, according to his testimony.
When asked whether there was pressure to get the vessel into the water, Nissen replied, "100%." He said he stopped the submersible from going to the Titanic in 2019, telling Rush that it was "not working like we thought it would," and he was fired later that year.
OCEANGATE CEO CRASHED SUBMERSIBLE INTO SHIPWRECK IN 2016, THREW CONTROLLER AT CREW: EX-EMPLOYEE
Robert A. Sanders, a former U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps captain and current professor at the University of New Haven, told Fox News Digital that the Titan tragedy highlighted the dangers of combining experimental technology with private enterprise.
"It's designed as an experimental thing. They're testing new limits to do new things, but they were simultaneously using it as a commercial moneymaking venture, which was endangering the public," Sanders said. "The public would not necessarily know the difference."
David Lochridge, who previously served as OceanGate's director of operations, testified on Tuesday that safety took a back seat to the company's financial concerns, saying that "the whole idea behind the company was to make money" and that there was "very little in the way of science."
Sanders said "a good mariner who was safety first would be able to say, ‘I’m not going to do these additional things because right now I don't have all the safety protocols in place.'"
"As I understand from the facts coming out, this enterprise was in serious financial trouble, and they needed a successful event to gain additional financial footing," Sanders said. "Maybe the best assessment would have been to stop [the project]."
Based on testimony and information released thus far, Sanders said the craft was novel in several respects. In addition to being the first privately owned submersible meant for civilian voyages, it was also made of titanium and carbon fiber materials and did not have the spherical shape that is the norm for ships meant to attain that level of depth.
"If you think about the design of submarines, generally they're double-hulled, made out of steel, and they have specialized welding materials that put them together because of the pressure," Sanders said.
"This particular soda-can-shaped entity had a reinforced cloth exterior, which was good for certain depths where the pressures could be maintained and sustained. But where they wanted to go, essentially to the bottom of the trench where the Titanic lies, that shape of that material was not sustainable," he said.
COAST GUARD REVEALS TRAGIC FINAL MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM TITAN SUBMERSIBLE BEFORE FATAL IMPLOSION
At Tuesday's hearing, Lochridge described the Titan's hull as resembling "porous paper" and said he was taken aback at the decision to reuse components like domes, acrylic parts and interior elements of the vessel.
He said the sub's viewport and dome ceilings deviated from standard design and that he was "appalled" by its O-ring seals, calling the vessel "an abomination of a sub."
Despite having gone on several dives, the Titan sub was never independently reviewed, according to testimony.
Sanders said the Titan tragedy highlights the need for regulations on submersibles if more private undersea ventures are to take place.
"Maybe the Coast Guard decides to have additional hearings for a change to the code of federal regulations that would regulate the commercial use of submersible vehicles," he said. "In that way, you now begin to regulate the industry toward the safety of the passengers, the same way that we regulate aircraft, the same way that we regulate commercial shipping."
"As we move into these new areas, maybe new regulation is required to keep people from doing inherently dangerous things that are outside the scientific scope as we know it now," he said. "As we gain more and more knowledge, you may loosen those restrictions."
