Former employees of Titanic owner to testify before Coast Guard commission

PORTLAND, Maine – Former employees of the company that owned an experimental submersible that imploded while heading toward the wreck of the Titanic are scheduled to testify before a Coast Guard board of inquiry at an upcoming hearing.

The Titan submersible imploded in the North Atlantic in June 2023, killing all five people aboard and sparking a global debate about the future of private underwater exploration. The U.S. Coast Guard quickly convened a high-level investigation into what happened, and that probe is set to reach its public hearing phase on September 16.

OceanGate, the Washington state company that owned the Titan submersible, suspended operations after the implosion that killed company co-founder Stockton Rush and others. Witnesses scheduled to testify at the upcoming hearing include Guillermo Sohnlein, another OceanGate co-founder, and the company’s former chief technical officer, chief operating officer and chief scientific officer, according to documents provided by the Coast Guard.

The public hearing “is intended to uncover the facts surrounding the incident and develop recommendations to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future,” the Coast Guard said in a statement Friday. The ongoing Marine Investigation Board is the highest level of marine accident investigation conducted by the Coast Guard and is “responsible for examining the causes of the marine accident and making recommendations to improve maritime safety,” the statement said.

The hearing is taking place in Charleston County, South Carolina, and is expected to last two weeks. Once the investigation is complete, the commission is expected to issue a report with evidence, findings and recommendations.

OceanGate’s former chief financial officer and other witnesses who worked for the company are also expected to testify. The witness list also includes numerous Coast Guard officials, scientists, government and industry officials, among others.

The Titan has become the focus of intense scrutiny in the underwater exploration community, partly because of its unconventional design and its creator’s decision to forgo standard independent controls. The implosion killed Rush and veteran Titanic explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet; two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and her 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood; and British adventurer Hamish Harding.

The Titan made its final dive on June 18, 2023, losing contact with its support vessel about two hours later. When it was reported overdue, rescuers dispatched ships, aircraft and other equipment to an area about 700 kilometres south of St. John’s, Newfoundland.

The search for the submersible attracted worldwide attention as it became increasingly unlikely that anyone could have survived the loss of the ship. The wreckage of the Titanic was later found on the ocean floor about 300 yards from the Titanic’s bow, Coast Guard officials said.

The investigation into the loss of the submersible was originally scheduled to last a year, but it has taken longer. The Coast Guard said in a July 2024 statement that the public hearing would “examine all aspects of the loss of the Titan, including historical events prior to the accident, regulatory compliance, crew member duties and qualifications, mechanical and structural systems, emergency response, and the submersible industry.”

The Titan has been making trips to the Titanic wreck site since 2021. The company declined to comment publicly on the Coast Guard investigation.