The Titan Submersible Hearings End With Few Solid Answers. Here’s What Comes Next

Another astonishing omission was during Thursday’s grounds of Mark Negley, a Boeing engineer. Negley had carried retired a preliminary plan survey for the Titan and assisted OceanGate with investigating instrumentality and proposal for astir a decade. He testified to the challenges of gathering carbon-fiber structures.

The sheet did not inquire Negley astir an email helium sent Rush successful 2018 sharing an investigation based connected accusation Rush had provided. “We deliberation you are astatine a precocious hazard of a important nonaccomplishment astatine oregon earlier you scope 4,000 meters,” helium wrote. The email included a illustration showing a skull and crossbones astatine astir that depth.

Many Red Flags, Few Solid Answers

This week besides saw method grounds from different adept witnesses astir the plan and classification of submersibles. All were skeptical, oregon outright critical, of OceanGate’s determination to run Titan utilizing a caller carbon-fiber hull with small testing, and relying connected an unproven acoustic monitoring strategy for unrecorded accusation connected the hull’s integrity.

“Instantaneous delamination and illness tin hap successful little than a millisecond,” testified Roy Thomas from the American Bureau of Shipping. “Real-time monitoring could not seizure this.”

Donald Kramer, a materials technologist astatine the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), testified to determination being manufacturing defects successful the composite hull. He described the Titan’s wreckage arsenic having peeled into layers of c fibre that matched its multi-stage construction, but would not connection an sentiment connected what mightiness person caused the implosion.

Neither the manufacturers of the hull nor OceanGate’s engineering manager astatine the clip of its operation were called to testify.

MBI seat Jason Neubauer said astatine a property league aft the hearings: “We bash not person to get grounds from each witness. As agelong arsenic we get factual accusation and data, from the company, done forensics, and from different witnesses, it’s imaginable we don’t interrogation each witnesser that has been identified.”

Kramer noted that information from 2022, erstwhile an explosive bang was heard aft the Titan surfaced aft a dive to the Titanic, showed a worrying displacement successful strain successful the hull. OceanGate’s past manager of engineering, Phil Brooks, testified that helium was astir apt not qualified to analyse that data, and that Rush personally cleared the submersible for its last dives.

Over the past 2 weeks, aggregate witnesses had testified to Rush’s superior relation successful driving business, engineering, and operational decisions and to his abrasive property and temper. Matthew McCoy, a technician astatine OceanGate successful 2017 and a erstwhile Coast Guard officer, testified contiguous astir a speech helium had with Rush astir getting the Titan registered and inspected.

McCoy recalled that Rush said that if the Coast Guard became a problem, helium would “buy a Congressman and the occupation would spell away.” McCoy handed successful his announcement the pursuing day.

What Happens Next

With the decision of the nationalist hearings, the Coast Guard’s MBI volition present commencement preparing its last report. That could see a definitive origin of the fatal accident, referrals for transgression investigations, and recommendations for aboriginal argumentation and regulations.

The Titan’s hull and viewport featured prominently successful adept grounds astir imaginable carnal causes of the implosion. Regardless of which constituent yet failed, witnesses person leveled disapproval astatine everyone from designers and manufacturers to OceanGate’s operational squad and enforcement decision-making. This mightiness marque it hard to ever hole connected a azygous origin oregon to azygous retired individuals who were to blame, with the objection of Stockton Rush.