THE LAST VIEW OF SUBMARINE CRASH

One of the final messages from the five-person crew of the Titan submersible before it imploded, killing all inside, was “all good here”, a hearing has revealed.
Investigators with the US Coast Guard said the message was among the final communications between the Titan and its mother ship, before they lost contact for good.
Also shown at the hearing for the first time was an image, taken by a remotely operated vehicle, of Titan’s tail cone sitting on the sea floor following the implosion.
The deep-sea vessel was less than two hours into its descent towards the wreck of the Titanic when it imploded in June 2023.
Tony Nissen, the company’s former engineering director, said the evidence he had seen was “disturbing… professionally and personally”.
Mr Nissen claimed that Stockton Rush, OceanGate’s late CEO who was on board Titan, had the last word on most engineering decisions and was difficult to work with.
“Stockton would fight for what he wanted and, even if it changed from day to day, he wouldn’t give an inch,” he said.
“Most people would eventually back down to Stockton, it was death by a thousand cuts.”
OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations following the incident.
The company currently has no full-time staff but will be represented by a lawyer at the inquiry, it said.
Monday saw the start of the first public phase of an already 15-month investigation.
Unanswered questions over the Titan’s ill-fated dive have fuelled a lingering debate over safety and the regulation of private undersea exploration.
The Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigations (MBI) is expected to hear from as many as 10 former OceanGate employees, including co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein, and experts in marine safety and undersea exploration.
An MBI is the highest available level of inquiry into US marine casualties and convenes roughly one hearing per year, its chairman said on Sunday.
“Out of thousands of investigations conducted, less than one rise to this level,” Jason Neubauer said.
“We hope that this hearing will help shed light on the cause of the tragedy and prevent anything like this from happening again.”
The board of top Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials has the authority to recommend civil penalties or make referrals for criminal prosecution to the US Department of Justice.
A search mission involving four governments unfolded after the submersible lost contact with its mother ship, the Polar Prince, on the morning of 18 June 2023 and never resurfaced.
As well as Rush, on board were British explorer Hamish Harding, veteran French diver Paul Henri Nargeolet, the British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman.