The U.S. Coast Guard is set to begin public hearings this week on the OceanGate Expeditions’ Titan submersible, which imploded during an expedition last June.
The 23,000-pound Titan was about 1 hour and 45 minutes into a dive toward the Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean when it lost contact with its mothership on June 18, 2023.
All five people on board were killed, including OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush, British businessman Hamish Harding, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, and his son Suleman Dawood, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
After a massive search and rescue operation involving multiple countries and agencies, debris from the Titan was found near the Titanic wreck site, confirming the submersible had suffered a catastrophic implosion. OceanGate Expeditions suspended all operations within weeks of the incident.
CNN reports on the U.S. Coast Guard’s public hearings on the disaster set to begin this week. Here’s the start of the story:
The US Coast Guard on Monday will begin a multi-day hearing to examine the loss of the Titan – the ill-fated submersible authorities said imploded in the North Atlantic Ocean in June 2023, killing all five people aboard during a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic.
The public hearing will be conducted by the Marine Board of Investigation that was convened within days of the submersible’s disappearance. The MBI – the highest level of inquiry by the Coast Guard – was tasked with reviewing the cause of the tragedy and offering recommendations, including about potential civil penalties and criminal prosecution.
“Over the past 15 months, our team has worked continuously in close coordination with multiple federal agencies, international partners and industry experts to uncover the facts surrounding this incident,” Jason Neubauer, the chair of the Marine Board of Investigation, said in a news conference Sunday.
“The upcoming hearings will allow us to present our findings and hear directly from key witnesses and subject matter experts in a transparent forum,” said Neubauer, adding the proceedings “are a critical step in our mission to understand the contributing factors that led to the incident and, even more importantly, the actions needed to prevent a similar occurrence.”