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A former OceanGate contractor says he believes the Titan passengers "had no idea" an implosion was coming in their final moments.
Fifteen months after the 22-foot-long vessel imploded during a journey to the Titanic wreckage, killing all five people on board, Tym Catterson testified in front of the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation how he thought the passengers spent their last moments. His testimony was part of what is expected to be a two-week hearing into the tragedy.
"What I found and what I feel is that the implosion happened instantaneously," said Catterson, who was there when the Titan began its dive from the Polar Prince off the coast of Canada around on June 18, 2023.
Catterson said that he believed it wasn't the viewport (also known as windows or portholes) that "failed because there [were] no shards there." He believes the failure "happened at the forward glue line at the ring," which would have had to "happen extraordinarily fast."
"Which means the people in there, they had no idea this was coming. I just want to make sure you let the public know nobody was suffering in there," Chatterson testified. "As a matter of fact, they were probably happy to say they were all waiting to see the Titanic when this happened."
The five passengers who were on the vessel and died are OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61, British Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman Dawood, 19, British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77.
On the day the submersible went missing, Catterson said he helped send the Titan off by working as a platform operator and then went to grab breakfast.
"I basically went and got something to eat. I'd [been] out there on the water since four that day," he recalled. "I was cold and ready to get warmed up and have some breakfast, so that's what I did. I went and had breakfast."
He said he then went back to the Polar Prince and took a shower until he found out that the Titan had lost contact with the surface at about quarter to ten.
"I had no role then. I was off duty. I had no role," he said. "In truth, I was a bystander."
"We did everything that we could to try to ascertain whether it was just a communications issue or something else," he said, noting that "that's when I learned that both the tracking and the communications stopped."
During the opening day of testimony, it was revealed that the last messages sent by the Titan submersible before it imploded last year showed how the five passengers experienced communications problems. Just before 10 a.m. when the Polar Prince repeatedly asked the Titan if the sub could see the ship on its display.
After about 15 minutes, the Titan responded, saying they "lost system oand [sic] chat settings" -- but after being asked about their status again, the Titan responded "yes" and "all good here" at 10:15 a.m.
At 10:47, at a depth of about 3,350 meters and a pressure of 4,900 lbs. per square inch, the Titan messages that they "dropped two wts," referring to their weights -- and contact was then lost almost immediately, at 10:47:32 a.m., according to the Coast Guard.
The search for the missing sub began shortly after the vessel "lost all communication" with the Canadian expedition vessel Polar Prince "approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes" into its dive on the morning of Sunday, June 18, 2023, said U.S. Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick at a previous press conference.
On Thursday, June 22, 2023, it was then announced Titan debris had been found 1,600 ft. from the Titanic bow, and OceanGate announced that the five people onboard the vessel had died.
OceanGate has since suspended its operations amid the ongoing investigation. According to the Associated Press, the company says it has cooperated fully with the government probes.
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Attorney Jane Shvets, representing OceanGate at the hearing, read a brief opening statement, saying they "offer our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones, among them those here today, of those who died on June 18, 2023."
"There are no words to ease the loss endured by the families impacted by this tragic incident," Shvets said, "but we hope that this hearing will help shed light on the cause of the tragedy and prevent anything like this from happening again."
The hearing that began Monday "will review testimony from technical experts, crew members, and other relevant parties, and will examine evidence related to the submersible's design, operation, and safety protocols," the Coast Guard has said. Afterward, investigators will submit a final report. The National Transportation Safety Board will also issue its own findings.