A former OceanGate worker gave a warning to the CEO of the company before the Titan submersible disaster.
It’s been just over a year since the Titan sub suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ on its mission to visit the wreck of the Titanic.
All five people on board the vessel died in the disaster, including the OceanGate CEO, Stockton Rush.
The US Coast Guard is currently holding a hearing to ‘uncover the facts surrounding the incident and develop recommendations to prevent similar tragedies in the future'.
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So far, the hearing has seen the release of the first photo of the Titan following the implosion as well as the final words from the sub's crew: “All good.”
It has also seen a former employee share the ‘first red flag’ she allegedly saw regarding the sub’s safety, with former OceanGate contractor Tym Catterson now having discussed his brief involvement with the Titan sub.
He told those in Charlestown, South Carolina how he started to work for OceanGate as one of its contractors between 2003 to 2004.
Working for a range of companies, he has also worked with manned submersibles since the 1980s.
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As reported by SkyNews, Catterson says that the first time he was called, the company had just purchased a submersible he had built and OceanGate were wanting him to come and explain the vessel to them.
While he had never piloted the Titan sub, Catterson claimed that he was aware it had not been classed.
He further said that there weren’t any other submersibles he’d worked on that hadn’t been classed.
According to Catterson, getting this done for a vessel is essentially ‘proof of due diligence’ and a third party’s opinion on its safety.
He added that it’s also one of the ways you can get insurance for subs.
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The contractor said that his interactions with Rush about this were ‘usually rather short’.
He said: “I had explained this to him and I guess this wasn’t as big of a worry for him as it would be for most people. I said my piece and that’s as far as it went.”
Catterson also claimed that he'd witnessed a malfunction during an expedition in 2022, when the sub's crew dropped the weights to ascend but the mechanism wasn't working properly.
He said the Titan was 'coming up quite slow' and was going to be stuck at a depth between 1,500 and 1,200 metres, adding that the crew were prepared to use the emergency drop weight, however, it 'didn't completely release'.
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Former finance and human resources director Bonnie Carl also claimed earlier that she'd stopped working for OceanGate in 2018 as their ‘attitude to safety’ made her want to leave.
She also claimed paperwork revealing the dome on the vessel was rated to be capable of reaching a depth of 1,300 metres (nowhere near enough needed to visit the Titanic’s wreck) was withheld.
Jess Battison