Jess Battison
A former OceanGate employee has revealed the ‘first red flag’ she spotted affecting the safety of the Titan submersible.
It’s been just over a year since disaster struck when five people journeyed deep underwater to visit the wreck of the Titanic.
The Titan sub had descended thousands of feet when contact was lost on 18 June 2023. Onboard the vessel were OceanGate's CEO Stockton Rush, British explorer Hamish Harding, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, his son Suleman, and veteran French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
However, all five people died when the sub, in what was confirmed by the US Coast Guard, was destroyed by a ‘catastrophic implosion’.
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And now, a hearing is being held by the US Coast Guard to 'uncover the facts surrounding the incident and develop recommendations to prevent similar tragedies in the future'.
Following the release of the first photo of the sub following the implosion and the final words from the Titan, an ex-employee has spoken about her alleged safety concerns ahead of the mission.
Bonnie Carl joined OceanGate as a human resources and finance director.
She told the hearing that she was aware of a waiver people were required to sign before going on the sub, but claims she ‘never saw anyone sign anything’ as her job to get the money from customers was early on in the process.
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Sky News reports her saying: “When I was taking money, we hadn’t even finished building the Titan.”
Not only was she a finance and human resources director, but she was also a 'pilot in training' – so she had conducted a dozen domestic dives in the vessel.
Carl alleged that there were ‘a couple of things that gave me pause’ regarding the sub’s safety.
The ex-employee alleged the ‘first red flag’ was engineering director Tony Nissen not letting her see paperwork for the sub's acrylic dome.
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Carl further claimed how an O ring groove on the Titan’s titanium also looked ‘odd’ to her.
With her experience as a scuba diver, she said that her questions about this spot weren’t ‘satisfactorily answered’.
In a later safety meeting, Carl claimed the paperwork kept from her revealed the dome was rated to be capable of reaching a depth of 1,300 metres.
Obviously, this is much, much less than what’s needed to reach the Titanic's wreck.
However, she claims this was why Nissen ‘didn’t want us to see it’.
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Carl further said that she left the company in 2018 as OceanGate was not a place she ‘wanted to work if that was their attitude to safety’.
“I didn’t want to work for that company.” she added.