Summary

  • Patrick Lahey, the chief executive of Triton submersibles - a leading manufacturer of deep sea crafts - testified at the Titan inquiry on Friday

  • "I don't believe that we should be operating experimental vehicles in the deep sea," he said

  • The hearing also heard from Antonella Wilby, who worked as a contractor for OceanGate, the company behind the Titan, who chose to leave the mission early

  • Earlier the public hearing into the implosion in which five people died last June heard from an OceanGate mission specialist, a paying passenger taken on an expedition to see the Titanic

  • "It was clear that it was dangerous," Fred Hagen says, but adds "you don't do [a dive] because it's safe, you do it because it's an adrenaline rush"

  • Dave Dyer, an engineer from the University of Washington's Applied Physics Lab, tells the hearing he originally thought the sub could be viable

New Titan footage shows wreckage of destroyed hull on sea floor

Live Reporting

Edited by Caitlin Wilson and Marita Moloney

  1. You are supposed to be gently placed on the ship - they didn't do that

    Mission specialist Renata Rojas has described the dome coming off during a dive, as she continues giving her testimony.

    “You're supposed to gently be placed on the ship. And they didn't do that," she said.

    "They literally just let it go. Fell. It was a loud bump, but obviously the forces in the front of the platform or the sub opposite forces shear the clamp and the dome being as heavy as it is, without the dolly that holds it on top, on the bottom, it broke vacuum.

    "There was only, I think, two bolts or four bolts on the dome.”

  2. Hearing resumes

    After a short break, the hearing is back on.

    Witness Renata Rojas is talking about some of her experiences with OceanGate.

    You can watch the hearing live at the top of this page.

  3. The dark, crushing waters around the Titanic

    Richard Gray
    Editor, BBC Future

    Titanic bow is seen during a dive at the resting place of the Titanic's wreck, July, 1986.Reuters

    The wreck of the Titanic lies in total darkness on the seabed, nearly 2.4 miles (3.8km) below the surface.

    It is an incredibly hostile environment that makes visiting the wreck a challenge.

    Travelling that deep can take time – it is a two-hour-long descent. Below about 3,300ft (1,000m), sunlight is unable to penetrate the water and everything exists in what is aptly named the "midnight zone". It makes it easy to become disorientated without accurate navigation techniques.

    As a submersible travels downwards, the pressure exerted on it by the water above also increases. At the depth of the Titanic wreck, the pressure is about 390 times greater than we experience on the surface.

    Submersibles traveling to that depth need to be able to withstand these huge forces, and usually have thick metal hulls to do this.

  4. Brief break - back in 10 minutes

    The hearing is in recess and the testimony will reconvene in 10 minutes.

  5. Rojas was told Cyclops was 'experimental'

    Renata Rojas says she "didn't even ask" if Cyclops - which refers to Titan, the sub that imploded last June - was certified.

    But she was told earlier that it was "experimental" and "not classified".

    "You were given plenty of opportunity to ask why it was not classified," she tells the hearing.

  6. What was a mission specialist?

    Rebecca Morelle
    Science editor

    OceanGate took paying passengers down to see Titanic – a place on the Titan sub could cost up to $250,000.

    They were given a particular title – “mission specialists” – and invited to get involved with the sub operations beyond the dive, becoming part of the expedition’s crew.

    This could be seen as part of OceanGate’s marketing approach, offering customers more of an experience rather than just a tourist trip to the deep.

    But some of the experts I’ve spoken to say they think the company had a different motive.

    They believe that describing passengers as part of the crew rather than as paying customers was a way to get around complying with safety and liability issues linked to passenger transport.

  7. New video of Titan sub reveals aftermath of implosion

    Rebecca Morelle
    Science editor

    New Titan footage shows wreckage of viewport on ocean floor

    The footage is important new evidence for the investigation into why OceanGate’s Titan submersible suffered a catastrophic failure.

    Captured by underwater robots last June, it shows the sub in pieces, scattered across the sea floor 3,800m down in the Atlantic.

    The footage shows parts of the back end of the sub. You can see its back dome, a titanium end ring and parts of the carbon fibre hull.

    The wreckage is mangled - crushed by the immense pressures of the deep ocean in an instantaneous implosion.

    Other footage released by the US Coast Guard shows the faring of the tail cone, which housed the onboard electronics. It’s more intact as it wasn’t a part of the sub that was trying to resist the pressure during the descent.

    The remains of Titan were recovered last year and brought to the surface - and forensic experts will have been carefully examining them. They want to find out which part of the sub failed.

  8. Who is Renata Rojas?

    Rebecca Morelle
    Science editor

    Renata Rojas, who is giving evidence today, is a self-described Titanic obsessive.

    She featured in a BBC Travel Show documentary about Oceangate called Take me To Titanic.

    It followed her and other passengers during a dive to the wreck on the Titan sub in 2022.

    The dive suffered problems – the pilot could not get the controllers to work properly at the start of the dive, but the passengers did eventually get to see the Titanic.

    Renata Rojas sits inside a hearing in Charleston giving her testimony

  9. Renata Rojas begins testimony

    Renata Rojas is now testifying. As a quick reminder, you can watch the hearing at the top of this page.

    Rojas starts by describing what a "mission specialist" is. That's how she has been described in this hearing.

    Rojas says it is a volunteer position, which you "only take if you have a knowledge of what you need to be doing".

    She says it is always supervised, and "it's really just standing by to see if anyone needs a wrench".

  10. What have we learnt so far - multiple problems with safety

    Rebecca Morelle
    Science editor

    The public hearings have heard from several former OceanGate employees - and their repeated warnings about the sub’s safety.

    On Tuesday, David Lochridge - the company’s former director of marine operations, told the US Coast guard that he’d had serious problems with the sub’s design.

    He said he’d warned OceanGate about the poor quality of the material the sub was made of - carbon fibre - and told the hearing that he thought it was “inevitable” that something would go wrong.

    He was fired by the company in 2018, so took his concerns to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration. But he said they were slow and failed to act - and after increasing pressure from OceanGate’s lawyers, he dropped the case and signed a non disclosure agreement.

    At the end of his evidence, he said that if the authorities had properly investigated OceanGate then the tragedy might have been averted.

  11. OceanGate mission specialist to testify at Titan hearing

    'I saved for 30 years to see the Titanic'

    Hello and welcome to our live coverage of today's hearing into the Titan submersible.

    One of the individuals expected to testify today is OceanGate Mission Specialist Renata Rojas.

    She's expected to tell the committee about her experience taking the trip down to see the remains of the famous ship.

    Rojas, a Mexican citizen, had planned to take one of the OceanGate trips to see the remains of the Titanic in 2020. But the pandemic delayed her plans.

    In 2022, she fulfilled her life-long dream.

    "I saved for 30 years to see the Titanic," she told the BBC in 2022.

    Stick with us as we bring you updates from the hearing. And you can watch it live at the top of this page.