The last words transmitted by the crew on OceanGate’s Titan submersible before they perished in last year’s catastrophic implosion in the North Atlantic came to light today during the opening day of public hearings held by the U.S. Coast Guard.
“This is PH,” veteran explorer P.H. Nargeolet tapped out in a message that sent out during the fatal dive to the Titanic shipwreck on June 18, 2023, and shown at the hearing. “All good here.”
The very last message reported that the crew had dropped two weights from the sub. The sub’s mothership, the Polar Prince, received the final ping from Titan just seconds later. And then, nothing. Investigators say that Nargeolet and Titan’s four other crew members perished when the sub’s hull yielded to the crushing pressure in the ocean’s depths.
The other victims were Stockton Rush, who was the CEO and co-founder of Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate and served as Titan’s pilot; Hamish Harding, a British aviation executive and adventurer; and Pakistani-born businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman.
Jason Neubauer, chair of the Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation, began today’s hearing in North Charleston, S.C., with a moment of silence for the crew — and then he introduced a presentation that traced the development and operation of the Titan submersible.
