OceanGate’s Titan submersible briefly became tangled up in the wreck of the Titanic during a 2022 dive, a mission specialist who was on the sub told investigators today.
“We had a skid stuck for a minute,” Fred Hagen said during a hearing in South Carolina that focused on the causes of last year’s loss of the sub and its crew. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
The Coast Guard’s Marine Investigation Board is reviewing the history of Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate’s Titan sub development effort, with the aim of making recommendations to avoid future undersea tragedies.
Last year’s catastrophic implosion killed five people: OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who served as the sub’s pilot; veteran Titanic explorer P.H. Nargeolet; British aviation executive and adventurer Hamish Harding; and Pakistani-born business executive Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman.
Hagen went on two Titan dives — one in July 2021, which was aborted when one of the sub’s thrusters malfunctioned, and the other in July 2022, which successfully reached the Titanic at a depth of 12,600 feet (3,840 meters).
Nargeolet steered the sub as the crew members took in the shipwreck’s iconic sights, including the bow of the 112-year-old wreck and the ruins of the Grand Staircase. But Hagen said he wanted to see more, and he persuaded Nargeolet to head back toward the stern section.
“I’d asked him to go around where the break was, and for a few moments we had gotten stuck,” he said. “He was very quiet, and he was working the controls. … I leaned over, and I said, ‘P.H., it seems that we’re stuck.’ And he says, ‘Yes, Fred, we are.’”
Hagen said that the skid was momentarily snagged in “pipes and things” on the Titanic wreck, but that Nargeolet managed to free up the sub after no more than a minute or two. The surface support team became concerned about what was happening and “told us to come up immediately,” Hagen said.
“Obviously, when you’re down there, it feels like a big deal. I think P.H. certainly wasn’t overly concerned,” he said.
