Titan sub hearings live: Co-founder set to detail OceanGate inner workings as he testifies before Coast Guard

Guillermo Sohnlein founded Titan owner OceanGate with CEO Stockton Rush in 2009.

Sohnlein left the company in 2013 but after the submersible’s implosion, he came to Rush’s defense, asserting his former business partner was “committed” to safety.

He said: “[Rush] was very much focused on safety. I think the next regret he would have is the company not continuing operations and not being able to keep going and getting beyond Titanic because Titanic was really just a means to an end for business.

“It was really to get to a point where the subs would be chartered by people all over the world to do all sorts of interesting projects and learn more about our oceans.”

Sohnlein has previously laid out plans to colonize the Moon and has hopes to send humans to Venus.

Welcome back as we restart our live coverage of the US Coast Guard’s hearing into the Titan submersible implosion.

Proceedings will start up again this morning at 8.30am ET as part of the Coast Guard’s investigation of the maritime disaster.

Three witnesses are due to give evidence to the panel.

Co-founder of Titan owner OceanGate, Guillermo Sohnlein, is up first and he is expected to give an insight into the inner workings of the company.

Other witnesses expected to testify today include former OceanGate engineering director Phil Brooks and Roy Thomas of the American Bureau of Shipping.

The hearing is expected to run through Friday.

Another mission specialist who worked with the company that owned the Titan submersible that imploded last year while on its way to the Titanic wreckage is scheduled to testify before a U.S. Coast Guard investigatory panel Friday.

Mission specialist Fred Hagen is scheduled to be the first to testify Friday. Other witnesses have characterized mission specialists as people who paid a fee to play a role in OceanGate’s underwater exploration.

“All good here” were some of the final words that the doomed Titan submersible crew communicated before the submersible imploded on its mission to the Titanic wreckage site in June 2023.

The message, revealed as part of the Coast Guard’s Monday hearing into the circumstances of the failed mission, was sent to support vessel Polar Prince on June 18, 2023, shortly before the submersible imploded, killing all five of its crew members. It was an incident that captivated both sides of the Atlantic as crews made a mad dash to save the crew after the sub lost contact with the surface – with the world unaware that the lives had been lost.

The Coast Guard played an animated re-enactment of the Titan’s voyage that captured the submersible’s final, spotty exchange with the Polar Prince, during the Monday hearing that shed new light on the sub’s final mission.

Around 10am on June 18, Polar Prince asked the Titan crew whether they were able to see the support vessel on the submersible’s display. The support vessel asked the crew the same question seven times over the course of seven minutes. The Titan crew then sent “k,” meaning it was asking for a communications check.