Monday September On the 16th, the U.S. Coast Guard was holding a Maritime Investigation Board hearing to investigate the loss of OceanGate. titan In June 2023, a submersible accident occurred and five people on board died, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush. It intends to use two weeks of live-streamed hearings in Charleston, South Carolina, to help determine why the submarine imploded, whether incompetence or negligence was involved and whether any laws were broken. It can then refer the matter to criminal prosecutors and make recommendations to improve maritime safety.
It hopes to do it all without publicly hearing from most of OceanGate’s remaining executives or Rush’s wife, Wendy, who sometimes played a leading role in Stockton’s dives. The investigation also did not include public testimony from any of the companies that designed and built the project. titanof innovative carbon fiber hulls, or any senior operator preparing, maintaining or supporting titan Adventure trip in 2023.
In fact, few of the 24 witnesses called appeared to have been on board. titansupport vessel, polar princethe final mission: Renata Rojas, an unpaid volunteer, and Tym Catterson, a contractor with experience driving submersibles.
Anonymous sources close to the investigation but not authorized to speak to the media told Wired that the Coast Guard has reached out to some contemporary OceanGate employees and executives, as well as third-party vendors, but was told they would be forced to appear in court if forced to do so. Uphold your Fifth Amendment rights. This means they can refuse to testify on the grounds that their answers could incriminate them or put them at legal risk.
WIRED reached out to OceanGate and the hull manufacturer for comment. Janicki Industries, which solidified and machined parts of the hull, did not attend the hearing, its attorneys wrote. Wired did not receive responses from the others before publication.
There was speculation that former U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Lockwood, who joined OceanGate’s board of directors in 2013, would testify, but he was also not listed.
Former OceanGate employees and ocean experts are alarmed by the lack of people with relevant knowledge, and they doubt the full truth of the incident. Titan’s Death can be told without them.
“Personally, if I were in the Coast Guard, I would bring them in and let them occupy No. 5,” said Alton J. Hall Jr., a maritime attorney. “They do have subpoena power, so I’m not quite sure why they don’t.”
Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Melissa Leake, public information officer for the Titan Marine Corps Investigative Committee, noted that the Coast Guard has not commented on its reasons for not calling specific witnesses. However, she denied that the Coast Guard had not subpoenaed certain individuals or organizations because they would have defended Number Five.
The committee has a wealth of digital and physical evidence, such as data from previous dives and wreckage. titan Recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, including some carbon fiber hulls. One of the expert witnesses called was a materials engineer from the National Transportation Safety Board’s Materials Laboratory.
