“All good here.”
These were some of the last statements the doomed Titan submarine team sent out prior to the catastrophic implosion that killed all five of them on a June 2023 voyage to the Titanic debris. During a Coast Guard hearing on Monday, this last correspondence was revealed as part of a larger probe into the deadly mission.
On June 18, just before all contact was lost and the sub collapsed, the brief message was sent to the support ship Polar Prince. Unaware that the crew had already died, the world watched in silence as rescue crews frantically worked.
The Coast Guard presented a terrifying animated recreation of the Titan’s fatal descent during the hearing on Monday, describing the final, disjointed conversations between the crew and the Polar Prince. The dramatization showed that the support ship made several attempts to get in touch with the sub. Polar Prince repeatedly asked the Titan crew, seven times in seven minutes, if they could see the support vessel on the submersible’s display at around ten in the morning. The crew finally replied with “yes” and then “All good here” at 10:14 a.m. After the Titan replied with “k,” asking for a communication check, Polar Prince reiterated the query three times and wrote, “I need better comms from you.” At 10:47 a.m., a little more than half an hour later, all communication stopped.
Among those lost in the tragic incident were Stockton Rush, 61, OceanGate’s founder; Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, a French explorer; Hamish Harding, 58, a British adventurer; and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, along with his 19-year-old son, Suleman.
During Monday’s proceedings, the Coast Guard presented findings suggesting that the Titan faced repeated technical issues well before its fateful Titanic voyage. Test dives in 2021 revealed 70 equipment problems, while the following year saw an additional 48 reported issues, including malfunctions in the drop-weight system. Even more concerning, between the last test dive in 2022 and February 2023, the submersible was left exposed at a dock, with no protection from the elements.
In his testimony before the panel, Tony Nissen, the former engineering director of OceanGate, raised concerns and provided insight into the company’s internal workings. “I was never told they were going to the Titanic,” Nissen said, describing how he was not aware of the plans to take the sub to the Titanic site when he first joined the business. “Stockton would fight for what he wanted…most people would eventually back down,” he continued, describing Rush.
Nissen also disclosed that the submersible’s hull was partially damaged in 2018 by a lightning strike. In 2019, Nissen declined to authorize an expedition to the Titanic site after observing irregularities in acoustic studies that indicated the hull might be breached. When he declined to sign off, he was subsequently terminated, telling the panel, “I wouldn’t sign off on it. So I got terminated.” When asked if there was “pressure” to commence operations, Nissen responded, “100 percent.”
The Coast Guard is probing the circumstances surrounding the tragedy, with Marine Board of Investigation Chair Jason Neubauer stating they aim to identify contributing factors and establish safeguards to prevent future incidents. They’re also examining if “misconduct, negligence, or willful violations of the law” played a role in the disaster. This two-week inquiry will additionally review the Coast Guard’s own search and rescue efforts.
Following the hearing, it was clarified that Nissen’s concerns had focused on a prototype carbon fiber hull made in 2016, which OceanGate ultimately replaced in 2019 with a new carbon fiber hull used in later Titanic expeditions.
