The Biggest Revelations From The Titan Submersible Hearing So Far

The ill-fated Titan submersible is back in the spotlight this week as the U.S. Coast Guard holds an investigatory hearing into the circumstances surrounding the implosion of OceanGate’s deep-sea vessel last year, a tragedy that killed all five people on board.

The first two days of testimony have painted an alarming picture of the way OceanGate founder Stockton Rush, who died while piloting the vessel, allegedly ran his company, handled safety concerns from his employees, kept outsiders away from the project, and rushed to bring his submersible to the Titanic wreckage.

Here are the biggest new pieces of information that have been revealed at the hearing thus far, including new images of the vessel’s wreckage and details about the crew’s last communications.

Crew’s Eerie Final Messages Were Revealed

One of the last messages the crew sent to its support, Polar Prince, was “all good here,” according to a visual re-creation the Coast Guard showed on the first day of the hearing.

The actual final message the crew sent was “dropped two wts,” a reference to the vessel weights used for ascending and descending, investigators revealed. Contact was lost six seconds later.

Rob McCallum, a former advisor to OceanGate, spoke about that message last summer shortly after the implosion, saying it indicated something had gone wrong and the submersible was trying to return to the surface.

First Image Of The Titan’s Wreckage Released

The Coast Guard shared the first image of the Titan’s debris on the ocean floor, showing its tail cone submerged in the sand and surrounded by other fragments from the submersible. It was taken by a remotely operated vehicle, or ROV.

That detached tail cone, which is not part of the crew’s hull, was the