'Where are they?': Emotional witness reveals moment she knew Titan sub had vanished
19 September 2024, 17:43
A witness has revealed the harrowing moment the doomed OceanGate Titan sub vanished in a hearing into the disaster.
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Five people were killed when the private submersible imploded during a visit to the Titanic last year.
Speaking today, Renata Rojas, a mission specialist at OceanGate, revealed the moment her crew realised the sub was missing.
Unlike many of the other witnesses at this week’s US Coast Guard hearing, Ms Rojas began her testimony with positive words about OceanGate.
"I was learning a lot and working with amazing people," Ms Rojas said.
Read more: Titan was 'abomination of a sub', crucial OceanGate witness claims
"Some of those people are very hard working individuals that were just trying to make a dream come true."
She told the hearing “things were working very smoothly” in the moments before the sub begun its dive.
Emotional, she continued: “They were just happy to go, that’s the memory I have”.
Opening about the moment she knew something might have gone wrong, she remembered thinking: “We haven't heard from them, where are they?"
"They were very close to the Titanic.
"Usually they are allowed at least an hour," Rojas added, saying the guests on Titan may have wanted more time to explore the ocean depths.
But as time continued to pass, Rojas began considering calling the coastguard.
"After another 15 minutes we're calling the coastguard," Rojas then recalled telling her colleague aboard the support vessel.
"That's what we did. We went into 'go mode'".
Rojas told the hearing she knew the risks involved with taking the trip, comparing the Titan submersible to the Apollo Space programme.
“They tested by doing,” she added.
This comes after the last words of the Titan’s crew before the sub imploded were revealed to be “all good.”
The US Coast Guard presented an animated re-creation of the journey of the Titan on Monday, the first day of what is expected to be a two-week hearing into the causes of the implosion in June 2023.
Crew aboard the Titan were communicating with support staff aboard the Polar Prince via text messages, according to the presentation.
The crew lost contact after an exchange of repeated inquiries from the Polar Prince about the submersible’s depth and weight as it descended.
The Polar Prince then sent repeated messages asking if the Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display. One of Titan’s final responses, which became spotty as it descended, was “all good here”.
Coast guard officials also gave an overview of the history of the Titan, during which they stated that the hull of the craft was never subject to third-party checks. Officials also said the sub was left exposed to weather and elements while in storage for seven months in 2022 and 2023.
The Titan sub was attempting to dive 2.4 miles to reach the Titanic shipwreck which lies 380 miles from St John’s in Newfoundland, Canada, when it lost contact on June 18 2023.
After four days, debris of the submersible was found close to the wreck.
A “catastrophic implosion” had occurred, killing all five crew members. These were British explorer Hamish Harding, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush and French deep-sea explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet (known as “Mr Titanic”).
