The Titan team said ‘everything is good here’ before it was put under water

The last words heard by the five-person crew of the Titan submersible were “good enough here” before the vessel plunged into the ocean and killed them, the indictment revealed.

US Coast Guard investigators say it was among the last communications between the Titan and the mother ship before they lost contact forever.

The ocean liner was on its way to the Titanic disaster in June 2023 when it went down less than two hours later.

The US government agency began a two-week investigation on Monday “aimed at uncovering the facts surrounding this incident and making recommendations to prevent similar tragedies in the future”.

It is the first public phase of an investigation that began 15 months ago into the undersea disaster that set off international search and rescue efforts.

Unanswered questions about the Titan’s botched dive have fueled debate over safety and control in the world of secretive undersea exploration.

OceanGate, the Washington-state-based manufacturer behind the system, has faced questions about design choices, its safety record and its compliance with regulations.

10 former OceanGate employees, including its founder Guillermo Sohnlein, along with experts in maritime safety and underwater exploration, are expected to testify in the next two weeks before the Coastal Board of Investigation (MBI).

The MBI is the highest available level of investigation into U.S. maritime fatalities and holds about one hearing a year, its chairman told reporters Sunday.

“Of the thousands of investigations that have been done, less than one has risen to this level,” said Jason Neubauer.

“There are no words to ease the loss endured by the families affected by this tragic incident,” he added.

“But we hope that this scene will help clarify the cause of this massacre and prevent anything like this from happening again.

The board, made up of senior officials from the Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), has the authority to recommend civil penalties or refer criminal charges to the US Department of Justice.

A search and rescue operation involving four governments took place after the submarine lost contact with its vessel, the Polar Prince, on the morning of June 18, 2023 and never resurfaced.

On the boat were OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush, British explorer Hamish Harding, veteran French diver Paul Henri Nargeolet, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Solomon.

Debris containing “presumed human remains” was found in the days that followed as authorities concluded that Titan had suffered a “catastrophe”, collapsing inward under extreme pressure.

On Monday, investigators released an animation of the voyage detailing repeated messages between Titan and the Polar Prince.

The ship’s support crew asked about the submersible’s depth and weight, and whether it could still see the ship on its display, but the crew’s answers became increasingly sketchy, Coast Guard officials said.

Also presented on Monday was a review of Titan’s history, where officials noted that its hull had never been subjected to third-party inspection and was left exposed to weather and other factors while in storage for seven months between 2022 and 2023.

OceanGate has suspended all exploration and commercial operations following the incident.

The company currently has no full-time employees but is cooperating with investigators and will be represented by a lawyer at MBI hearings, it said in a statement sent to the Associated Press.

Two days of public inquiry in North Charleston, South Carolina will look at “all aspects of the loss of the Titan”, including “pre-accident historical events, regulatory compliance, operations and personnel qualifications, mechanical and structural systems, emergency response and underwater industry”.

Additional hearings may be scheduled in the investigation, which was scheduled to last up to a year.

Once the investigation is complete, both the Coast Guard and the NTSB will issue reports containing their independent analysis.