I don't know if you all are following this -- as a retired Sonar Technician, this kind of stuff interests me intently. Trigger warning: some really scary descriptions of stuff that should not have happened, including people dying.

The guy who’s testifying today, David Lochridge, is mad (I mean, justifiably so, I think). He is mad at Oceangate, he is made at OSHA, he is mad at the Coast Guard. He kept receipts and notes for everything. They keep having to stop the hearing to reorganize their documents because he has so much. The Oceangate lawyer does not have the letter that Oceangate’s previous lawyers sent to this guy after they’d been informed of his Whistleblower status that basically reads like they followed the things that Whistleblower protection tells you not to do like a checklist of things to do.

Basically, I think the point he is getting across without actually saying this is, “I worked my ass off in 2018 and 2019 after Oceangate fired me to give you (OSHA, Coast Guard) what you needed to prevent this from happening, and you did not stop them.”

Wow, that was a day. Turns out that, according to Mr. Lochridge, OSHA spectacularly failed to do anything at all about the situation, or to help him or his family out when, after he'd been designated as being a protected Whistleblower, from Oceangate's lawsuits. OSHA was trying to encourage them to use ADR, when the point wasn't "we have a dispute", but rather it was "you're going to kill people with that thing." Eventually, he and his wife decided that OSHA wasn't going to do anything, and so they ended up withdrawing the complaint. Every year they'd see Oceangate posting about stuff (such as, apparently, testing Titan in US waters, after they'd apparently told the Coast Guard that they were not going to do that) and they'd ask each other if this was the hear that Oceangate would kill someone, and 2023 unfortunately turned out to be the year.

So I suppose that the lesson learned here is that OSHA is probably chronically undermanned and underfunded, and if you want something to actually happen, you're going to have to try a multi-pronged approach (such as following up with the Coast Guard and asking them, "hey, has OSHA talked to you about this yet"?).

Okay, slight correction: I don’t think that OSHA specific informed Oceangate that the complaint they’d received was from Lochridge. Nevertheless, the letter OG sent him and his wife sure sounded like it was ticking off the boxes of what not to do with a whistleblower and even if their lawyers didn’t know that he’d received that status, I still think they should have known better (my opinion only).

Okay, yesterday I wasn't really able to focus because work was mayhem and I haven't caught up with what I missed. But the interesting main takeaway for yesterday's hearing was Renata Rojas' testimony, which directly contradicted that of David Lochridge's. He testified that during the dive on the Andrea Doria, that Stockton Rush basically drove the sub directly into the debris of the wreck and got them stuck, and that he kept telling Rush to give him the Playstation controller and let him (Lochridge) get the sub free, and Rush kept refusing, until Rojas sword at Rush and told him to give Lochridge the controller, at which point Rush threw the controller at Lochridge, that it hit him in the head (Lochridge was standing at this point, his head up in a viewing dome at the top of the sub, if I remember this correctly) and fell to the ground and a button popped off, but that Lochridge was able to repair it and get the sub out after about 15 minutes' of work. Lochridge was confident that Rojas would confirm this when she testified.

But she did not. She said that she did not swear, and that Rush placed the Playstation controller at Lochridge's feet, and that a button did not pop off and the controller did not need to be repaired.

Hearing is starting now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOaatO7CBOw&list=PLgOje37c-b1NswzbM8kMEGRrdup_xwlW9&index=4

I'd like to add that the photograph of the o-ring in its slot, with the big plunge holes, in Lochridge's quality inspection report (the one Oceangate made him retract, and which is here because it's evidence: https://media.defense.gov/2024/Sep/17/2003545257/-1/-1/0/CG-098%20QUALITY%20INSPECTION%20REPORT_REDACTED.PDF), is appalling. As mentioned before, I'm a retired US Navy Sonar Technician and we have o-rings like this in our sonar dome hatch in Arleigh-Burke-class destroyers and that's only two atmospheres of pressure and I just can't even.

Fred Hagen on the stand. The interlocutor asks him "can you tell us about that mission" (I'm paraphrasing) and he replies "yes, I can. <pause with a chuckle> I suppose you want me to do that."

Fred Hagen mentions getting a parody "Troublemaker" award from Oceangate for breaking the shipboard rules of the support ship, and on several occasions mentions "prevailing" on pilots to continue with dives when the rest of the passengers/crew wanted to return to the surface, or to get on a dive that he wasn't supposed to go on (there had been an incident, passengers weren't supposed to go, but he insisted).

He doesn't remember how the payment for his participation (something like US$250 K if I recall correctly) happened -- that was something his secretary did, and he definitely gave off the impression that such petty concerns were beneath him.

So he's definitely one of those. Nothing like being a really rich old white man to give you the sense that you are entitled to break rules and push boundaries to suit yourself.

Basically my feeling at this point is that if you were to have in your mind a Wikipedia entry about the classical Entitled Rich White Male American, this guy's picture would be illustrating it.

Right now, Patrick Lahey, Triton Submarines is basically describing how they build and test submarines, and seems to be using the same highly-controlled proof-of-provenance/testing/chain-of-custody processes that I remember learning about when I was learning about the SUBSAFE program in my training as a Quality Assurance Inspector in the U.S. Navy. It is day and night difference from Fred Hagen's testimony that really felt like he as advocating that a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach to "innovation" is completely normal and acceptable. (IMO: it is not, and Lahey is talking about this right now: "innovation has to be done in the crucible of ... rules that give you guardrails; you can't just go free-style."). He's basically laying down the argument that contrary to Rush and other Rush-supporters, the certification agencies are not "anti-innovation".

He is such a breath of fresh air after Fred Hagen's testimony.

This is what Patrick Lahey is talking about right now (it's supposed to be able to go to 4000 meters depth).

Oh, I really hope that what he's saying about how important thorough testing/certification/SUBSAFE-style material provenance is actually true because damn

Cite: https://tritonsubs.com/subs/gullwing/?dc=pro

Okay, Patrick Lahey is done. Absolute class act. Amazing passion for the sea. 12/10 would watch him testify again.

I have missed some bits. I think they’ve skipped to Antonella Wilby (and might be wrong; this is remote testimony and her screen isn’t labeled).

Impressions: “safety theater” is a perfect, and horrifying turn of phrase

She described a situation in one of the dives to the Titanic in Titan where there was a comms and tracking breakdown; she was on the nav team and they could not establish, with confidence, where the sub was.

The support ship has its own tracking system and knew exactly where the Titan was. The mate on duty comes over and offers to share this information. Wilby says yes, I absolutely want this information and then, according to her, Wendy Rush steps in and refuses, insisting that the operation is entirely Oceangate’s, so the mate leaves.

The actual FUCK. How the FUCK do you have human beings at the bottom of the ocean in an experimental vehicle and you TURN AWAY INTEL.

I don't know if I'm going to catch up with all that I've missed before things start up tomorrow, but I wanted to point out a video with failure analysis on YouTube by Scott Manley, which includes ROV footage of more of the Titan debris than we saw in the intro brief.

His analysis lines up with what Tym Catterson (a former contractor with Oceangate and witness on day 1) was saying about what he thought happened, though he does not explicitly say what Tym was, was that the pressure on the middle of the carbon fiber hull caused its ends to flex outward, and the epoxy connection between the forward titanium ring and the carbon hull failed all at once (all the way around). Tym Catterson made a specific point to say that this would have happened instantaneously, and wanted to stress that in his opinion, the occupants could not have been aware of it. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, that the last thing they would have been aware of was being excited and happy because they were about to see the Titanic, and he really wanted to make sure that their families and friends were reassured that their last thoughts would have been of joy, not fear.

Setting up for today's hearings.

Yesterday's testimony about carbon fiber was interesting, and I am not sure I buy Guillermo Sohnlein's assertion that neither he nor Stockton Rush were interested in providing tourist opportunities, but rather purely in exploration. I wouldn't argue that he believes it, but everything else points to the idea that yes, money was very much Oceangate's primary focus in its operations.

The media have gotten some things wrong; I saw an article which claimed that Wilby heard "the loud bang" that happened in Dive 80, but she testified that she had heard from one of the small boat crew who had said that he had heard it, and that she herself had not heard anything (as she was in a shipping container used as an operations office).

Also, the strain gauge and acoustic data are now available on the MBI's website, but I still don't quite know what I'm looking at. I'm not sure I understand how to read the strain data in particular (they keep referring to "movement" but I don't think anyone explained what the markings on the charts actually mean -- movement in a direction? If so, which direction? etc).

I will be curious to see if the Board asks Amber Bay, whom Antoinella Wilby said had turned Wilby's attempts to express her concerns about safety into a "yes, everyone's concerned about you, you don't seem to have an explorer's mindset" focus on Wilby herself (aka DARVO), about this conversation.

Karl Stanley on now, not buying the whole naming of "passengers" as "mission specialist".

Amber Bay's testimony, not surprisingly, contradicted Antoinella Wilby's, but with very little detail beyond referring to Wilby as "unprofessional" and saying that Wilby had started crying because the comms team lost communication with the sub while it was still on the surface which I find hard to believe. I'm probably a bit biased against Oceangate at this point, though, so take anything I say about it with a large grain of salt.

Okay, so yesterday was super interesting, but not really because of technical stuff, but because of what Karl Stanley was trying to say in his statement at the end, which the MBI chair would not let him finish (rightly, I think).

Basically, he was trying to explain his hypothesis for why Stockton Rush was willing to cut risks and push an "innovative" type of design, which by extension might explain such terms such as "explorer's mindset" that were alleged to be in use by a number of Oceangate's leadership. It was Stanley's contention that Stockton Rush was driven by a desire to be fully accepted by the Bohemian Club, that extremely exclusive playground for mostly white, 100% rich men (read more on Wikipedia, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Club), whose membership is basically all of the really rich white CEOs and political leaders in the US that you know of, and most especially the ones who are generally loathed by people who are not rich white American men. This includes Rush's father, who apparently was Vice President of the club.

Stanley said that the Club would only let Rush in "as entertainment", and was trying to say (I'm paraphrasing here) that this was such a huge chip on Rush's shoulder that he was trying to make some kind of mark that would impress these men enough to let him be a full-fledged member.

I tried to look up whether Fred Hagen was a member (he certainly fit the profile) and wasn't able to find anything. But it would be interesting to see how many investors and mission specialists were associated with the Club; I would think that if Stanley's hypothesis were true, that Rush would mostly be courting (either as investors or paid passengers) members of the Club.

But the Board did not let him finish. I think that's probably wise, because the mindset of Rush is not really what they're trying to establish -- they're trying to establish what happened, how it happened, whether any crimes occurred and if so, who committed those crimes, not necessarily motivating factors like "Rush was trying to impress the Bohemian Club", because it's not like the Coast Guard is going to be able to make a recommendation for statues or rules to address this kind of thing. Also, Rush is not around to talk about this himself.

But Stanley certainly had an axe to grind about it, so I'm sure this will come out in the media, because once he was released by the Board, they'd have been able to interview him, and I cannot for an instant imagine that journalists would pass up on the opportunity to hear something involving the Bohemian Club, which has been, ah, controversial since practically the day it was founded.

They're going into detailed analysis of the Titan wreckage now. If you've suffered trauma and are still processing it, this might be a good time to skip watching the hearings.

I am significantly behind in the testimony (started late, paused for a shower), but in my viewing, Dr. Kramer has finished his presentation. I'm going to make an hypothesis here:

In Dive 80, the "loud bang" was the sound of the hull delaminating into the three shells Dr. Kramer mentioned in his presentation (layer 1 into shell 1, layers 2/3 into shell 2, layers 4/5 into shell 3), with the most distinct and complete delamination between shell 1 and 2. If the strain gauges were attached to layer 1 (iirc, they were), this accounts for the change in strain gauge data on subsequent dives: the gauges wouldn't start really reacting until the strain had reached shell 1. I hypothesize that this delamination was most pronounced on the forward end of the hull.

The rubbing noted on shell 1 occurred because the outer two shells (possibly still laminated, so really just two shells at this point maybe) had more freedom to move and were, in fact, moving. This also weakened the epoxy bond between the shells and the forward ring.

On the final dive, the epoxy gave way. This allowed explosive saltwater intrusion into the interstices between the shells, popping them apart, Because the delamination was most pronounced in the forward part of the shell, the carbon fiber there for the most part simply shattered. Larger pieces remained intact in the aft direction. Parts of shell 3 did not delaminate at the adhesive part, but were simply cracked off by the forces being applied from the forward direction.

I'll come back and reassess this hypothesis when the hearings are over (or have reached a point where they have settled on a determination of what happened), and see how closely this allies with the conclusion they reach.

Also, I should note that my impression, from what I've seen so far, is that Oceangate made some 1/3 scale models based on their design for Titan 1, then when they went to make Titan 2, they changed the manufacturing process in response to the testing of the 1/3 scale models. But, crucially, they did not make a 1/3 scale model using this new manufacturing process for testing. I'll come back and correct myself if this turns out to be incorrect, but I'm pretty sure it's correct.

I am only halfway through today’s testimony (I am behind). NGL, I’d love to work for William Kohnen.

The big bombshell so far:

Contrary to the narrative that OceanGate just couldn’t get Titan classed because it was so innovative that no one would try, Kohnen casually mentions the name of a person in Germany who, at no cost to OceanGate, wrote up a proposal and a bid to class the submarine. It would have taken a lot of money and time because the design was so new. You will be shocked, I am sure, to learn that Kohnen referred to OceanGate’s dismissal of the proposal as “casual”.

Next:

Kohnen’s company built the first viewport for the Titan, and rated it for 650 meters because it was non-standard and would require testing to confirm it could be rated for more pressure. It was a combination of a spherical and flat design, so the most his company would be willing to do, without testing, was rate it to the pressure of the weaker geometry (the flat shape). That window ended up being damaged, so OceanGate contracted with a different company to make a replacement. OceanGate claimed this new window was rated for 1300 meters. You may recall that one of the criticisms of OceanGate is that the window was only rated for 1300 meters and OceanGate would not test/fund a window rated to 4000 meters.

Kohnen explained that without evidence that the new window had been tested (proof of which would have been captured in a particular form), and assuming the window was made to the same specifications with the same type of acrylic, this copy could really only be rated to the same pressure/depth of the original. Which means it was never rated for 1300 meters - it was in fact rated for 650 meters.

(This latter bit is not actually news; it’s been reported before, but earlier on in the hearing we’s heard about this rating, and it turns out the whole “1300 meters” was just, I don’t know, made up for something.)

William Kohnen (yes, I'm still catching up) throwing shade on Murmansk: "Piracy has been an issue for 2000 years, you're not solving that. But what you can do is prevent access to international waters. You can make it so that if a concern has to go to the dive site from Murmansk, so be it. They can do it, it'll be expensive. But they won't be able to do it from a civilized port." (paraphrase)

Sorry, Murmansk!

Only one (1) day behind now. Just got done with yesterday -- Bart Kemper from Kemper Engineering. Fascinating. Very powerful commentary about the need to not put people into something when you don't understand the design life of that thing, that engineering first principles include understanding your requirements, and how those requirements will impact things like design life: "There is no respawn, you're not coming back from this, you only get to say 'oops' once."

Oh! And also directly contradicting the idea that it was too expensive to pay for advice/help from the submarine/submersible community as complete hogwash. Like my dude, these are professional engineers who are straight-up obsessed with this stuff. They will literally stop what they are doing -- eating and sleeping even -- if they get a chance to help you out with Their Blorbo.

I'm starting today's testimony now; tomorrow's the last day so by the weekend it'll be over. Then we'll just have to wait -- a long time, I'm guessing -- for the BoI to conclude what they think caused the implosion. But I really hope that better regulation comes out of this, and I hope the USCG takes on board all of the recommendations they got. It would be amazing to go partake in a submarine dive, or live in an underwater habitat (I have never stopped loving the idea of working undersea a la The Abyss).

Oh, also, the main site (here: https://www.news.uscg.mil/News-by-Region/Headquarters/Titan-Submersible/) has been updated with all kinds of new evidence, presentations etc. The censors have redacted to, imo, a ridiculous amount (they redacted the name of author of the NAVSEA on acrylic windows from the image of the cover page of the NAVSEA and I'm like, why did you do that? And not redact his name from the explanatory paragraph on the slide immediately in front of that image?), but there's a lot more info, if you are into that sort of thing.

Okay, back to being one day behind. I just caught up with yesterday's testimony. LCDR Duffett, from the Coast Guard, looks and sounds so much like Onmund from Skyrim that I think I've been sitting around listening to regulatory, guidance, and statutory discussions for way, way too long and my brain is starting to short-circuit.

Key moments: o The Chair announcing that the MBI's or Coast Guard's (I forget which) legal folks have made a determination as to whether OceanGate was operating an unnumbered, uninspected passenger-for-hire passenger submarine (Cyclops 1) in US territorial waters (the wreck of the Andrea Doria)* and will share that with the NTSB, but didn't state the determination for the record. You're killing me, Smalls!

* If you are a US owner of a vessel that is one of a number of types, and it's under a certain tonnage, you don't need a title or certificate, but it *does* need a number. If the submersible does not have a letter from the Coast Guard designating it as an Oceanographic Research Vessel and it carries one (1) passenger-for-hire (i.e, that person has paid money or some other form of consideration, including paying for gas or snax, and the passengers** in Cyclops 1 paid $35K each), it's required to be inspected. ** I think there were at least two: Scott Parazynski, mentioned in this article: https://oceannews.com/news/subsea-and-survey/oceangate-conducts-the-first-submersible-dives-to-the-legendary-andrea-doria-shipwreck-in-20-years/ and Renata Rojas, who testified to the hearing about that dive specifically, but even if it was just her, she would have met the "1 paying passenger" requirement. o Counsel for OceanGate tries to get Onmund LDCR Duffett to agree that if OceanGate notified the Coast Guard Sector that they were going to be diving on the wreck of the Andrea Doria, that it was the Coast Guard's responsibility to verify that the company and its vessel was compliant.

LDCR Duffett: By Talos, this can’t be happening.

No, I'm kidding, what he really said is no, it's the responsibility of the master/owner/operator of the vessel to ensure it is compliant.

One of the main takeaways from today is that there is a whole lot of confusing, and sometimes contradictory information, and a lot of this information is presumed by people to be regulatory where in fact it's just guidance. They've been talking about "Navigation and Vessel and Inspection Circulars" (NVICs) which have often been referred to (and repeatedly corrected by the Board) as "statute" or "regulation" when they are not either of those things; they are just, as LCDR Duffett explained, "equivalencies to statute: they are a way to comply, but not the only way".

Top this off with the fact that one very key NVIC (NVIC 5-93, released in 1993) has parts of it that have been changed by subsequent laws, but the NVIC itself (which has not been superseded or cancelled) has not been updated to reflect the changes. So if you're looking at this thing, which OceanGate clearly was, and it's telling you that submersibles carrying fewer than 6 passengers-for-hire don't need to be inspected, and you are not aware of the changes to the actual code, 46 CFR § 70.10-1, which changed this to "a submersible vessel carrying at least one passenger for hire" (which happened in 1994), you may not be aware that your vessel needs to be inspected.

Poor LCDR Duffett, when asked why, in the intervening thirty years, NVIC 5-93 hasn't been updated to reflect the changes, could only say "I don't know."

The Better Half: probably no one told them. Me: I am 100% sure that the various professional organizations that handle submersibles and submarine technology have been telling them about this for years.

What I'd recommend, though, is that anyone who wants this changed should just rewrite the NVIC with the changes and send it to the Coast Guard as a draft document. It's no guarantee that this will work, but in my experience, if you present busy people with a finished product that they just have to review and approve (rather than one they have to write themselves), it is vastly more likely to happen.

Last day of testimony; based on the updated docs at the BoI website, I was thinking today would be mostly testimony about the search & rescue (SAR) efforts after comms with the Titan were lost. But no, today we're starting off with testimony from Matthew McCoy, who worked at OceanGate in their operations (mostly port-related things and small boat stuff).

McCoy had been in the Coast Guard and, in fact, had been a qualified Boarding Officer (engaged in enforcement) in Honolulu and Kauai in Hawai'i. So even though he hadn't been hired for Coast Guard/marine regulatory counsel or support, he was able to recognize that OceanGate was taking planning to take passengers for hire in an uninspected passenger submersible. He forwarded a copy of the relevant parts of 46 CFR 70.10-1 (for reference, here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/46/70.10-1) to his boss, and got taken out to lunch by his boss, Scott Griffith, and Stockton Rush, who tried to explain away his concerns and could not. The familiar excuse of "the regulations are stifling innovation" was trotted out, then Rush explained that they were going to flag the Titan in the Bahamas and sail out of Canada so that they wouldn't be subject to US jurisdiction (notwithstanding that I'm pretty sure both the Bahamas and Canada have regulations; the US isn't the only place that has them) McCoy explained that if any part of the operation touched the US, it would bring in US regulations. At that point, according to McCoy, Rush said that "if the Coast Guard became a problem, he would just buy himself a Congressman and make it go away." At that point, McCoy quit his job at OceanGate. "I've never had anyone say that to me directly, and I was aghast."

Two thoughts: what? and also: the idea that somehow the United States is immune to corruption is 100% false, if someone is breezily saying something to this to an ex-Coast Guard Sailor with a background in enforcement. To be fair (if "fair" is the right word), I don't know that Rush knew about McCoy's background. But somehow it seems even worse, that he would breezily suggest this to someone he does not know well and think it would be okay.

The next witnesses were talking about the Search and Rescue (SAR) response. But the biggest things were that:

o There wasn't any evidence in the records that OceanGate had notified the Coast Guard (any Coast Guard) that they were going to be operating dives at the Titanic wreck site. This seems consistent with Mr. McCoy's testimony that Stockton Rush didn't want to deal with the Coast Guard.

o However, Scott Talbot, the USCG civilian SAR expert who was responsible for chairing a board to review the response noted that there was a noted lack of documentation (e.g., the CG's old "MISLE" system, for recording incidents & information, is antiquated to the extent that it would be incredibly difficult for a watch stander to ensure that it was kept up to date). So we may not ever know if OceanGate ever notified anyone. But still, based on the evidence so far, I'm pretty sure that the company felt that it had done its own proper preparation for contingencies and did not need to notify anyone of where they were going or what they were doing.

o It did point out that the current guidance for SAR in the US (including checklists used by people receiving reports) is based on the idea that submarine accidents would involve a military submarine, so the plan was "turn it over to the US Navy", and the US Navy had made it clear that they were not able to respond to a commercial submersible accident. So...nobody was clearly ready to be the expert in this. The response effort changed out the person responsible for coordinating the response three times, which Talbot described as unprecedented, due to the incredibly novel nature of the situation.

o The NSTB rep mentioned that after the Johnson Sea Link accident in 1973 (here on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Sea_Link_accident), apparently part of the post-analysis was a recommendation to generate a and maintain a list of world-wide resources for submarine rescue, and the US Navy had later reported that this was done and the list distributed to the Coast Guard: Mr. Talbot had never heard of this.

So this Board of Inquiry has wrapped up; I am curious as to whether they will convene another (to cover such things as Mr. Kohnen's reference of a person in Germany who was willing to undertake classifying the Titan) -- the chair mentioned, in answer to a question from the (completely unmic'd) media, that it's possible there could be more hearings. I'd also be curious to find out whether a determination of perjury will be pursued, given the completely contradictory testimony provided by Renata Rojas and David Lochridge.

It's weird, though, that in response to a question, the chair insisted that the mindset of the master/CEO (in this case, Stockton Rush) is important, and yet when Karl Stanley tried to get into this, he cut him off (though the more I think about it, I can't help but think, just remembering the bitterness in his voice, that maybe he's got is own personal issues with the Bohemian Club, and perhaps Mr. Neubauer recognized this and this is why he put a stop to Stanley's discussion of it.

It was good to hear that the Coast Guard has already changed the way it handles receiving reports from OSHA, so that no one has to experience what David Lochridge did. I do hope that in the end, the regulations and guidance will actually be updated in a way that encourages, rather than discourages, people to follow it, rather than trying to cut corners (or "buy a Congressman").

This is important. I believe we need to expand, not restrict, exploration and understanding of the world's oceans. I believe that our human connection to the sea is so fundamental (it predates our acquisition of the consciousness that makes us human) that if people are able to go down onto and into the ocean, they cannot but fail to feel that connection, and we're going to need people to feel that connection if we're going to adequately fight climate change and other environmental issues facing us as a species. If we fail to preserve the seas, we will not be able to preserve ourselves.