BBC2’s documentary Implosion reveals new information about Titan sub disaster

Day seven of the US Coast Guard's public hearing: New Titan sub wreckage images reveal carbon fibre hull damage linked to repeated dives

• Dr. Don Kramer, National Transportation Safety Board engineer, William Kohnen, Hydrospace Group Inc. (also the chairman of the Manned Underwater Vehicles Committee) and Bart Kemper, principal engineer of Kemper Engineering, then took to the stand.
• Dr. Kramer, an engineer with the National Transportation Safety Board, said the Titan sub’s carbon fibre hull showed signs of flaws, while Kohnen testified that the vessel’s carbon fibre hull was weakened on repeat dives to the Titanic wreck.

Day six of the US Coast Guard's public hearing: Former employee dismissed after raising safety concerns, close friend recalls CEO warning about hull noises

• The MBI released remotely operated vehicle footage of the Titan submersible’s salvage from June 26, 2023, which was recovered and transported to a secure facility for detailed analysis.
• Amber Bay, former OceanGate director of administration, testified first on Tuesday. She said when a former employee raised safety concerns, Rush asked Bay to release the employee from her contract because "she had acted erratically, unprofessionally".
• Karl Stanley, from the Roatan Institute of Deepsea Exploration, and a close friend of Rush, testified next. In April 2019, Stanley went on board the Titan sub on an expedition in the Bahamas. He said: "He told us to be prepared for noises. He had recently done the solo dive on his own, and basically just said, ‘this is going to make noise’ and ‘brace yourselves'."

• Stanley said there were "a lot of red flags" during the dive, including the fact he did not tow out deeper which showed Rush did not have "a lot of faith" in the sub. He also noted how Rush did not drive the sub, adding: "He didn’t do any of the driving. I believe I was the first one to drive, but he basically insisted it was his idea. Nobody asked to drive. I think that was his kind of sick way of [saying], if we had imploded, we were a little bit in control of our own destiny."
• Stanley also testified hearing cracking noises on the submersible and that it was so frequent he could "localise where it was coming from."

• He continued to say,  in retrospect, he would not have gone on the dive in 2019. Asked if he was aware there was a lightning strike in the vicinity of the sub in the Bahamas just before the 2019 dive, he responded: "The first time I heard of a lightning strike was reading about it. There’s a lot of things that, if I had known, I wouldn’t have gone," Stanley said.
• Following the dive, Stanley emailed Stockton Rush about concerns about a hull defect, which were read at the hearing. "I think that hull has a defect near that flange, that will only get worse. The only question in my mind is will it fail catastrophically or not," Stanley told Rush via e-mail.
• Stanley also addressed how he felt he was indirectly told not to discuss his concerns. The email continued: "The fact that you indirectly told me not to speak about the noises I heard on the dive, to me, says a lot. As you know, my subs have had many issues and incidents over the years, at no point did I find it necessary to tell anyone not to speak of what I saw or heard."