Back in the spring of 2023, the crew of the OceanGate submersible died when the hull of the craft failed underwater, on its way to view the wreckage of the Titanic.
It was big news a the time, and tragic. The entire crew -- including the teenage son of one of the passengers -- perished.
Now there's a lawsuit against OceanGate and we're looking at images of the vessel for the first time:
Wow…this is how they found the OceanGate vessel. pic.twitter.com/BfEtObbqFZ
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) September 17, 2024
This writer is amazed there was anything recognizable. The water pressure at that depth is tremendous.
Picture of sub’s wreckage on the ocean floor is shown at South Carolina hearing as Tony Nissen testifies he was sacked by Stockton Rush in 2019 for raising safety concerns ⬇️ https://t.co/s8Npc4v8We
— The Times and The Sunday Times (@thetimes) September 17, 2024
More on the lawsuit from The Times:
In opening testimony, OceanGate’s former engineering director, Tony Nissen, described how he had warned that Titan was dangerously unfit for taking sightseers to the wreck of the Titanic four years earlier, and that he was fired for saying so.
Nissen, who was hired in 2016, said that the company’s co-founder, Stockton Rush, was a “difficult person to work with” who repeatedly rejected concerns about the integrity of the capsule despite negative engineering assessments.
“It was the maddest I’ve ever seen him,” Nissen said of Rush’s reaction to his conclusion in 2019 that Titan should not be taken to depth. “He wanted me to sign off on the idea of going to the Titanic and I was [saying] no, you can’t … what we’re doing has never been done before … We don’t know what ‘good’ is supposed to look like. But what I do know is it shouldn’t look like that.
“I wouldn’t sign off on it, so I got terminated,” Nissen testified. “Stockton would fight for what he wanted. He wouldn’t give an inch. Most people would just immediately back down from Stockton; it was almost death by a thousand cuts in most things.”
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It's very sad, and maddening.
OceanGate's founder, Stockton Rush, crashed a sub years before the fatal Titan disaster, ex-employee says.
— Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs (@NickAtNews) September 17, 2024
He got the sub stuck in a wreck and threw the controls at another pilot's head when a passenger tearfully begged him to give them up.
(no paywall) https://t.co/i3exK0kpa1
Wow.
Yeah, I saw that yesterday too. I had expected it to be obliterated.
— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) September 17, 2024
So did this writer.
That's just the shroud at the rear of the submersible - it's cosmetic, not structural. Pretty much everything structural would have been forward of that, but has been obliterated.
— ChrisO_wiki (@ChrisO_wiki) September 17, 2024
Not surprising.
This was the piece photographed a year ago after they raised it pic.twitter.com/0yIdZbAYI2
— Random Internet Denizen (@DinosaurTaint) September 17, 2024
Really sad to see those pictures.
This is the unpressurized section and the funniest part is this is basically better than it normally looked while it was in service. https://t.co/rfZvy1giw3
— Athene: Scholar of the First Cosine (@AthenePromachos) September 17, 2024
Given the information in the lawsuit -- the vessel was apparently stored outside in the elements -- this makes sense.
they might still be in there https://t.co/WIUDXHwHIR
— beer person (@CantEverDie) September 17, 2024
It is this writer's understanding human remains were found in the wreckage.
Being the mother of a Titanic fan, this makes her very, very sad.
The lawsuit is ongoing, and Twitchy will keep you update as to the outcomes.
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