OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush crashed a submersible into a shipwreck and then threw the vessel’s rudimentary controls at a more experienced employee years before he piloted the doomed Titan voyage last summer.

Earlier this month, the Coast Guard opened a public hearing that is part of a high-level investigation into the cause of the implosion. The public hearing began Sept. 16 and some of the testimony has focused on problems the Washington state company had prior to the fatal 2023 dive.

Former OceanGate Mission Specialist Renata Rojas was a passenger on numerous dives with OceanGate including one trip down to the Titanic on the Titan in 2022. Rojas, the fifth witness to testify in the hearing,

The scientific director for the company that owned the Titan submersible that imploded last year while on its way to the Titanic wreckage testified Thursday that the sub had malfunctioned just

OceanGate's former engineering director said he had refused to pilot the ill-fated submersible which imploded more than a year ago.

I'm not getting in it,'” Tony Nissen said he told Stockton Rush, co-founder of the OceanGate company that owned the Titan submersible.

Titan engineer felt 'under pressure' to get doomed submersible out to sea - Engineer Tony Nissen told an inquiry into the Titan which imploded killing five that he had previously flagged safety concer

Tony Nissen said he refused to pilot the Titan years ago because he didn't trust the operations staff, and that he stopped the submersible from going to the Titanic in 2019.