The Titan submersible on June 22, 2023. Photo:
HANDOUT/US Coast Guard / Pelagic Research Services/AFP via Getty
“I felt the customer’s concerns were not taken particularly seriously,” former OceanGate contractor Antonella Wilby said during a hearing into the tragedy
A former OceanGate employee recalled a customer raising concerns to the company a year before the Titan submersible imploded and killed five people onboard in June 2023.
Antonella Wilby said during the Coast Guard hearing into the tragedy on Friday, Sept. 20, that she reported the customer’s “concerns” after the submersible’s dive 80 on July 15, 2022. Wilby was present for the dive but was not at mission control for that or any other dive.
Wilby explained that the day after the July 15, 2022, dive, the customer said during a debrief meeting that a bang “as loud as an explosion” was heard upon resurfacing. “I wasn’t aware the next day that there was something wrong,” Wilby, who was assigned to deck operations after dive 79, said during her testimony.
“I felt the customer’s concerns were not taken particularly seriously at that meeting,” Wilby added. “So, following the debrief, I went to Amber Bay, the director of administration, to raise my concerns about what I had just heard. I told her, ‘I am really concerned about what this customer just said and that there was a bang as loud as an explosion.’ I asked, ‘What’s being done?’ ”.
Wilby alleged Bay’s response was, “Yes, many people are concerned about you. You don’t seem to have an explorer mindset.”
“I was kind of taken aback by that because she didn’t acknowledge what I had just said and what was going to be done,” Wilby recalled.
Antonella Wilby.
U.S. Coast Guard
During her testimony, Wilby also shared OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush’s response to the customer’s concerns, stating that he said, “Shut it down,” which made Wilby feel “brushed to the side.”
Rush explained, per Wilby, “It was probably the sled banging against the frame. Oh, deep-sea vehicles make a lot of noise due to pressure changes.”
Additionally, when Wilby wanted to contact the board of directors regarding the bang, an OceanGate employee cautioned her that comments could violate an NDA and that the company was litigious, she said.
Wilby, a contractor who had been there for two weeks, remarked she couldn’t defend herself if she were to be sued.
U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters
Eventually, Willby quit OceanGate after raising the safety concerns.
On June 18, 2023, the Titan began its final dive as it descended into the North Atlantic and later imploded, killing Rush, 61; Titanicexpert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77; British-Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son, Suleman; and billionaire British explorer Hamish Harding, 58. Human remains from the implosion were later recovered.
Titan Submersible underwater on June 20, 2023.
HANDOUT/OceanGate Expeditions/AFP via Getty
Per an earlier statement shared with PEOPLE, a spokesperson for OceanGate, which has halted all business activity and “has no full-time employees,” said the company has “been fully cooperating with the Coast Guard and NTSB [National Transportation Safety Board] investigations since they began, including at the ongoing public hearing convened by the Coast Guard. OceanGate is represented at the hearing by Jane Shvets and Adrianna Finger of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP.”
“OceanGate expresses our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who died in the tragic implosion of the Titan,” the statement continued. “There are no words to ease the loss endured by the families impacted by this devastating incident, but we hope that this hearing will help shed light on the cause of the tragedy.”
The Coast Guard’s hearings into the implosion began on Monday, Sept. 16, are expected to last two weeks.
