“Nobody was crying and there was definitely no swearing or yelling,” said Renata Rojas
A former OceanGate mission specialist — the title given to paying passengers or observers of its underwater dives — struck a defensive and sometimes tearful tone and pushed back on some other testimony while appearing in the Coast Guard’s ongoing hearing into the Titan tragedy that killed five people last summer, including CEO Stockton Rush.
Renata Rojas, a self-described Titanicobsessive, testified on Thursday, Sept. 19, that she disagreed with former OceanGate operation director David Lochridge’s account of a 2016 dive, which he said resulted in Rush falling into a “panic” due to a lack of experience.
At the time, Rush was piloting another OceanGate submersible called the Cyclops 1 on a trip to see the remains of the Andrea Doria ocean liner. The shipwreck is relatively close to the surface of the Northern Atlantic Ocean and the Cyclops crew had a “clear sonar image,” Lochridge said in his testimony on Tuesday, Sept. 17.
However, Lochridge said that Rush “smashed straight down on the bottom,” and although Lochridge cautioned him to wait for better visibility before continuing on with the journey, Rush did not listen and eventually “got us jammed in underneath” the wreckage.
Lochridge testified that Rush kept repeating “we’re stuck, we’re stuck, we’re stuck” and only handed the sub controller when “one of the paying clients…shouted at Stockton to ‘give me the f–ing controller.’ ”
“She had tears in her eyes,” Lochridge said.
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But in her testimony on Thursday, Rojas, who was part of the small group of passengers, refuted Lochridge’s recollection of onboard chaos.
“He must have gone on a different dive,” she said. “Nobody was panicking. Nobody was crying and there was definitely no swearing or yelling.”
According to Rojas, the mission specialist role at OceanGate was a volunteer position that allows someone to get “involved in the operation.” She explained that after making a payment to the dive team, “you had the option once you showed up … to be an observer or passenger.”
She went on to recall how during a 2022 dive, the crew thought of using “ctrl+alt+delete” — a common keyboard shortcut used to reboot many computers and close frozen windows — when they reached the bottom of the ocean but were unable to keep moving forward.
“But then that could have created some issues,” she added. Eventually, they were able to get moving again by trying something different with the controller, but the lights were “flickering” as they resurfaced, she said.
Rojas, part of the “Explorers Club,” which lost members Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargeolet in the Titan implosion, said that she always understood what she was doing was “very risky” but that they “never at any point felt unsafe” with OceanGate.
On the day of the final Titan voyage last year, Rojas was working as a “platform assistant” and recalled seeing all five passengers, including Rush, “smiling” as they boarded the sub. “They were just happy to go,” she said.
As her testimony came to a close, Rojas cried as she reflected on how, “nothing is going to bring our friends back.”
However, Rojas went on to state that she hoped the investigation “creates an understanding that with exploration there is risk.”
“Without taking that risk and the exploration, the world would still be flat,” she added. “I hope that innovation continues, so that we can make the oceans accessible to people like me, who got to fulfill a dream.”
During the hearing, the Coast Guard will “review testimony from technical experts, crew members, and other relevant parties, and will examine evidence related to the submersible’s design, operation, and safety protocols.” Afterward, investigators are expected to submit a final report.
In a statement obtained, a spokesperson for OceanGate, which has suspended all business activity and “has no full-time employees,” said the company has “been fully 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.”
