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Titan submarine engineer told CEO: “I’m not getting in” for test dive

The chief engineer of the submersible Titan testified at a hearing that he felt pressured to get the ill-fated vessel operational and even refused to conduct a test dive with it.

Tony Nissen, OceanGate's former chief technical officer, testified Monday during a hearing before the Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation.

At the hearing, he was asked if he felt comfortable diving with the Titan. Nissen said his relationship with CEO Stockton Rush soured after he refused to pilot the submersible.

“I'm not getting on that ship,” Nissen said he told Rush, adding that he did not trust the ship's crew.

And when asked whether he felt “under pressure to start operations,” Nissen replied: “100 percent.”

Nissen testified he was fired in June 2019 for preventing the team from touring the Titanic that year. He said he told them “it wasn't working out the way we thought it would.”

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During the hearing, it was also revealed that the last words the Titan's passengers said to the supply ship Polar Prince were, “All is well here.”

According to a animated recreation of the Titan's journey As the Coast Guard stated at Monday's hearing, the crew sent the message to Polar Prince about 30 minutes before contact was lost.

The hearing in North Charleston, South Carolina, is scheduled to last two weeks. In addition to Nissen, OceanGate employees will testify, including Bonnie Carl, director of human resources and finance, and David Lochridge, director of operations.

The hearing comes more than a year after the ship set sail to explore the wreck of the RMS Titanic at a depth of nearly 4,900 meters.

After the supply ship lost contact with the submersible, a frantic search and rescue operation began. The US Coast Guard and OceanGate were finally able to announced on June 22, 2023, that the submersible had imploded.

All five men on board were killed in the tragic implosion. The victims were OceanGate CEO Rush, the British billionaire Hamish HardingBritish-Pakistani multimillionaire Shahzad Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman and the former French Navy diver Paul Henri Nargeolet.