Final words from the crew of Titan submarine revealed

The two-word phrase contained a sad irony

Employees of OceanGate have been giving evidence during the inquest to help better understand the tragic disaster that saw five people die in June last year.

The submersible was heading to explore the wreck of the Titanic, but sadly never made it, imploding before reaching the famous ship which sits at a depth of around 3,500m under the sea.

Now, during the hearing, the final words of the crew have been revealed.

The crew had been communicating with the support vessel, the Polar Prince, via message.

However, contact was lost as the Polar Prince continually asked for the Titan's depth and weight and if it could still see the ship on its onboard display.

It turns out that the last words send back to the Polar Prince were, "all good".

The hearing has revealed other details such as a history of decompression and parts becoming sunk during testing.

It was heard that in a 2023 expedition, an incident saw the vessel become "partially sunk" in the ocean during familiarisation training with no specialists on board. 

The Titan and its platform were found partially sunk with the tail cone fairing ripped off after a night of rough seas.

One witness, former OceanGate engineering director Tony Nissen, said that when he joined in 2016 the company had already built a model of the Titan submersible at a third of the size.

He said he had witnessed models implode in testing and saw a "rapid decompression" although claimed he didn't know much about it "except there were two others they tested before". 

"It wasn't surprised that it failed where it did," he said.

Upon being asked if the design was changed to rectify the problem he said that Brian Spencer, the chief executive of Spencer Composites, which had been contracted to make the hull for the submersible, was "not willing to change anything that he did". 

The hearing is expected to last two weeks.