Fred Hagen, who made multiple dives as a paying customer on the Titan submersible and lived to tell the tale, described several worrying incidents Friday at the Coast Guard investigative hearing on the sub's implosion last year. Hagen was identified as a "mission specialist," a title OceanGate gave paying passengers, the AP reports. He said that on one dive, the sub's front dome fell off when it was dropped while being lifted from the water onto the ship's deck, reports the BBC. The force "basically sheared off several bolts and they shot off like bullets. And the titanium dome fell off."
- Hagen said a mission to the wreckage of the Titanic in 2021 was aborted when the submersible malfunctioned. He said the starboard thruster malfunctioned on the way to the wreck, the AP reports. "We realized that all it could do was spin around in circles, making right turns," he testified. "At this juncture, we obviously weren't going to be able to navigate to the Titanic."