OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush crashed a submersible into a shipwreck and then threw the vessel’s rudimentary controls at a more experienced employee years before he piloted the doomed Titan voyage last summer.

Former OceanGate Mission Specialist Renata Rojas was a passenger on numerous dives with OceanGate including one trip down to the Titanic on the Titan in 2022. Rojas, the fifth witness to testify in the hearing,

Earlier this month, the Coast Guard opened a public hearing that is part of a high-level investigation into the cause of the implosion. The public hearing began Sept. 16 and some of the testimony has focused on problems the Washington state company had prior to the fatal 2023 dive.

A former OceanGate worker gave a warning to the CEO of the company before the Titan submersible disaster. It’s been just over a year since the Titan sub suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ on its mission to visit the wreck of the Titanic.

OceanGate’s former director of operations testified that Stockton Rush crashed a submersible in 2016 and only gave up control when a tearful passenger screamed at him.

OceanGate's former engineering director said he had refused to pilot the ill-fated submersible which imploded more than a year ago.