A key employee with the company that owned the experimental submersible that imploded en route to the wreckage of the Titanic pushed back at a question from a Coast Guard investigator about whether OceanGate felt a sense of “desperation” to complete the dives because of the high price tag.
“Not a desperation, there definitely was an urgency to delivery on what we had offered and a dedication and perseverance towards that goal,” said Amber Bay, director of administration for the company that owned the doomed Titan submersible. She insisted the company would not “conduct dives that would be risky just to meet a need.”
Other witnesses have characterized those who paid $250,000 to participate in OceanGate voyages to the Titanic as passengers, but Bay described them more as explorers who were invited to take an active role in the missions. “These were the people we were looking for. Explorers. Adventurers,” Bay testified Tuesday.
OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush was among the five people who diedwhen the submersible imploded in June …