New Details of the “Titan” Passengers' Final Moments and 3 More Highlights from Coast Guard Investigation

“I have no desire to die,” the doomed sub's pilot and creator, Stockton Rush, previously said

Over the last week, a number of new details and revelations have been made public as part of the U.S. Coast Guard’s ongoing investigation into how the Titan submersible imploded during a doomed dive last summer, killing all five people onboard.

The headline-grabbing moments at the hearing — which began in Charleston, S.C., on Sept. 16 and ends on Friday, Sept. 27 — included confirmation of the Titan’s final messages to the surface, photos and video of recovery teams later discovering the submersible’s remains on the ocean floor and a number of firsthand accounts about what it was like working or diving with Titan operator OceanGate, which has now ceased operations and is cooperating with the Coast Guard.

Investigators will submit a final report once their work is complete, which is expected to go beyond the two-week hearing.

Officials could also make recommendations about deep-sea diving and private submersibles, like the Titan — whose design has attracted widespread scrutiny and criticism by other experts who say it didn’t conform to industry norms.

Here are some of the highlights from the Titan hearing so far.

The Titan Sub Sent Final Message Seconds Before Losing Contact

The last texts exchanged between the Titan and its support ship, the Polar Prince, were confirmed as part of a recreation of the Titan dive to see the Titanic wreckage that was shown by U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation officials on Sept. 16, near the start of the hearing.

The animated video detailed how the Titan began diving down from the Polar Prince off the coast of Canada around 9:20 a.m. local time on June 18, 2023.

At 10:47 a.m., at a depth of about 3,350 meters and a pressure of 4,900 lbs. per square inch, the Titan messaged that they “dropped two wts,” referring to their weights — and contact was then lost almost immediately, at 10:47:32 a.m., according to the Coast Guard.

An expert has told PEOPLE that dropping the weight was likely just to help the Titan traverse the water around the Titanic.

Eerie Photo and Video of Titan Debris Helped Confirm Implosion

Last week, authorities released the first photo of what remained of the Titan on the floor of the North Atlantic Ocean after the submersible imploded.

The image, which features the vessel's tail cone embedded into the seabed more than 12,000 feet below the surface, was presented by U.S. Coast Guard officials on Sept. 16.

The photographic evidence, from a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), led to "conclusive evidence of a catastrophic loss" of the Titan and the death of its five passengers, officials said in their presentation.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

The victims were Paul-Henri Nargeolet and another adventurer, Hamish Hardin; father and son Shahzada and Suleiman Dawood; and Stockton Rush, who co-founded OceanGate, the company behind the Titan.

According to the Coast Guard's presentation, the ROV, called the Pelagic Research Services 6000, discovered the aft tail cone and other debris after extensive searching on June 22, 2023, four days after the submersible lost contact with the surface.

Video also released by the U.S. Coast Guard gave a closer look at what remained of the Titan — its "dome, aft ring, hull remnants and carbon fiber debris on the seafloor" as found by an ROV, the Coast Guard said.

Dueling Pictures of OceanGate Founder and Titan Pilot

Years before the final dive, Rush took another small group of passengers to see another famed ship beneath the waves — but fell into “panic” due to a lack of experience, a former operations director claimed.

David Lochridge, who worked at OceanGate until 2018, which Rush co-founded and ran as CEO, testified on Sept. 17. He did not mince words about his views on Rush or OceanGate.

“The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge said at one point. “That’s it.”

He was no less blunt in recounting a previous voyage, reportedly in 2016, in which Rush insisted on piloting another of OceanGate’s submersibles, called the Cyclops 1, down to see the remains of the Andrea Doria ocean liner.

Lochridge said he had expected to be the pilot, as the “most experienced” such member of OceanGate’s team.

“Unfortunately, the CEO decided that he wanted to take it down,” Lochridge said. “I objected because I knew sometimes he could do things to please himself.”

Later, however, a former OceanGate mission specialist — the title given to paying passengers or observers of its underwater dives — struck a defensive and sometimes tearful tone and pushed back on Lochridge’s account in her own testimony on Sept. 19.

Renata Rojas, a self-described Titanic obsessive, was aboard the trip down to the Andrea Doria that Lochridge described.

“He must have gone on a different dive,” she said. “Nobody was panicking. Nobody was crying and there was definitely no swearing or yelling.”

On the day of the final Titan voyage last year, Rojas was working as a "platform assistant" and recalled seeing all five passengers, including Rush, "smiling" as they boarded the sub. "They were just happy to go," she said.

As her testimony came to a close, Rojas cried as she reflected on how, "nothing is going to bring our friends back."

However, Rojas went on to state that she hoped the investigation "creates an understanding that with exploration there is risk."

Concerns About the Sub Had Been Discussed Before

Rush had insisted on doing the Titan sub's first crewed test dive by himself, just in case something happened, according to the man he co-founded OceanGate with.

Guillermo Söhnlein, who started OceanGate with Rush in 2009 and left the company in 2013, testified on Monday, Sept. 23, that Rush told him he didn't "want anybody else on that sub" for the first dive to 4,000 meters.

"If anything happens, I want it to only impact me,” Söhnlein, who did not specify when the dive took place, recalled Rush saying. “It's my design. I believe in it. I trust it, but I don't want to risk anybody else and I'm gonna go by myself.”

Rush had also been confronted in more direct ways by those who feared his work was dangerous: During a 2018 meeting with Lochridge, his former operations director, he challenged Lochridge’s criticism.

“I have no desire to die,” Rush said then, according to a transcript of their meeting shared by the Coast Guard.

“I understand this kind of risk, and I'm going into it with eyes open and I think this is one of the safest things I will ever do.”

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.