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Officials Work on Deadly Sub Disaster; Michael Guillen is Interviewed about Visiting the Titanic; Safety Practices Questions after Sub Disaster; OceanGate Faces Potential Legal Consequences. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired June 23, 2023 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[09:00:14]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Searching for answers. Investigators are combing the ocean floor now to find what caused the deadly Titan tragedy. And a key element today, putting together the timeline of the sub's final voyage.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: We are also remembering the five victims this morning. A father and his 19-year-old son, a thrill-seeking adventurer, a highly respected ocean expert and the visionary CEO of the company.

BOLDUAN: And now calls for a new look at safety in this industry of extreme tourism. Will and should someone be held responsible for what just happened?

This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

The tragic news is setting in, but with it a new search begins. Investigators are scouring the ocean floor now, looking for the debris from OceanGate's Titan sub, as experts now try to piece together what really happened. So much we don't know, of course, but here is what we do know.

Experts believe the OceanGate Titan suffered a catastrophic implosion. That's described as a sudden inward collapse of the vessel. That happens due to the tremendous amount of pressure on the sub, or really anything, at those depths of the ocean. Officials say the implosion would have happened in a fraction of a millisecond, essentially killing everyone on board instantly. One expert says no one inside would have realized there was even a problem.

As far as timing goes, the U.S. Navy now says on Sunday they detected an underwater sound consistent with an implosion, but at the time it was, quote/unquote, not definitive. The Navy also says at least five different major pieces of debris have been located. The Coast Guard now says that ROVs are going to remain on the scene as they continue their search. And the very challenging recovery of even those pieces. Experts think that it is unlikely, though, any human remains will be recovered. CNN's Miguel Marquez has been following this search from the very

beginning at St. -- from St. John's, Newfoundland.

Miguel, so much has happened and changed in 24 hours since we last spoke. What's the sense there now?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I -- look, I think people here -- there is a special connection between people here in St. John's and the Titanic, the wreckage. When the film "Titanic" was made here, James Cameron sort of set up in this area. People have pictures with him everywhere. When the Titanic went down, there's a whole history of it here as well. So there was a great connection to the Titanic.

There was - there was great concern that the people in that craft were sitting there in the dark, in the cold, dwindling oxygen, not knowing what the rescue efforts were going to -- if they were going to find them or not. The stuff of nightmares. In the back of everyone's mind here was this sense that there could have been something catastrophic, that it could have happened. And, in some ways, that may be a better outcome because the idea of the suffering that the people would have been going down - going through down there if they had survived may have been a worse fate.

But, you know, 24 hours ago there was a sliver of hope. To have it so completely dashed the way it was, the idea that this craft just imploded and was, you know, obliterated, there's five big pieces, two debris fields in front of the Titanic, it's -- I think people are sort of trying to cope with it. It's a very - you know, it's a small city here and everybody knows everybody and the idea that this happened, I think it touches everybody very deeply here.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And where this goes here -- where this goes from here, how long the search needs to continue to recover those pieces of debris far out there in the north Atlantic, there is a lot -- there is a lot still to be done, Miguel.

MARQUEZ: Yes, it's not clear how much they are going to be able to recover. They want to map the site where this accident happened when it was descending and then imploded. It pushed debris out over a large area in front of the Titanic. So they want to map all of that and understand what it was.

They do want to understand what happened and what failed with this craft. It was obviously controversial. But, you know, people like P.H. Nargeolet was on that craft and believed in it and many others did as well. So, I think they want to understand what exactly failed with this craft and try not to repeat that in the future.

Back to you.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely.

Miguel, thank you so much for your reporting from there.

Sara. SIDNER: With me now is former ABC News science editor Michael Guillen. He's a scientist, journalist and author, but for this story most importantly he was the first television correspondent to report from the Titanic, which means he had to get into a submersible to get there.

[09:05:07]

And it didn't go well.

Good morning to you.

Can you tell me what happened when you visited the Titanic for the first time?

MICHAEL GUILLEN, ON Russian SUBMARINE BRIEFLY TRAPPED AT TITANIC WRECKAGE IN 2000: Yes, good morning, Sara.

In September of 2000 we left Nova Scotia, Halifax, went out to the point in the north Atlantic where the Titanic went down and then we dove. The dive went very smoothly. It took us about two and a half hours to get down there, corkscrew down.

We got to the bow first and we had a silent prayer for the people who had lost their lives down there. And I think, Sara, that's really what hit me the most. It was a profound experience I'll never forget.

The trouble started when we went from the bow to the stern. We got caught in an underwater current. They do exist down there, believe it or not. It's not all calm. And that current drove us right into the huge blades of the propeller on the stern section of the Titanic and we got caught between the inverted poop deck and the blades. Our sub was much smaller than the propeller. And I knew immediately from the collision and from these huge chunks of rusted metal that started falling down on us, and my jaw was in my stomach looking at all of this happening through an 8-inch porthole that we were -- this was not a minor oopsy, this was a life-threatening situation. It was pretty frightening.

SIDNER: What happened inside that vessel? Because I would imagine that it - you're not the only person, of course, in there and panic can set in. What happens when panic sets in? What's your biggest concern?

GUILLEN: Well, it's interesting, Sara, I had my diving buddy and then our pilot in the middle. It was a three-man sub. And we had been told before we dove about a story of a man who was in a similar situation, he panicked and he went for the escape hatch, because you're not thinking when you're, you know, panicked. You're thinking, oh, I've got to just get out of here.

Well, as soon as he did that, of course, the ocean came in on him, it was over in a nanosecond. So, that was my preoccupation immediately. I was like, oh, I hope nobody panics. I wasn't panicking. I was just kind of still stunned trying to process what had just happened because it just came out of the blue. Everything was going so well. And I think this is a contrast to thankfully these four or five souls

who lost their lives in the Titan. We were so worried that they were in the dark and the cold. I experienced that. And I was thinking, oh, my Lord, I was there for -- stuck for less than an hour, thankfully, but for days? So, in this case, we were just fortunate, in less than an hour, that our pilot, who turned out, by the way, to be a former Russian MIG pilot, so this was a person who was used to dealing with life and death, you know, keeping his cool under pressure, and he managed somehow to finagle us out of the blades and we were able to get to the surface. Again, even when we got out it wasn't over for us because we still had two and a half hours to go up to the top. It wasn't until the scuba divers came in and grabbed our sub with a crane, put it on the mothership, the Academikeldish (ph), that I felt like, oof, OK.

But I just -- Sara, I just have to say, it is merciful because you have to understand an implosion. They were not torn apart. This is not an explosive event. You know, when the Titanic hit the iceberg, the U.S. shuttle exploded, this was a compression event. And so this was instantaneous. They - they - and I'm thinking, one hour and 43 minutes into their dive, or thereabouts. So, they were excited. They were like, wow, we're going down to the Titanic. And then something caused the pressure vessel to collapse instantaneously. They didn't even know what hit them. So, that is something to be thankful for, truly.

SIDNER: Yes, people -- the experts are talking about milliseconds, which is before you can even say one you would be - you would gone.

GUILLEN: Yes.

SIDNER: So, it was instantaneous.

GUILLEN: Exactly.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you, though, about this. There were so many countries and so much equipment out there looking for these five people who were going down in part just to see this thing as a tourist event. Do you think that we should take a serious look at whether we should be doing this for extreme tourism?

GUILLEN: It's a legitimate question, Sara. And, by the way, we're going to face this with space tourism. Prepare yourself. We're going to have events like this, people who pay lots of money to have a sub orbital flight or an orbital flight.

The short answer to your question is, I do think at the very least we need to pause. You know, when the shuttle exploded, we shut down the entire space program. I think we need to pause for two reasons. When these are the two big takeaways for me, having been down there, having been stuck, ready to give up my life, is, number one, the sea is dangerous. This is not a playground. The ocean is restless and I think of it when I was out there looking at the north Atlantic waters, they're dark, they're cold. They just want to -- they just want to swallow you up if you make the tiniest little mistake.

[09:10:06] And second of all, what I took away from my trip down there was that this isn't just a shipwreck. I went down there thinking I'm just going to report on a shipwreck. But what hit me especially in that moment of prayer, and it came home to me that people lost their lives. Men, women and children. More than 1,000 of them. This is their final resting place. This is sacred ground. And especially when you go from the bow to the stern and you see what's called the debris field, where you see women's shoes, you see medicine cabinets, you see cases of champagne. When the ship broke, all that stuff spilled out. It really comes home to you, Sara, that this is not just a shipwreck.

So, I think, yes, I think we should pause, figure out what happened so we can fix it in the future, but also think of the danger and think of the sacredness of this site. It's not a joyride. It's not a Disneyland destination.

SIDNER: It is a gravesite, and we need to keep that in mind.

GUILLEN: Yes.

SIDNER: And now it is a gravesite not just for those who were on the Titanic, but for those who were inside of this vessel, the Titan.

Michael Guillen, thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. I know it's hard to think back to those scary times. I appreciate it.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Just talking about the lives lost there for -- now in two tragedies.

This morning, the families of the five people killed on the Titan, they're facing a horrible new reality today and speaking out about their loved ones now lost.

The wife and children of French explorer P.H. Nargeolet said this in a statement this morning, that he is a man who will be remembered as one of the greatest deep sea explorers in modern history, but they also say that we will remember him most for his big heart, his incredible sense of humor and how much he loved his family.

His stepson recounted one of his earliest memories with P.H.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN PASCHALL, STEPSON OF PAUL-HENRI NARGEOLET: I remember the first thing he did for me that was so meaningful was he helped me with a science project on the building of a cell and creating a model of it. And I ended up getting an A on it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: British billionaire Hamish Harding was described as a loving husband to his wife and a dedicated father to his two sons, whom he loved deeply. The family also put out a statement saying this, that he was a passionate explorer, whatever the terrain, who lived his life for his family, his business and for the next adventure.

Also on board were father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, who was just 19 years old. The teenager was described by the family as a big fan of science fiction who had interest in Rubik's cubes and playing volleyball. But his aunt also told NBC that he had reservations about joining his father on this trip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AZMEH DAWOOD, LOST HER BROTHER AND NEPHEW IN TITAN IMPLOSION: He had a sense that this was not -- this was not OK. And he just -- he was not very comfortable about doing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: She says Suleman ended up going because the trip fell on Father's Day weekend. She also said Shahzada was absolutely obsessed, in her words, with the Titanic. Loved going to see museum artifacts recovered from the wreckage.

The pilot of the sub was OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush. His wife, Wendy, is the great-great granddaughter of two of the passengers who perished on the Titanic. In a recent interview he shared what drove him to test the boundaries of science with this project.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STOCKTON RUSH, : I'd like to be remembered as an innovator. And the future of mankind is under water. It's not on Mars. We're not going to have a base on Mars or the moon. You know, we'll try and waste a lot of money. We will have a base under water. Because when the sun - when the sun extinguishes, there will still be hydro thermal vents and there will still be those life forms down that are living off of chemosynthesis that don't need the sun. You know, when we - if we trash this planet, the best life boat for mankind is under water.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: The family of Stockton Rush has not yet released a public statement.

Sara.

SIDNER: Sobering.

All right, still ahead, as investigators search for what caused the Titan tragedy, we're learning more about OceanGate's safety procedures and history and the long-held concerns about the submersible's design and construction.

Plus, more recordings in the Trump classified documents case. The former president's legal team handed them over to the special counsel. What we're learning about those recordings, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:18:31]

SIDNER: The company that owned the Titan submersible is facing a lot of questions this morning about its safety precautions and overall operations. OceanGate's co-founder is defending the company's safety practices, as well as the design and deployment of the Titan.

CNN's Veronica Miracle is live in Everett, Washington, where OceanGate is based.

What are you learning this morning about the safety concerns and the response?

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, we know of several former employees who have raised concerns about safety, who were concerned themselves, who either spoke directly to us or had filed lawsuits. One lawsuit shows that a former employee claims that he was wrongfully terminated for raising concerns about testing and safety. That lawsuit was settled and dismissed back in 2018.

Another former employee spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity and he said that he had raised concerns that OceanGate was potentially breaking the law when it came to Coast Guard inspections. But he says that CEO Stockton Rush dismissed that concern. And so he decided to leave the company, that former employee, back in 2017.

And then all week I have been speaking with a former subcontractor, DJ Virnig, who was part of the build and the testing of the Titan here in Everett, Washington, back in 2018. And he said a lot of the design choices and the material choices were considered very experimental and also controversial at the time of the build. He said that there were a lot of choices in terms of materials that were not conventional applications.

[09:20:02]

For example, using carbon fiber for the hull. And he said they did do tests. Some of those were successful. But the ability to take this down and do repeated dives, that was happening. That testing was happening in real-time.

As you said, the co-founder of the company, of OceanGate, did speak to CNN this morning -- was on "CNN THIS MORNING," and he did have to defend the safety choices of CEO Stockton Rush.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUILLERMO SOHNIEIN, CO-FOUNDER, OCEANGATE: I had absolutely full confidence in Stockton, in the design of the sub, and his ability to engineer it, and, most importantly, to take it through a rigorous test program. So, I had absolutely no -- no qualms with it.

I would encourage us to hold off on speculation until we have more data to go on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MIRACLE: And, Sara, it is important to note that co-founder does still maintains minority ownership of OceanGate.

SIDNER: All right, thank you so much, Veronica Miracle, there.

It should be said, of course, that the CEO was inside of that vessel going down and putting his life in danger as well.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Along with safety concerns, past, present and future, there's also the question of liability about the tragedy that just occurred.

Joining us right now, CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams, and Mary Schiavo, CNN transportation analyst and former inspector general at the Department of Transportation.

Thank you both so much for coming in.

Mary, the first step -- a first step here, because a lot of things kind of happen at the very same time, is figuring out what exactly happened. I mean who has the authority and how long do you think that will take?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: Well, I think that, yes, in terms of the authority, the Coast Guard, although they usually are in search and rescue and recovery, they are staying on site to do more investigation (INAUDIBLE) do have the ability to do that, to investigate. But, of course, a lot of (INAUDIBLE), the development, the investigation, what laws apply to try to (INAUDIBLE). That's on the land (ph) that's (INAUDIBLE) involved plus any other (INAUDIBLE) which was involved in the company.

BOLDUAN: Yes, Mary, we're going to work on your audio. I think there's a little hiccup in your audio we're going to try to fix.

In the meantime, Elliot, let me bring you in on this.

There are two possible avenues here when you look at the liability. You've got criminal liability. You've got civil action. What could you see happening here?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think possibly both, Kate. So, what anything is going to come down to is this question of negligence and the responsibility or duty of care of any corporation or company in this same scenario, right? So, what you have to look at, either for whether it be wrongful death or criminally negligent homicide is, what would any other company, any other submersible company or submarine company, have reasonably been expected to do in carrying out its functions. And I think investigators, or people suing, in civil suits, will - will take a look at, how did other companies behave? Where did this company screw up or mess up in terms of following the rules or being careful. BOLDUAN: Eliot, the fact that the founder and CEO, Stockton Rush -

WILLIAMS: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Is now gone, and was on - was the pilot on this ship, on this mission, on this vessel, how does that complicate any of this?

WILLIAMS: You know, it really doesn't because the CEO and founder isn't the entire company, Kate. The company still exists with different management and different leadership. Now, certainly his loss is an unspeakable -- anybody's loss is an unspeakable tragedy.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

WILLIAMS: It doesn't really change any legal responsibility for the company. The responsibility here, the liability here, would be on account of the entity that put people out there. And it's not him personally, it's the company as a whole.

Now, if a company were charged with a crime, the company itself could face fines, the company itself could face sanctions, like being asked or broke -- being broken up or split up into different components, or individual employees who were responsible for negligence, not following the duty of care, could themselves be prosecuted. The CEO, were he still alive, could have himself been prosecuted, but that's not necessarily going to be the -- well, it certainly can't be the case here now.

BOLDUAN: Right.

And, Mary, passengers that went - that took the trip, you know, previous and on this one, on the Titan, they signed a waiver. And I want to play for you how someone who took a previous trip with OceanGate, how they described it.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE REISS, "SIMPSONS" WRITER WHO TRAVELED ON OCEANGATE SUBMERSIBLE: Before you even get on, you sign this long, long waiver that mentions possible death three times on the first page.

[09:25:01]

It's just -- so you know what you're getting into. And, in fact, when I stepped on to the sub, I just knew, you know, part of my mind was going, well, this could be the end.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Now, I think a lot of -- just to remind folks, as you and I talk all the time, often, Mary, you have represented the families and victims of many transportation disasters, if I can broadly describe it that way. When it comes to that and what -- in your experience, this - a liability waiver does what in this circumstance? SCHIAVO: A liability waiver can do many things, but it does -- one

thing it does is it does release the company of certain liabilities or put, you know, guardrails on the liabilities depending upon how the release and waiver are worded. And it has to be a full disclosure. So it has to be a reasonable document that really does tell you what the risks are and what they know about the risks.

And the other thing that it can do, and this law is really well- developed on international maritime law, just like international aviation law, it worked in both, but it also can limit where you can sue. For example, it might way -- it's called a foreign selection clause. And these have been held up in court. It might say, well, you have to sue in the state of Washington, or you have to sue in Greenland. And those form selection clauses can make a big difference on which law applies. And here that's going to be the issue. They're on international waters. The law of the sea applies. There are many different laws that apply from different countries even. And so it will often go back to where the vessel is flagged, what nation did it intend to have the laws apply.

BOLDUAN: Very interesting. And in the midst of all of this, so many families now trying to face this new reality of what they could never expect or hoped -- wanted to ever see happen.

Mary, it's really good to see you.

Eliot, thank you so much.

Sara.

SIDNER: Up next, a look at the technology and engineering behind the titan sub and why some of it was considered so controversial.

Also, filmmaker and deep-sea explorer James Cameron has made dozens of dives himself to the Titanic wreckage. He's speaking out, forcefully, to CNN about this tragedy. Hear that.

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