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Officials Say, U.S. Navy Detected Sub Implosion Sunday; OceanGate Facing Intense Scrutiny After Sub's Deadly Implosion; Ultra- Wealthy Extreme Tourism in the Spotlight. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 23, 2023 - 07:00   ET

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

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[07:00:00]

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Coast Guard confirming that debris from the Titan submersible has been found near the wreckage of the Titanic.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five crew members aboard the Titan submersible gone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Navy picked up on the sound of an implosion or an explosion on Sunday, right about the time the Titan submersible went missing. ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: It was determined to be, quote, not

definitive.

JAMES CAMERON, DIRECTOR, TITANIC: I couldn't think of any other scenario in which a sub would be lost where it lost columns and navigation at the same time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somewhere in between there something that could have happened to any submarine or this was a fundamental design flaw is going to be the truth or closer to the truth about what happened in this case.

CAMERON: We didn't remember the lesson of Titanic. The arrogance and the hubris that sent that ship to its doom is exactly the same thing that sent those people in that sub to their fate. I think it's heartbreaking that it was still preventable.

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RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Rahel Solomon alongside Phil Mattingly in New York.

It has been a little more than 15 hours since we learned the five people on board the Titan submersible died in what the U.S. Coast Guard called a catastrophic implosion. Since then, more details emerging about those explorers who lost their lives, what might have happened on that vessel, and the warning signs that were missed.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Anderson Cooper has been anchoring from St. John's, Newfoundland, since yesterday. And, Anderson, I tell you, based on your interview used last night and in the first hour this morning, what's been really fascinating is learning about the community of deep sea explorers, what they're saying, where they differ to some degree on some critical issues in regards to this tragedy. What have you been feeling on the ground there so far?

COOPER: Well, certainly. Here in St. John's, I mean, there there's just a lot of sadness. It is obviously a very somber morning for many people here. This is a community that lives by the sea. They have seen tragedy before, but it's just a sad, sad morning. Obviously, there was hope all week that the people had here. Now we know that this catastrophic implosion happened days and days ago, which we just learned about lately, yesterday afternoon, all five people on board being killed.

It may have been detected by the U.S. Navy back on Sunday. A senior Navy official tells CNN that a secret network of sensors picked up the sound of a possible implosion around the same time that the sub lost contact with the mothership while descending on the expedition to the Titanic shipwreck. They say that information was relayed immediately to the incident commander.

After an intense five-day multinational search, a deep sea robot found pieces of the Titan scattered on the ocean floor about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, confirming everybody's worst fears. These are satellite images of the search that was taking place yesterday.

Now, we're told the Titan's distinctive tail cone was found about 1,600 feet away from the bow of the Titanic. There were two separate debris fields.

Titan's creator and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush was piloting this submersible when disaster struck. With him on board, British billionaire and explorer Hamish Harding, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a renowned French diver nicknamed Mr. Titanic, who'd completed some 35 dives on the famous shipwreck. We just spoke to his stepson in the last hour.

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JOHN PASCHALL, PAUL-HENRI NARGEOLET'S STEPSON: When he told me he was going back out for this expedition, when I saw him in May, I really, honestly didn't think twice about it. It's one of those things where he's been down there so much, he's been on so many different deep dives that I just -- I didn't bat eye. I just said, okay, great, have fun, be safe, and I'll see you in July.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: CNN as Miguel Marquez has been following the search from the start. He joins us now with the latest. I mean, there are ships still out there on scene and they're going to be continuing to look at the debris fields.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Some of those ships. We saw one, the Horizon Arctic, load up, that was the one that was carrying this submersible that actually found the wreckage of the Titan, but other ships, like the Polar Prince, for instance, which is also owned by Horizon Maritime, it's on its way back. Many of the medical ships are on their way back.

Polar Prince is interesting because it's the mothership. It's the ship that launched the Titan. It's a platform that goes in first with the Titan. It is lowered in and then the Titan goes off that platform down two and a half hours or so to the Titanic wreck. So, that one is coming back and several others. And I think they're trying to now assess what resources they keep out there, what they bring back.

Sitting at the airport here in St. John's is a deep water salvage gear that they could take out there and bring up large bits.

[07:05:04]

But it's not clear that because this implosion happened and the wreckage is in such disparate areas now that they would be able to bring much of it back up.

COOPER: And we talked about this before, the force of this implosion. I talked to a doctor last night who was saying something like that the hull would have imploded at about 1,500 per hour, the force of it.

MARQUEZ: This is maybe the saving grace of this. We were hoping for a miracle. Everybody here knew that that may be the outcome of this and implosion at those depths, the fact that they did not suffer, the idea that one would be down there in the dark, in the cold, running out of oxygen, the fear that -- I mean, it is the stuff of nightmares, the fact that they went without even knowing that it was happening is maybe some solace. But I think if they are hoping to recover some of the remains, I think the families would certainly like that, but that may be impossible.

COOPER: Yes. Miguel Marquez, I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

I want to go to our Gabe Cohen, because of the search for survivors has ended, but as the search obviously for answers as to exactly what happened is just now beginning. The pilot of the Titan, Stockton Rush, admitted to breaking the rules, in his words, to build a submersible, in an old interview that surfaced. He was one of five people killed during the sub's final voyage to view the Titanic.

Now, the company, OceanGate, and its CEO are under obviously intense scrutiny. U.S. Coast Guard officials saying the vessel suffered a catastrophic implosion.

CNN's Gabe Cohen joins us now live from Washington, D.C. Gabe, what have you heard about any consequences or a probe into the company?

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well. Well, Anderson, experts say it's basically the Wild West out there, diving in these international waters. There is little to no regulation. But, look, OceanGate is now under the microscope. And we know submersible experts have been raising red flags for years about this vessel, the way it was built, the way it was tested, warning that it could end in catastrophe.

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COHEN (voice over): This morning, former OceanGate CEO stocked in Rush and is ill-fated Titan submersible facing intense scrutiny. Rush, who perished in the Titan, had a reputation as a visionary, but also as a self-proclaimed rule breaker.

RUSH: I think it was General MacArthur said, you're remembered for the rules you break. And I've broken some rules to make this. I think I've broken them with logic and good engineering behind me.

COHEN: The co-founder of OceanGate, Guillermo Sohnlein, says he had complete faith in Rush and would have gone on the Titanic expedition himself if he'd had the chance.

GUILLERMO SOHNLEIN, CO-FOUNDER, OCEANGATE: There's always a risk of catastrophic implosion. It's something that we know about. It's something that we plan for, plan against, and it's just a known risk.

COHEN: D.J. Virnig, who's a subcontractor for OceanGate, says Rush's experimental design passed testing for the pressures that would be found at Titanic's depth.

DOUG D.J. VIRNIG, SUBCONTRACTOR: Then the question is, well, if you do that repeatedly, then what happens? So, these are the sorts of questions that if you have a long research and development program, you start answering. But if you really are pushing the envelope, there's no time to -- you're answering those questions in real-time.

COHEN: Will Kohnen, who chairs the submarine committee of the Marine Technology Society, says he wrote to Rush, concerned OceanGate wasn't following the same safety standards as other vessels. In his 2018 letter first obtained by The New York Times, Kohnen warned Rush about what he called the company's experimental approach that could have serious consequences.

CNN has previously reported that two former OceanGate employees, who were not engineers, separately raised safety concerns years ago about the hull of the Titan sub. The hull was made of carbon fiber composite, the type of material used in spacecraft.

Filmmaker James Cameron, who's made more than 30 dives to the wreckage of the Titanic himself, says the danger of using carbon fiber composite is known within the engineering community.

CAMERON: We always understood that this was the wrong material for submersible hulls, because with each pressure cycle, you can have progressive damage. It's quite insidious. And that, I think, lulled them into a sense of confidence and led to this tragedy.

(END VIDEOTAPE) COHEN (on camera): And, Anderson, I interviewed Stockton Rush several times as a reporter in Seattle, and I pressed him about the safety of these vessels. And he told me he viewed these submersibles as armored vehicles.

And before another expedition, he said to me, quote, everyone is getting back safe. We can take risks with equipment, but not with people. Of course, there are many in the industry that say behind the scenes he was actually taking big risks, even if he didn't believe it.

[07:10:01]

COOPER: Yes. Gabe Cohen, I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

I want to talk now to someone who knows this company very well, the co-founder of OceanGate, Guillermo Sohnlein. He left the company, I should point out, in 2013. He was not involved with the Titan submersible or the Titanic expeditions. He does have a minority ownership stake in the company. Guillermo, I appreciate you joining us. I'm sorry it's under these circumstances.

Obviously, there have been red flags now raised about the submersible. Certainly, in recent years, there were red flags. Two former employees questioned the safety and the testing of the Titan, specifically were concerned the thickness of the hull. An industry leader told CNN that the company strayed from industry norms by declining a rigorous safety review of the Titan, adding that some of this may have been avoided. Do you think it could have been avoided?

SOHNLEIN: Well, first of all, as you rightly pointed out, I left the company in January 2013, which was before the development of Titan itself. What I can tell you is, at least during the four years I was involved with the company and that I knew and got to work with Stockton, safety was always number one priority for us and for Stockton in particular. He was a very strong risk manager, and I believe that he believed that every innovation that he created, whether technologically or within the dive operations, was to both expand the capability of humanity exploring the oceans while also improving the safety of those doing it.

COOPER: You said safety was a number one concern. Obviously, this is a commercial venture, though, with people who are paying a lot of money to do this. Did you have any concerns -- I know you weren't involved in this, but did you have concerns about the carbon composite hull of this? Because clearly there's a lot of people in this industry who did have concerns about it and the fact that it had not gone through the testing by the industry standards.

SOHNELIN: Right. So, first of all, 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 qualms with it.

What I do have qualms with is the fact that so many of us, in a rush to get answers to our questions, are starting to speculate without waiting for all of the data. There are teams on site that are still going to be collecting data for the next few days, weeks, maybe months, and it's going to be a long time before we know exactly what happened down there. So, I would encourage us to hold off on speculation until we have more data to go on.

COOPER: Right. What's not speculation, though, is in 2021, the company put out a press release which indicated or seemed to imply that Boeing was involved in the design of this, of the testing of this, that the University of Washington was, as well, as well as NASA. Both the University of Washington and Boeing have now put out statements saying they were not involved in the testing of this vehicle, of the design of the vehicle.

Again, I know you weren't involved in the Titan, but you do have an interest in the company. Were you concerned at all about this press release in 2021, making those claims?

SOHNLEIN: Yes. I don't remember that particular press release, but what I can tell you is this. When Stockton and I started the company in 2009 -

COOPER: It was not just press release least, it was also actually in a court document.

SOHNLEIN: Yes, okay. Well, I wasn't privy to any of that, and I didn't know that. But what I can tell you is when we started the company in 2009, our vision was to have a small fleet of work submersibles capable of carrying five people down to at least 4,000 meters. Titan is the end result of essentially a 14-year technology development program. And a lot of different people worked on that program across three submersibles, Antipodes, Cyclops and eventually Titan.

COOPER: Right. Boeing worked, I believe, on the Cyclops. It was either Boeing or Washington -- University of Washington that had some work on the Cyclops. And I know that ocean for the Titan, they rented a pool at the University of Washington. But it does seem like this company was portraying it as if Boeing and the University of Washington were involved in the Titan itself.

SOHNLEIN: Yes. And, unfortunately, I wasn't around then, so, I'm not sure exactly how it was worded or what happened in those court documents. I do know, as you said, right as I left the company, we were co-located in one of the University of Washington offices, and some of their folks were actually in that area working with us.

[07:15:01]

I don't know exactly what they were working on because I was not part of the company at that point.

COOPER: Right, yes. University of Washington said that, essentially, none of their personnel were actually working on the vehicles. They rented pool space for the testing, but none of their personnel were actually involved.

I spoke to James Cameron yesterday, obviously, who's made 33 dives on the wreckage, and I just want to play something that he told me and have you respond, if you can.

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CAMERON: I think there's a great, almost surreal irony here, which is Titanic sank because the captain took it full steam into an ice field at night, on a moonless night with very poor visibility, after he had been repeatedly warned by telegram, by marconigram, by radio during the day that that's what was ahead of him.

And so I think we're also seeing a parallel here with unheeded warnings about a sub that was not certified, where the entire deep submergence community actually -- or not the entire community but a large number of them, got together to write a letter to OceanGate, the company, and say, we believe that this could lead to catastrophe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: I'm wondering what do you think of what he said.

SOHNLEIN: Yes. Well, look, the deep ocean exploration community is a small community. We generally all know each other, and, in general, we respect each other. Jim is obviously a very experienced ocean explorer and also well-regarded. But as he knows, and we all know, working underwater in these conditions is a very risky operation. He's had his own issues on dives because that's what happens when you do these things. And he himself has pushed the limits of technology and operations in pursuit of his expedition.

So, it kind of comes with the territory. And, again, I kind of wish we would hold off judgment and just see exactly what the data comes back with.

COOPER: Yes. I did -- so just for the record, I did put that to Mr. Cameron last night, that he himself designed and went down three times the depth of the Titanic in a vehicle he designed that was experimental and didn't go through the maritime safety protocols. And what he said is he was willing to take those risks for himself, but that he would never have passengers on board a vehicle that hadn't gone through full safety protocols. So, I just wanted to make clear what his point was.

Guillermo Sohnlein, I appreciate you joining us. And, again, I'm sorry for your friend's loss. Thank you.

SOHNLEIN: Thank you for having me on.

COOPER: Joining me now is David Gallo. He's the senior adviser for the strategic initiatives for RMS Titanic Incorporated, which owns the exclusive salvage rights to the Titanic wreck site. Ms. Gallo, I appreciate you joining us.

Based on this debris field and what the Coast Guard has discovered and what you know about this sub, at this point, what do you think went wrong? How much do you think this was about the carbon composite of the hull or -- because, obviously, it had made successful dives in the past? DAVID GALLO, SENIOR ADVISER FOR STRATEGIC INITIATIVES, RMS TITANIC INC.: Right. I'm with Jim Cameron, that you have successive with pressure every dive. It's pressure, then release, pressure, release, and that kind of stress could have led to this. The simplest solution, what I had heard was same thing, that they lost comms and tracking of the sub and they were over on the way to the Titanic site. But the other thing that I heard was that P.H. had contacted the surfer ship. And said there was a problem, we're dropping weights and surfacing immediately.

Now, I can't verify that, but that to me meant something really happened very quickly. And probably the simplest solution was catastrophic failure.

But we'll see when they pick up some more of the pieces if the forensic study tells us exactly what happened.

I felt bad, like Jim, that -- and I was critical because I said, why are we assembling this armada over the site when -- let's check that out first. But you had to do that just in case a miracle did happen. They do happen. And, sadly, in this case, they didn't.

COOPER: I want to play something that James Cameron told me last night.

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CAMERON: They call it delamination water ingress starts to force the layers of the fibers apart, and, theoretically, you can hear it. I actually believe they heard it with their ears, not through the sensor system, in the last moments of their lives.

[07:20:01]

And that's quite a horrifying prospect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Do you agree with that assessment? And could you talk a little bit about that carbon composite and what the concerns about it are or explain why it is so experimental in these kind of conditions?

GALLO: Yes. Let me say let me say, too, that Jim Cameron -- yes, I've worked with the best and the brightest, and Jim Cameron is far and above, probably the brightest person I've ever seen, not only just as an incredible explorer but also as an ocean engineer. Amazing but he knows. And so I understand what he's saying.

It's just a totally new material. It sounds good. It's lightweight. It's supposed to be strong. And it was the application here that caused the concern. And many, many people said, I would never dive in that thing. I'm not getting in that thing. And, sadly, again, this had a very sad ending.

COOPER: Yes. David Gallo, again, I appreciate you being with us and just on such an awful end result here. David Gallo, thank you very much.

Phil, Rahel, obviously a lot of questions still to be answered in what is just the beginning of the investigation.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Anderson, before I let you go, actually, because I feel like over the course of the last 12 hours, we've kind of been watching you report this out in real time on live T.V. And with the OceanGate founder, the idea of don't speculate, it's not time to speculate, let's wait until we get the data, I think my question is, will there ever data that can be to draw a definitive picture? And what's your sense of this kind of ongoing debate between those who are trying to press that you have to innovate, you have to be willing to take the risk versus this was just far too risky? Where are you on that right now, based on who you've spoken to?

COOPER: Right. There are plenty of people who are innovating and pushing boundaries. I mean, James Cameron is one of them. As he said last night, he's gone to a depth that's three times greater than the Titanic depth. But he did that in a craft that he designed that didn't go through maritime safety protocols. That was a risk he was willing to take. But as he said last night, he would not take passengers on board.

This was not pushing the boundaries of science expedition. This was bringing people who had paid a lot of money to go down and have an extraordinary experience being able to view the Titanic. So, the question is, is it appropriate to be bringing paying passengers down on a vessel that has not undergone rigorous safety protocols? And the reason this vessel was designed like this was so that it could bring passengers down and have a big window and fit more people in. Most of these submersibles, the one that James Cameron was in, only could fit one person, him, who was piloting the craft.

So, I think there's going to be questions about this whole kind of tourism industry and the safety regulations of it and the appropriateness of it. Again, if it's really pushing the boundaries of science and exploration that has a scientific backing to it, that's one thing. If it's for tourism purposes and should there be different guidelines, I guess those would be some of the questions that will be tried to resolve in the coming months and years.

SOLOMON: Yes, I understand. It's a great point. It's the commercial aspect of this, right, that this wasn't just space and exploration for the sake of research, but that these were people who paid it a lot of money and perhaps did not fully understand the risk.

And coming up, we're going to be speaking more about this industry because of the disaster now shining new lights on the perils of the extreme tourism industry for the ultra wealthy from deep sea to also space. We'll discuss after the break.

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SOLOMON: Welcome back. CNN is live in Newfoundland tracking the search for remnants of the Titan submersible that, of course, suffered a catastrophic implosion, killing all five people on board. We will get back out there in just moments.

But for now, the missing submersible captured the world's attention this week. But most people will never be able to take a trip like this. Each passenger paid $250,000 for a seat. OceanGate catered to wealthy people who are able to afford exclusive adventures like this, but it doesn't just stop with diving to the depths of the sea. An expedition to the summit, for example, of Mount Everest, well, that can cost between $30,000 and $160,000. A flight into space, well, that goes for $450,000 aboard a Virgin Galactic flight. So, what drives the ultra wealthy to shell out for these risky adventures?

Back with us now, our panel, CNN Chief Business Correspondent Christine Romans, CNN Senior Legal Analyst, Elie Honig, and former U.S. Coast Guard Captain Peter Boynton. Welcome back to all of you.

Captain, I want to start with you. We heard James Cameron tell Anderson in the last hour -- we played the clip last hour -- drawing the parallels between what happened to the Titanic and what ultimately happened to the Titan. In terms of what this disaster does to the industry moving forward, what do you see?

CAPT. PETER BOYNTON (RET.), U.S. COAST GUARD: Look, this is Back to the Future. The Titanic was a technological marvel of its time, biggest, fastest and designed to be unsinkable. And so they felt there was no need to have adequate lifeboats on board for all the passengers. Why? It's unsinkable. When that disaster happened, it led to major changes in how all countries operate on oceans, the 1914 Convention for Safety of Life at Sea. It changed everything.

And what that did was really enable more use of the ocean because it could be done safer. If that had happened before the Titanic, it would have been, hey, wait a minute, let's check this lifeboat thing, as well as radio communications and many other things.

So, now, we have this disaster, ironically and sadly, in the exact same place, and it is time to look again at those regulations in international waters.