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Debris Found from Submersible Attempting to Visit Site of Titanic Wreckage; Reporting Emerging that Some Had Concerns over Safety of Material Used by Company OceanGate to Build Submersible; Coast Guard: Titanic-Bound Sub Suffered "catastrophic Implosion," Killing All 5 On Board; Potential Legal Consequences Facing OceanGate; Industry Members Raised Concerns About Titan Sub In 2018, Warned About "Catastrophic" Outcomes. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired June 23, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

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[08:00:49]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good Friday morning, everyone. I'm Phil Mattingly in New York alongside Rahel Solomon. Anderson Cooper is live with us in Newfoundland. It has been about 16 hours since we learned the grim news, five people who were aboard the Titan submersible will not be coming home. The Coast Guard determining there was a, quote, catastrophic implosion after finding pieces of the wreckage. Since then, we are hearing from the family members of the explorers who lost their lives, what might have happened on that vessel, and the warning signs that were likely missed.

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Anderson Cooper has been anchoring from St. John's, Newfoundland, since yesterday when the news broke. He has been reporting out what experts and deepwater exploration believe went wrong. Anderson, good morning.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, good morning, Rahel, Phil. Good morning. Any hope of survival was certainly erased after a deep see robot found that large piece of the Titan submersible scattered on the ocean floor. Two debris fields were found 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic. We're learning the U.S. Navy's secret network of underwater sensors picked up the sound of a possible implosion on Sunday around the same time contact was lost with the Titan as went down to the Titanic shipwreck.

A senior Navy official telling CNN that it helped narrowed down the area of the five-day multinational search and that, quote, any chance of saving a life was worth continuing the mission. They informed the incident commander that they had heard the sound, but it was not definitive, they determined.

We're told they found the Titan submersible's tail cone, as I said, just about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic on board. Titan's creator and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, he was piloting the submersible. Also on the Titan, British billionaire and explorer Hamish Harding, British Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman and French oceanographer Paul-Henri Nargeolet who previously completed 35 dives on the Titanic, incredibly experienced he was.

Since the time they disappeared, we've learned a lot about warning signs and concerns over the submersible's experimental design and the development process, not going through the protocols, safety protocols and checks that are standard in the maritime industry for submersibles. In the last hour we spoke to OceanGate's co-founder who cautioned people not to rush to judgment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUILLERMO SOHNLEIN, CO-FOUNDER, OCEANGATE: 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. I kind of wish we would hold off judgment and just see EXACTLY what the data comes back with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: CNN's Miguel Marquez has been following the search from the start. He joins us. One of the men involved in the company, he was not involved in this submersible and he left the company years ago. But there are real questions about whether passengers should have been invited, paying passengers invited to be on this experimental craft that had not gone through safety protocols.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was controversial from the start. The carbon-fiber hull, they -- when if first arrived there, certain engineers expected it to be seven inches. It was five inches. The titanium caps that go on the sides, the window, the 21-centimeter window that's on it, all of that called into question and whether or not maybe could do it once, which it did. It did it many times, it went down to the Titanic many times. But the wear and tear on those sorts of on-devices and on-submersibles at that depth. It's also an industry that is so small and technical and they regulate themselves, and there are very, very high standards for this, and they know how to do it now.

COOPER: And the point that's made by folks like James Cameron and other experts in this that if it has gone through a long series of testing and safety protocols, standard in the industry for submersibles, then you could confidently know that over time that wear and tear, it's been tested. But given that this is testing in real time with passengers onboard.

[08:05:17]

MARQUEZ: This is the problem. It is exactly that. It is testing in real time. But they wanted it to have longer periods of testing. They wanted to know could you look at the carbon fiber a year from now after seven or eight dives and figure out if it was deteriorating, the seals, the titanium and the way it connects, all that sort of stuff which on other submersibles you can do, you could test the steel, you could test the glass, you could test everything around it and all the seals. Any tiny fissure at that depth is just going to cause catastrophic events.

COOPER: What do we know about the mothership for the Titan, the Polar Prince?

MARQUEZ: The Polar Prince is on its way back. Several ships are going back to their home ports, probably some to the U.S. and some here. The Polar Prince was the ship that launched the Titan. It launches on a platform and then the Titan goes off the platform. The Polar Prince is on its way back with OceanGate employees. They have been out there this entire time with not only Maritime Horizon employees but OceanGate employees as well. We expect them to be back in the next 12, 20 hours or so. It's a long trip back, and I am sure this is especially long.

COOPER: Yes, Miguel Marquez, appreciate it. Thanks very much.

I want to go to someone else, the editor in chief of "Travel Weekly," Arnie Weissmann. He was almost scheduled to be on this OceanGate submersible trip. He ended up being part of a canceled mission back in May instead. Arnie, appreciate you joining us. I read you say something that Stockton Rush told you and told you, I guess, kind of proudly, that he said he got the carbon hull material from Boeing on deep discount because it was past the shelf life for airplane use? Could you talk about that?

ARNIE WEISSMANN, EDITOR IN CHIEF, "TRAVEL WEEKLY": Yes. One night we went on the stern of the ship and just sat and talked, and he told me sort of his life story. And part of that was that when he got the carbon fiber from Boeing and he said this was material that had originally been planned for aircraft use, for building airplanes, but that it had passed the date that it could be used for that. And so his implication was they had stuff they wanted to get rid of, but it was past its sell-by date.

So that gave me pause, because I was at that point still, I was on the Polar Prince. We were still hoping to dive. This was in May. And so I asked him about it, I said, isn't that a concern? He said, listen, you know, we have partnered with NASA, we've partnered with Boeing on this. We have put it in a pressure tank. We have done deep dives. He said, initially when it was in the pressure tank there were all sorts of noises that were sort of just pinged and made noises, but that those noises stopped after a couple of times in the testing.

And it did give me pause. And frankly, if it weren't for the presence of Paul-Henri, I don't know that I would have felt quite so confident.

On the other hand, I will say that every day we have meetings, every morning, sometimes multiple times in a day, where he showed himself to be quite what I thought was a very good risk manager, a very good leader with his crew. There were endless checklists in which things were being looked at and repaired. And so he was a complex person. COOPER: It's interesting, Arnie, that he told you that Boeing was a

partner in on this. That's what they also said in a press release in 2021, I believe in some court documents as well. Boeing has denied any involvement in the design or build of the Titan. They have also repeatedly -- this company has also repeatedly cite the University of Washington as being involved in this somehow, though they were sort of vague, but they used those names a lot. The University of Washington has also come forward and said, look, we had nothing to do with the design or the testing of this. I think they rented out a pool from the University of Washington, but the University of Washington said none of their personnel were even involved in that operation. Do you think Rush was overstating the company's ties to his company?

WEISSMANN: I think so. I think he was exaggerating. From what I have read there were connections with all these companies, but this was something that gave credibility and more or less put concerns at arm's length. It made me feel, certainly him saying those names did make me feel more confident that I could do the dive.

[08:10:08]

COOPER: The mission, the dive that you were on, did you actually end up going down and just weren't able to reach Titanic, or was the whole thing scuttled? And why was it scuttled?

WEISSMANN: OK, so initially I boarded the Polar Prince on a Friday. On Sunday, it takes a while to get out to the site, he said, you know, the first dive would be on Tuesday, that weather conditions and sea conditions looked good for that. I was to be on that one, which would have been the first dive of the year. There were no subsequent dives on the subsequent missions. The one that went down and had the implosion was actually the first dive of the year. So it's possible I could have been on the first dive of the year.

But the weather conditions changed. It was postponed to the Thursday of that week. Again, the weather wasn't good. But I will say that every day there were a long list of things that still needed to be done. And even on very last day, sort of as a consolation, he said, hey, we will go to this bay on our way back to St. John's and we'll just do a 300-foot dive just so you can have the experience. And even that was canceled because the sub wasn't ready.

COOPER: Arnie Weissman, I appreciate you being with us. Thank you very much.

Let's go back to Rahel and Phil in New York. And also, I want to bring in retired U.S. Coast Guard captain Peter Boynton. Captain, I'm wondering what your reaction is to the use of Boeing, University of Washington repeatedly by this company. It certainly -- it helps people. It made people feel like these were reputable organizations. But it certainly seems like there is questions about how involved they actually were.

CAPT. PETER BOYNTON (RET.), U.S. COAST GUARD: Yes. I think for most people who are passengers, maybe not everyone, but most people just can't expect them to have the technical know-how to evaluate on their own the safety of a conveyance, whether you are getting on an aircraft, whether you are getting into a vehicle, whether you are going on a vessel or a submersible. So that's equivalent of stamp of approval, I think is critical. Experimental craft is one thing. Carrying passengers for hire is another.

COOPER: Yes.

SOLOMON: All right, Anderson, we will check in with you shortly.

COOPER: I just got --

SOLOMON: I'm sorry, Anderson. Go on.

COOPER: No. I actually have just one other question for the captain. The Coast Guard, I have been getting lot of emails from viewers asking who is paying, like if searches continue to try to bring up wreckage to try to determine what happened, who actually pays for that? Is that a responsibility of the Coast Guard to investigate any kind of incident like this at sea, or is that something that would be funded by a company or potentially people who there might be some reason for them to want this wreckage up?

BOYNTON: So it's a great question. And we are on a boundary here, a boundary in many respects. Normally, the Coast Guard is not a salvage or a recovery entity. They are rescue, safety of life at sea. However, there are cases where the Coast Guard does get involved in the investigation, the aftermath if there is an indication of possible wrongdoing or unsafe voyage. And in that case, the Coast Guard can and does get involved.

The Coast Guard does not reimburse others for being involved in the search, and the Coast Guard normally does not charge an individual who is rescued unless it is the rare case where there was severe wrongdoing or something of that sort.

So if the Coast Guard is remaining there as part of the collection or recovery, that's somewhat unusual and I think is indicative of perhaps investigation underway. And I also agree with the idea that we don't know everything yet. And so there is merit to allowing that investigation to proceed so we can learn more about what actually happened.

SOLOMON: And Anderson, we will check back with you shortly. Captain, please stick around. We have much more to come.

MATTINGLY: Yes, much more to come. What does this actually mean for the future of OceanGate? What's next for the families of the victims? We'll discuss the potential legal fallout and a lot more coming up next.

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[08:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. CNN is live in Newfoundland tracking the search for remnants of the Titan submersible that of course suffered that catastrophic implosion killing off five people on board. We will get back out to Anderson in just moments.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: There were multiple safety concerns tied to the submersible well before it imploded. You wouldn't know that by some emotion gets promotional videos about the trip on the Titan, just watch.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OceanGate expedition offers you the once in a lifetime opportunity to be a specially trained crew members safely diving to the Titanic wreckage site.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's very well engineered and very safe. But -- and the team is very focused on safety first.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The communication is really key. I think knowing that they never lost communication.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not one second of me experiencing anything from OceanGate have I ever felt unsafe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: The five people who ultimately died on that voyage signed a release form reportedly used by the company which states quote, "The experimental submersible vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body. Any failure could cause severe injury or death. I hereby assume full responsibility for the risk of bodily injury, disability or death." So, there's a lot of questions here when it comes to the legal aspects of things, when it comes to adventure tourism, the business aspect of things. But there's also questions about what is happening in the immediate aftermath to some degree, right?

SOLOMON: Absolutely. So, let's bring in now CNN Chief Business Correspondent Christine Romans, CNN, Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig, and retired U.S. Coast Guard Captain Peter Boynton. Welcome back to you all. Captain, I want to start with you. And start from where you left off with Anderson. The fact that the U.S. Coast Guard appears to be sticking around, what does that mean to you in terms of any potential criminal investigation?

PETER BOYNTON, RETIRED U.S. COAST GUARD: So, I haven't spoken directly with the Coast Guard. I'm retired now but I'm watching what they're doing through reporting. And the reporting I've heard suggests that they are remaining involved in some capacity with the recovery. So, when I heard that I thought, man interesting, because Coast Guard is not a salvage agency.

[08:20:12]

So, normally, they don't do that. And when I heard that, I thought, sounds like there's an investigation underway. But as I said before, we're on the boundary here. We're in international waters, we're not investigating something that is on the surface or happened on the surface. And not just on the bottom, it's a deep ocean bottom. So, there's a lot of new ground here.

MATTINGLY: Elie to that point, you know, everybody assumes will something has to have gone wrong, perhaps there needs to be a criminal investigation or criminal charges. They'll certainly be civil lawsuits you've made that point several times. But with the Captain saying here in terms of international waters, not above but under and very, very deep under. How does that make -- how does that create like a legal scenario right now Elie?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, to a large extent, this is no pun intended, but unexplored territory. And there's an interesting question here about where exactly -- if there's a crime, we don't know that. But where exactly was any crime committed? Would it have been out in the sea where the vessel actually imploded? Or would it have been where the decisions were being made? This company was based in Washington State, where the engineering was down, where the -- where the vessel was constructed.

So, these are complicated questions, you're going to want to know, look, the company was based in Washington State. The CEO, I believe was a, you know, it depends whether he's a U.S. citizen or not, I believe the vessel was a Canadian vessel. So, all of those are complicating factors. One thing that's really important to know here, about the waiver that these people signed, right? We just saw the excerpt from the waiver.

We all sign waivers everywhere we go. Yes, I mean, when Phil takes his many, many children to the trampoline park, you sign a waiver. And they lead the person to believe that well, once I sign this, I can't do anything, I can't sue. That is not true. What it does is make it slightly more difficult to sue. In Washington State for example, if you sign a waiver, instead of proving just negligence, now you have to prove a higher level of what we call gross negligence.

SOLOMON: What's the difference?

HONIG: The difference is just degree, it's just it's really up to a jury. It's sort of negligence plus, really negligent, there's no scientific formula for it. But it's important to know when you sign those despite the language, you're actually not necessarily signing away your right to sue.

SOLOMON: Oh, Christine, just in terms of this industry, I think we've all learned --

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

SOLOMON: -- a lot more about this specific industry but it is a growing industry.

ROMANS: It is -- it is. And this is looking at this way, the fewer people that have been somewhere, the more valuable that experience is to this adventure travel market. People want to go, these very rich people ultra-high net worth individuals, people make more than 30 have -- have more than $30 billion in wealth. They are really signing up in record numbers to go to places where most people have never been before.

SOLOMON: For the exclusivity.

ROMANS: For the exclusivity of it. And the space race is really an interesting spot here. Your Virgin Galactic has said that next month, they're going to start taking people to space. They already have 800 people signed up, that's a $450,000 trip to become a private astronaut. But it's even more than just what you're seeing on your screen. I mean, there are around the world private jet trips, there are trips to the South Pole $100,000 for that for that kind of trip. And these are people who are wired to take risks. They want to go -- the danger does not -- does not put them off. The waiver doesn't put them off. They want to experience something that most people will never be able to experience. And they do it in the name of exploration and exclusivity.

MATTINGLY: And it doesn't -- I just can't fathom given that profile that changes or the desire --

ROMANS: Right.

MATTINGLY: -- to do that changes and all these from places since it's grown so much. All right. Elie, Christine, Captain Boynton, thanks guys so much for being with us. Let's send things back to Anderson live in St. John's, Newfoundland.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR Phil, thanks very much. Coming up, we're going to speak to someone who sounded the alarm about the Titan back in 2018. He says he spoke to the CEO of Stockton Rush directly about those concerns, that's next.

[08:25:00]

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COOPER: Now, welcome back. Years before Sunday's catastrophic implosion of the OceanGate submersible. Members of the deep-sea exploration industry were concerned, sounding the alarm about potential problems with this vessel. In 2018, Will Kohnen drafted a letter to OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, expressing concerns about the development of the Titan. I want to read part of that letter.

It said, "Our apprehension is that the current experimental approach adopted by OceanGate could result in negative outcomes from minor to catastrophic, that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry." Will Kohnen is the Chair of the Submersible Committee at the Marine Technology Society and President of Hydro Space Group. He joins us now. Appreciate it. Well, you've been with it. You have said that this was a hundred percent preventable? How so?

WILL KOHNEN, CHAIR, MARINE TECHNOLOGY SOCIETY'S SUBMERSIBLE COMMITTEE: Yes. Good morning. Yes, that's a tragic part. Look, why? Because we've been building, we as humanity around the world. We've been building submersibles that go a lot deeper than 4,000 meters for four decades. And we operating it every year, hundreds and hundreds of times reliably. We know how to make these machines. It's expensive, it takes a lot of work. But we know how to make these, and it is part of the process of certifying the submarines. It is well known in the industry. And it's just a matter of following the rules.

COOPER: And in this case, the rules weren't followed, the guidelines for the submersibles weren't followed because of the design that Stockton Rush wanted this carbon composite. And my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, the reason for this innovative design was really to be able to get passengers on board, to get more people on board, to have a bigger window to make it essentially something that tourists could come and do. Is that correct?

KOHNEN: In part, that's correct, but I'm just --