- OceanGate's doomed sub failed on a test dive in 2021 after its thrusters malfunctioned, a former passenger said.
- The Titan vessel was stuck underwater for more than two hours, Brian Weed told Insider.
- "We sort of became sitting ducks in water without the ability to go anywhere," Weed said.
OceanGate's doomed Titanic submersible broke down on a test dive in 2021 when its thrusters malfunctioned, leaving the vessel — and the people inside — stuck underwater for more than two hours, according to a former passenger.
"We sort of became sitting ducks in water without the ability to go anywhere," adventure documentary cameraman Brian Weed told Insider.
Weed was working for the Discovery Channel's "Expedition Unknown" TV show when he and show host Josh Gates got the opportunity to take a test dive on the Titan in May 2021 in Washington state's Puget Sound.
That dive was supposed to be to a shipwreck site and serve as a "precursor" to a dive on the sub later that summer to the Titanic wreckage in the depths of the North Atlantic Ocean.
However, the sub — piloted by creator and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush — never made it below 100 feet in the water, according to Weed.
The dive was plagued with problems from the start, including even getting off the launch pad, Weed said.
The sub finally got in the water and got the all-clear to dive, but that's when "everything started to go wrong," Weed told Insider.
At least one thruster on the sub failed quickly and "there was basically a major malfunction with its whole thruster system," Weed said.
"That was sort of blamed on a computer issue. The computer systems needed to be rebooted, recalibrated," Weed said, adding, "We start to have comms issues. We were having trouble getting in touch with the topside crew so they could help troubleshoot. And this goes on and on for at least an hour."
The sub spent more than two hours in the water "going nowhere" before Rush "had to sheepishly confess we had to abort the dive because there was no way for the vessel to get down to the target," Weed said.
"The whole time I'm in the water locked in this [submersible] and thinking this is supposed to go to the Titanic in two months," Weed told Insider. "We can't get below 100 feet and this is supposed to go 12,000 feet under the ocean."
During the ordeal, Weed said that Rush seemed "flustered" and "nervous," but always had "an excuse or a reason for whatever was going on."
Weed called Rush "very convincing," "charismatic," "smart," and someone you "want to trust," but the cameraman said he had doubts about the sub's safety.
"Stockton believes so much in his own creation and innovation that he wasn't willing to even consider that he might be wrong about something," said Weed, adding that he thinks Rush was "blinded by his own hubris."
Weed said he was also taken aback by a "bizarre" comment he says Rush made when Weed raised concerns about what would happen in an emergency situation after they were deadbolted in the sub.
Ultimately, Weed pulled out of the documentary project over safety concerns and he said the production of the show's episode was later canceled.
The Titan sub imploded last month on an expedition to the Titanic's wreckage, killing Rush and all four passengers on board. After the sub first went missing, former employees and experts said they warned Rush the sub wasn't safe.
