NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – A former OceanGate dive passenger and colleague of the late CEO Stockton Rush claimed that Rush knew the submersible he was piloting when it imploded on the way to view the shipwrecked Titanic would eventually fail. MORE ON THE TITAN SUBMERSIBLE "OceanGate came very, very close to killing me and has had a severe impact on my business as well as an entire industry…," Karl Stanley began in his closing statements following hours of testimony to a Coast Guard panel investigating why the Titan submersible imploded. Stanley has decades of submersible experience as an operator and designer for his business, the Roatan Institute of Deepsea Exploration."The definition of an accident is something that happened unexpectedly and by sheer chance," Stanley continued. "There was nothing unexpected about this. This was expected by everybody that had a little bit of information, and I think that if it wasn't an accident, it then has to be some degree of crime."He went on to say that Rush wanted to "leave his mark on the world," and OceanGate was his way of doing so. "How do you tell all of these people that invested-- Guillermo gave me a number of $100 million of investment. How do you tell people their $100 million is gone and your business plan was a terrible idea and isn't working out?" Stanley questioned. "And I think that's why he kept diving and he knew that eventually it was going to end like this and he wasn't going to be held accountable, but he was going to be the most famous of all his famous relatives."Stanley's statements on OceanGate almost killing him stem from an April 2019 test dive with the company in the Bahamas. On that dive, Stanley and three other crew members dove in the Titan to 3,760 meters, about 10 to 12 miles off the coast of Little Harbor, he testified. During the dive, Stanley explained that the Titan was making loud noises that resembled "cracking," and it got worse the deeper the submersible went. Stanley said that Rush never piloted the submersible during this dive but instead encouraged the other crew members to take turns piloting. Before the Apr. 17 dive, the Titan's hull was allegedly struck by lightning, which caused a crack in the hull, according to testimony from the previous OceanGate Engineering Director Tony Nissen.Stanley was never told of this or issues with any previous dives despite asking, he testified. If he had known, he would not have gone on the dive. Stanley was also not asked to sign a liability waiver, which later passengers called "mission specialists" were.Following the test dive, Stanley wrote several emails about his Titan concerns. In one, he wrote, "I think that hull has a defect near that flange that will only get worse. The only question in my mind is will it catastrophically fail or not." Notably, the hull used in the test dive Stanley was on was different than the final hull used when the Titan imploded. Before the panel heard from Stanley, Amber Bay explained her experience with OceanGate as the former administration chief and dive crew member.Bay was open about OceanGate's financial struggles, admitting that once the company asked employees to delay their paychecks and, in exchange, would receive a small amount of interest at a later date. When asked, Bay denied tolerance for willful violations of safety policies and procedures at OceanGate. Her statements disputed testimony from an OceanGate former contractor, Antonella Wilby. Wilby claimed that when she raised safety concerns, Bay told her she did not "have an explorer's mindset" and removed her from her communication navigation team.Bay finished her testimony with tearful closing thoughts:"I had the privilege of knowing the explorers whose lives were lost. Stockton, PH, Shahzada, Sulaiman, and Hamish. And there's not a day that passes that I don't think of them, their families, and the loss. It's been a difficult year for them and for all of us." -- STAY CONNECTED: Receive news alerts from this hearing and watch it on the go with the NEWS 2 APP (download it here). You can also subscribe to daily emails for the latest news on the titan hearings.