A key employee with the company that owned the experimental submersible that imploded en route to the wreckage of the Titanic pushed back at a question from a Coast Guard investigator about whether OceanGate felt a sense of “desperation” to complete the dives because of the high price tag.

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.

Amber Bay, former OceanGate director of administration, testified on Tuesday during the U.S. Coast Guard hearing on the Titan implosion.