Yeah, if they were resurfacing it must have been bad and readily apparent. Based on the hubris of the COE, I imagine he would be quick to handwave away any signs of problems. Not only was he willfully against safety inspections and so forth, but he knew if he had to abandon a trip due to a concern that his brilliantly engineered sub was breaking, he'd be proving all the nay-sayers right. If it got to the point that the COE decided it was time to turn around, it had to be bad. There is also probably a decent chance that he was on notice and could have abandoned the dive earlier and maybe saved everyone on board, but was motivated to keep pushing lest he be met with a chorus of "I told you so" from the diving community. At any rate, if its true they were trying to resurface, they knew and likely spent their last moments terrified.