Tuesday 17 September 2024
First image of the Titan wreckage at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean
.Credit: Pelagic Research Services/US Coast Guard
A top OceanGate employee who called the doomed Titan submersible "unsafe" before its fatal voyage said the company was only committed to making money.
David Lochridge, OceanGate’s former operations director, testified on Tuesday at the Marine Board of Investigation, the highest level of marine casualty inquiry by the US Coast Guard.
His testimony echoed statements from former employees on Monday, one of whom described OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush as volatile and difficult to work with.
'All good here': One of the last texts sent from doomed Titan sub
“The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge said.
“There was very little in the way of science.”
Rush was one of the five people killed when the Titan imploded in the North Atlantic Ocean in June 2023. The company suspended business after the incident.
British adventurer Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood were also killed, alongside French national Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
A top OceanGate employee who called the doomed Titan submersible "unsafe" before its fatal voyage said the company was only committed to making money.
David Lochridge, OceanGate’s former operations director, testified on Tuesday at the Marine Board of Investigation, the highest level of marine casualty inquiry by the US Coast Guard.
His testimony echoed statements from former employees on Monday, one of whom described OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush as volatile and difficult to work with.
'All good here': One of the last texts sent from doomed Titan sub
“The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge said.
“There was very little in the way of science.”
Rush was one of the five people killed when the Titan imploded in the North Atlantic Ocean in June 2023. The company suspended business after the incident.
British adventurer Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood were also killed, alongside French national Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
The deep-sea vessel was on an expedition to the Titanic wreckage around 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland
Credit: OceanGate Expeditions/PA
Lochridge, who joined the company that owned the Titan sub in the mid-2010s, said he felt the firm was using him as a selling point “for people to come up and pay money,” and that did not sit well with him.
He said: “I was, I felt, a show pony.
“I was made by the company to stand up there and do talks. It was difficult. I had to go up and do presentations. All of it.”
He referenced a 2018 report which raised safety issues about OceanGate operation and said that given all the safety issues he saw “there was no way I was signing off on this".
When asked if he had confidence in the construction of the Titan sub, he replied, "No confidence whatsoever".
Lochridge explained that employee turnover was very high at the time, and leadership dismissed his concerns, prioritising "bad engineering decisions" and a rush to reach the Titanic to start making money.
He said he was eventually fired after raising the safety concerns.
OceanGate suspends commercial operations after Titan submersible deaths
Titan submersible: First image of wreckage revealed at hearing into tragedy
“I didn’t want to lose my job. I wanted to do the Titanic. But to dive it safely. It was on my bucket list, too,” he said.
The hearing's first witness, OceanGate's former engineering director, Tony Nissen, said on Monday he felt pressured to get the vessel ready for diving and refused to pilot it on a trip several years before Titan’s final journey.
He had worked on a prototype hull predating the Titanic missions.
“I’m not getting in it,” Nissen recalled telling Stockton Rush.
When asked if there was pressure to launch the Titan, he responded, “100%".
Lochridge, who joined the company that owned the Titan sub in the mid-2010s, said he felt the firm was using him as a selling point “for people to come up and pay money,” and that did not sit well with him.
He said: “I was, I felt, a show pony.
“I was made by the company to stand up there and do talks. It was difficult. I had to go up and do presentations. All of it.”
He referenced a 2018 report which raised safety issues about OceanGate operation and said that given all the safety issues he saw “there was no way I was signing off on this".
When asked if he had confidence in the construction of the Titan sub, he replied, "No confidence whatsoever".
Lochridge explained that employee turnover was very high at the time, and leadership dismissed his concerns, prioritising "bad engineering decisions" and a rush to reach the Titanic to start making money.
He said he was eventually fired after raising the safety concerns.
OceanGate suspends commercial operations after Titan submersible deaths
Titan submersible: First image of wreckage revealed at hearing into tragedy
“I didn’t want to lose my job. I wanted to do the Titanic. But to dive it safely. It was on my bucket list, too,” he said.
The hearing's first witness, OceanGate's former engineering director, Tony Nissen, said on Monday he felt pressured to get the vessel ready for diving and refused to pilot it on a trip several years before Titan’s final journey.
He had worked on a prototype hull predating the Titanic missions.
“I’m not getting in it,” Nissen recalled telling Stockton Rush.
When asked if there was pressure to launch the Titan, he responded, “100%".
Tony Nissen, head engineer for OceanGate at the hearing.Credit: AP
In other testimonies, Coast Guard officials said the Titan was left exposed to the weather for seven months in 2022 and 2023 before its fatal dive.
They also revealed that the sub’s hull was never inspected by third parties, as is standard procedure.
The investigation will hear from 24 witnesses before it is expected to conclude on September 27, and recommendations will be submitted to the Coast Guard's commandant.
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The National Transportation Safety Board is also conducting its own investigation.
The deep-sea vessel was on an expedition to the Titanic wreckage about 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland, when it lost contact with the tour operator an hour and 45 minutes into the two-hour descent. The vessel was reported missing eight hours after communication was lost.
After days of searching, wreckage from the submersible was recovered from the ocean floor near the Titanic.
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