In the desire to get a working submarine to the Titanic wreck site as quickly as possible, the Titan was built at a safety risk, with cost-cutting measures and poor engineering allowed by CEO Stockton Rush , a former employee said Tuesday in scathing remarks. in a US Coast Guard investigative hearing.
“There was a big push to get this done. A lot of steps along the way were missed,” testified David Lochridge, former director of marine operations for OceanGate, the Washington state company that operated the water vessel. deep Titan.
“The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” said Lochridge, who was fired from his role after about two years. “There was very little in the way of science.”
Rush was piloting the Titan with four others on board, some paying passengers, when it imploded in June 2023 during a Titanic dive tour at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. All five were killed, including a renowned Titanic explorer and a father and his 19-year-old son.
Fifteen months after the fatal voyage, the Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation is holding a two-week hearing in South Carolina to determine what led to the catastrophe and what safety recommendations can be made to federal regulatory agencies and international. Potential criminality could also be referred to the Department of Justice.
Lochridge was made director of operations in January 2016 after moving his family from his native Scotland on a work visa that OceanGate helped obtain. He testified that he was not directly involved with the design or construction of the Titan’s original hull, as his relationship with Rush broke down in the summer of 2016 after Lochridge said he “embarrassed” his boss later a heated encounter during an exploration mission to view the sunken. transatlantic, the Andrea Doria.
But Rush was still inspecting the Titan that was nearing the end of early 2018, Lochridge said.
What he found was “an abomination of a sub,” he said, and after learning firsthand that most of the same materials were “reused” in a second Titan hull that was manufactured and ultimately involved in the calamity of the past year.
“Stockton liked to do things on the cheap,” Lochridge testified.
Lochridge was to be fired in January 2018 for voicing his concerns and appearing “anti-project”, he said.
His public comments on the second day of Coast Guard hearings came after federal investigators opened up Monday with new details from the implosion, including a photo of Titan’s tail cone, and testimony of another OceanGate executive, former director of engineering Tony Nissen.
Nissen, who was hired in 2016, said he raised concerns with Rush after the Titan’s original hull — made of experimental carbon fiber, which has not been repeatedly proven to withstand the pressures of the deep sea – was compromised after it was struck by lightning during a test mission in 2018. The hull also suffered an unsalvageable crack, Nissen said, and refused to complete another test mission the following year, prompting the i shoot
Lochridge on Tuesday said he also met with Nissen, pointing out how OceanGate was struggling internally as it tried to do business: convincing rich people to pay tens of thousands of dollars to go on deep-sea dives in their submersibles .
“It was all smoke and mirrors,” Lochridge said. “All the social media you see about all these past expeditions, they’ve always had problems with their expeditions.”
The CEO “beats me” on the head during the diving mission
Lochridge recounted a first dangerous dive in the summer of 2016, when Rush piloted another of the company’s submersibles, Cyclops 1, on a trip to visit the Andrea Doria, the Italian ocean liner that is sank off the coast of Massachusetts in 1956 after colliding with another. ship
Lochridge testified Tuesday that he told Rush he shouldn’t be in charge of that trip, but the CEO was adamant. (The submarine gained attention when it was unveiled last year because it used a PlayStation controller to pilot.)
With three paying customers aboard the Cyclops 1 during that trip, Rush piloted the vessel recklessly, Lochridge testified.
“”Don’t tell me what to do,” Rush said, according to Lochridge.
Rush then piloted the sub directly toward the decaying ocean liner.
“He decided to go straight to the wreck,” Lochridge said, adding: “He just hit the bottom” and “basically drove full speed.”
“Every time I went to take the controller from him, he pushed it further and further,” Lochridge said.
One of the passengers was in tears, Lochridge said, adding that Rush only relinquished control when a passenger screamed.
Upset, Rush threw the PlayStation controller and “hit me on the side of my head,” Lochridge said.
Ultimately, Lochridge said, he discovered the controller, which had a missing button, and repaired it before piloting the Cyclops 1, which saw some damage, back up.
Once safe, the passengers cheered Lochridge, he said.
“I embarrassed him in front of the customers. He wasn’t happy,” Lochridge said of Rush. “I knew it was a turning point in our relationship.”
After Lochridge’s dismissal, OceanGate sued him in 2018, alleging breach of contract, including violating the terms of his contractual employment by discussing confidential information with other employees and representatives of the Health Administration and Occupational Safety.
Lochridge filed a lawsuit against OceanGate. The two sides later settled their dispute out of court.
Lochridge explained on Tuesday that instead of paying money to OceanGate as part of a settlement, he signed a non-disclosure agreement; he has been unable to speak freely about his employment until now, when the Coast Guard subpoenaed him.
Pursuing a counterclaim “wasn’t going anywhere,” Lochridge said, and his wife and he realized “that was causing more hurt for us.”