A key member of staff who labelled the Titan sub unsafe before its fatal dive that killed five Titanic tourists has told an inquiry his boss, who piloted the last voyage, had crashed before.
David Lochridge says he was made OceanGate marine operations director in January 2016 but was used like "a show pony" as the company's only qualified pilot. He said he was responsible for ensuring the safety of all crew and clients and training pilots , though none became qualified.
He told the inquiry: "I was the only qualified submersible pilot to fly the assets that we had. I was the only one with experience in new-build submersibles.
"It was difficult. I had to go up and do presentations all about my experience," Lochridge told the panel. "In my eyes, even at the time, they were selling me as part of this project." He then told the inquiry: “The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” adding, “There was very little in the way of science.”
"There was a serious shift within the organisation by summer 2016," he said, adding he was "phased out completely". This came, he said, after he "embarrassed" the company's CEO Stockton Rush by telling him he shouldn't pilot a sub. Rush refused, so Lochridge and three paying passengers then went on board, he told the hearing.
Lochridge claimed Rush drove the sub "smash" into a wreck, but still refused to listen to guidance. "It was an absolute mess," he said, even before Rush turned the submersible 180 degrees and drove it "full speed into the port side of the bow".
The witness said he repeatedly tried to retrieve the controls from Rush, who refused until a paying client shouted at him. Rush then threw the Playstation controller at the right side of Lochridge's head. The former employee was one of the most anticipated witnesses to appear before a commission trying to determine what caused the Titan to implode en route to the wreckage of the Titanic last year.
He previously claimed several years ago that he was fired for raising safety concerns. His testimony began a day after other witnesses painted a picture of a troubled company impatient to get its unconventionally designed craft into the water. The accident sparked a worldwide debate about the future of Titanic's private undersea exploration.
Among those killed was Stockton Rush, co-founder of OceanGate. Based in Washington state, the company suspended its operations after the implosion. The other killed were Titanic explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, father and son British-Pakistani Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood; and British adventurer Hamish Harding. OceanGate's former engineering director, Tony Nissen, kicked off testimony, telling investigators that he felt pressured to get the vessel ready to dive and refused to pilot it for a journey several years before Titan 's last trip.
"'I'm not getting in it,'" Nissen said he told Rush. When asked if there was pressure to get Titan into the water, Nissen responded, "100 per cent." But when asked if he felt that the pressure compromised safety decisions and testing, Nissen paused and replied, "No. And that's a difficult question to answer because given infinite time and infinite budget, you could do infinite testing."
OceanGate's former finance and human resources director, Bonnie Carl, testified Monday that Lochridge had characterized the Titan as "unsafe." Lochridge is expected to provide more perspective on what caused the implosion. Coast Guard officials noted at the start of the hearing that the submersible had yet to be independently reviewed, as is standard practice. That and Titan's unusual design subjected it to scrutiny in the undersea exploration community.
During the submersible's final dive on June 18, 2023, the crew lost contact after an exchange of texts about the Titan's depth and weight as it descended. The support ship Polar Prince then sent repeated messages asking if the Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display. According to a visual re-creation presented earlier in the hearing, one of Titan's crew's last messages to Polar Prince before the submersible imploded was, “all good here.”
When the submersible was reported overdue, rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to an area about 435 miles (700 kilometres) south of St. John's, Newfoundland. Coast Guard officials said that wreckage of the Titan was subsequently found on the ocean floor about 330 yards (300 meters) off the bow of the Titanic.
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