Boss of ‘abomination’ Titan sub threw controller at director’s head after crashing doomed vessel before deadly implosion

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush allegedly threw a controller at a director’s head in a heated disagreement after crashing the doomed sub.

It comes as part of a two-week-long hearing into the tragedy that killed five people held in Charlestown, South Carolina , by the US Coast Guard.

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Former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge revealed that the Rush threw the Playstation controller to the right of his head during a heated argument in 2016.

Speaking at the hearing, Lochridge claimed that Rush had insisted on piloting an earlier vessel dubbed Cyclops 1 down to the Andrea Doria shipwreck in 2016.

Lochridge said he watched warily as Rush deployed the submersible and ignored his warnings to keep his distance from the deteriorating shipwreck about 250 feet under the Atlantic Ocean.

According to Lochridge, Rush drove the sub “full speed into the port side” of the wreck’s bow and refused to listen to guidance.

He said: “It was an absolute mess.”

Lochridge added that 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 Lochridge’s head.

Lochridge later told the hearing that he compiled a report on the “abomination” Titan sub after he first inspected the Titan hull.

He said: “For me, this was my opportunity, being asked to do it prior to the sub being handed over, an abomination of a sub, this was my opportunity to raise everything that I had seen during the build and the final build of Titan.”

He said the viewport and elements of the dome ceilings deviated from standard design processes.

Lochridge claimed said he was “appalled” by the O-ring – a type of seal.

He continued: “There was so many laminations, so many voids. The imperfections were incredible. There was glue runs everywhere. And that’s a red flag.”

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He described the hull as “porous paper. It was disgusting”.

He added: “Everything was reused.

“They reused these domes. They reused these ceiling faces. They reused the acrylic. They reused the interior. Everything was reused. It’s all cost.”

Lochridge was fired from the company in 2018 and had signed a non-disclosure agreement, preventing him from talking about OceanGate.

The former employee said he was glad he had been subpoenaed for the hearing so he could talk about the issues he had raised.

Doomed Descent

The world was captivated when the sub vanished from sonar and failed to resurface from a dive 12,500ft down to the Titanic wreckage in the north Atlantic.

The £200k-a-head voyage promised five passengers a trip down 12,500ft to the wreck of Titanic at the floor of the Atlantic ocean.

Titan is understood to have lost contact with the Polar Prince just one hour and 45 minutes into the expedition.

Brit billionaire Hamish Harding , French diving expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet , Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son Suleman, as well as submarine boss Stockton Rush were on the doomed vessel.

How the Titan tragedy unfolded?

Five men plunged beneath the surface of the North Atlantic in a homemade sub in the hopes of exploring the Titnaic wreckage last year.

Four passengers paid £195,000 to go on the sub, with the fifth member of the trip being a crew.

But what was supposed to be a short trip spiralled into days of agony as the doomed Titan vanished without a trace on June 18, 2023.

The daring mission had been months in the making – and almost didn’t happen at the hands of harsh weather conditions in Newfoundland, Canada.

In a now chilling Facebook post, passenger Hamish Harding wrote: “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023.

“A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.”

It would be his final Facebook post.

The following morning, he and four others – led by Stockton Rush – began the 12,5000ft descent towards the bottom of the Atlantic.

But as it made its way down into the depths, the vessel lost all contact with its mother ship of the surface, the Polar Prince.

It sparked a frantic four day search for signs of life, with the hunt gripping the entire world.

There was hope that by some miracle, the crew was alive and desperately waiting to be saved.

But that sparked fears rescue teams were in a race against time as the sub only had a 96-hour oxygen supply when they set out, which would be quickly dwindling.

Then, when audio of banging sounds were detected under the water, it inspired hope that the victims were trapped and signalling to be rescued.

It heartbreakingly turned out that the banging noises were likely either ocean noises or from other search ships, the US Navy determined.

Countries around the world deployed their resources to aid the search, and within days the Odysseus remote-operated vehicle (ROV) was sent down to where the ghostly wreck of the Titanic sits.

The plan was for the ROV to hook onto the sub and bring it up 10,000ft, where it would meet another ROV before heading to the surface.

But any hopes of a phenomenal rescue were dashed when Odysseus came across a piece of debris from the sub around 1,600ft from the Titanic.

The rescue mission tragically then became a salvage task, and the heartbroken families of those on board were told the devastating news.

It was confirmed by the US Coast Guard that the sub has suffered a “catastrophic implosion”.

Not known, clear with picture desk

Reuters