OceanGate worker who voiced safety concerns told he had 'bad attitude', report into Titan sub disaster reveals
An OceanGate employee who voiced their safety concerns to bosses was told he had a "bad attitude", a daming report into the disaster has revealed.
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Five people died after a catastrophic failure 90 minutes into a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic in June 2023.
This included British adventurer Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood. The chief executive of tour operator OceanGate Expeditions, Stockton Rush, and French national Paul-Henri Nargeolet, were also killed in the incident.
On Tuesday, the US Coast Guard published a 335-page report in which identified eight "primary causal factors" that led to the fatal implosion.
The report said OceanGate had a "toxic workplace environment" and used the "looming threat of being fired" to prevent staff from coming forward with safety concerns.
According to the report, a contractor hired by OceanGate in 2022 voiced "numerous safety concerns" to a company director, before being told: "You have a bad attitude, you don't have an explorer mindset, you know, we're innovative and we're cowboys, and a lot of people can't handle that."
The report criticised OceanGate's design and testing processes and the continued use of the Titan submersible despite "a series of incidents that compromised the integrity of the hull and other critical components".
The tour operator's former director of engineering was reported by the US Coast Guard to have said the first hull used on the Titan submersible was akin to a "high school project".
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'Intimidation tactics'
Authored by lead investigator Thomas Whalen and marine board chairman Jason Neubauer, it read: "For several years preceding the incident, OceanGate leveraged intimidation tactics, allowances for scientific operations, and the company's favourable reputation to evade regulatory scrutiny.
"By strategically creating and exploiting regulatory confusion and oversight challenges, OceanGate was ultimately able to operate Titan completely outside of the established deep-sea protocols, which had historically contributed to a strong safety record for commercial submersibles.
"The lack of both third-party oversight and experienced OceanGate employees on staff during their 2023 Titan operations allowed OceanGate's chief executive officer to completely ignore vital inspections, data analyses, and preventative maintenance procedures, culminating in a catastrophic event.
"The tour operator responsible for the Titan submersible, which fatally imploded near the wreckage of the Titanic, "leveraged intimidation tactics ... to evade regulatory scrutiny", the investigation report has concluded.
