OceanGate's former finance director quit after CEO Stockton Rush told her to captain ill-fated Titan sub
6 July 2023, 10:05 | Updated: 6 July 2023, 18:12
The former finance director of OceanGate has claimed she quit the company after CEO Stockton Rush handed her the controls of the doomed Titan submersible.
The former employee, who remains anonymous, said she resigned from the company after the US millionaire asked her to captain the sub after firing the craft's original chief pilot David Lochridge.
Mr Rush was one of five people to die in a "catastrophic implosion" on the submersible on June 18, shortly after the vessel descended 13,000 feet to the wreck of the Titanic.
Read more: OceanGate to suspend all exploration and commercial operations following death of five explorers
Former sub pilot Mr Lochridge was dismissed after raising safety concerns about the submersible, the former employee claimed in an interview with the New Yorker.
Lochridge was initially sued by OceanGate in 2018, however, he countersued Rush's firm, alleging the firing took place after raising concerns.
It's believed the concerns being flagged related to the Titan's hull. The former finance director also highlighted that many of the ill-fated sub's engineers were teens at the time of its creation, charged with much of the sub's wiring.
She added many were college interns from Washington State University and paid as little as $15 an hour.
Rush charged wealthy thrill-seekers $250,000 each for dives to the legendary Titanic shipwreck.
Read more: OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush compared glue holding Titan sub together to peanut butter
Adding that she "did not trust" Rush, the former employee said she quit the company following the departure of Lochridge, leaving as soon as she found a viable position elsewhere.
"It freaked me out that he would want me to be head pilot, since my background is in accounting," she said.
A previous passenger on an OceanGate Titanic mission said CEO Stockton Rush suggested they take a 'sleep' after the battery went 'kaput'.
Videographer Jaden Pan joined one of the sub expeditions in 2021 but the mission took a frightening turn when just two hours into the vessel’s dive the battery failed.
It comes as OceanGate's CEO Stockton Rush is reported to have once compared the glue holding the doomed Titan sub together to peanut butter.
Speaking in a video on the company's YouTube channel in 2018, Mr Rush said the glue was "very thick...not like Elmer's glue, it's like peanut butter".
At this point, Mr Rush had already acknowledged the simplicity of the sub's design, but said there was "not a lot of room for recovery" if things went south.
