Titan was 'abomination of a sub', crucial OceanGate witness claims
17 September 2024, 20:56
A former OceanGate employee has branded the doomed Titan sub an “abomination” on the second day of a US Coast Guard hearing into the disaster.
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David Lochridge, who served as the company's Director of Operations, told the hearing he raised a slew of concerns over the safety of the vessel before the 2023 incident which killed five people.
Mr Lochridge claimed viewport and dome ceilings deviated from design best practice and told the hearing he was “appalled” by the state of the sub’s O-ring seals.
"There was so many laminations, so many voids. The imperfections were incredible. There was glue runs everywhere. And that's a red flag," he said.
He went on to compare the ship’s hull to “porous paper" and said “the whole idea behind the company was to make money.
He added: "There was very little in the way of science."
Read More: Haunting last words from doomed Titan sub revealed as inquiry into OceanGate tragedy begins
Mr Lochridge described how he was often paraded to clients to give OceanGate an image of legitimacy.
"I was, I felt, a show pony," he said. "I was made by the company to stand up there and do talks. It was difficult. I had to go up and do presentations. All of it."
Lochridge was sacked by OceanGate in 2018 after raising concerns over the safety of the Titan submersible.
Earlier in the day it had been revealed OceanGate wanted to train pilots to dive to the Titanic in just one day.
Mr Lochridge explained that "from the outset", OceanGate told him the company's plan was to go to the Titanic. OceanGate "wanted to be able to qualify a pilot in a day, somebody that had never sat in a submersible,"
Mr Lochridge told the US Coast Guard hearing into the disaster: "That is a huge red flag."
The inquiry was told Mr Lochridge was made OceanGate marine operations director in January 2016 and was responsible for ensuring the safety of all crew and clients and training pilots, though none became qualified, he said.
He said: "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."
OceanGate’s former engineering director, Tony Nissen, began Monday’s evidence, 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,’” Mr Nissen said he told Rush.When asked if there was pressure to get Titan into the water, Mr Nissen responded, “100%.”
But asked if he felt that the pressure compromised safety decisions and testing, Mr Nissen paused, then replied, “No. And that’s a difficult question to answer because given infinite time and infinite budget, you could do infinite testing.”
Coast Guard officials noted at the start of the hearing that the submersible had not been 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.
One of the last messages from Titan’s crew to Polar Prince before the submersible imploded stated, “all good here,” according to a visual re-creation presented earlier in the hearing.
