Whistleblower: OceanGate Was All About Making Money

Former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge testified Tuesday at the Coast Guard hearing on the implosion of the Titan submersible, saying he had "no confidence whatsoever" in how it was built. Lochridge was one of the hearing's most anticipated witnesses, CBS News reports. He testified that he believed a serious safety incident with the submersible was "inevitable," the BBC reports. Lochridge said the tragedy could have been prevented if the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration had investigated a complaint he filed.

• All about the money. The veteran engineer and submersible pilot testified that he felt like a "show pony" hired to bring scientific credibility to OceanGate. "The whole idea behind the company was to make money," he said. "There was very little in the way of science."
• A "total disregard for safety." Lochridge testified that OceanGate founder Stockton Rush, one of five people who died in the June 2023 implosion, had a "total disregard for safety" and always dismissed his concerns when he brought them up in meetings, Sky News reports. He said he believed his concerns were ignored due cost-cutting—and "the desire to get to the Titanic as quickly as they could to start making profit."

• An "abomination of a sub." Lochridge, discussing a safety report on the first Titan hull, described it as "an abomination of a sub," per Sky News. "There was so many laminations, so many voids. The imperfections were incredible. There was glue runs everywhere. And that's a red flag," he testified. He said the hull was like "porous paper. It was disgusting." He said "everything was reused" for the second Titan hull, the one involved in the disaster.
• Whistleblower protection scheme. Lochridge testified that he was fired in early 2018, a day after he warned that there should not be a manned test of the submersible before its hull pressure had been tested. He said he contacted the Occupational Safety and Health Administration with his concerns about the Titan and was placed in a whistleblower protection program for ten months, the BBC reports.
• "This tragedy may have been prevented." Lochridge said that eight months after he filed the complaint, he was told the the investigation had not begun and there were 11 complaints ahead of his, the AP reports. "I believe that if OSHA had attempted to investigate the seriousness of the concerns I raised on multiple occasions, this tragedy may have been prevented," he said. "As a seafarer, I feel deeply disappointed by the system that is meant to protect not only seafarers but the general public as well."
• A harrowing voyage. Like former OceanGate engineering director Tony Nissen, who testified on Monday, Lochridge described Rush as difficult to work with. He told the hearing that in a 2016 voyage to the Andrea Doria shipwreck off the coast of Massachusetts, Rush crashed a precursor to the Titan into the wreckage at full speed, the New York Times reports. He said that with the submersible jammed in the wreck, he tried to calm down his panicking boss and asked him to hand over the controls, but Rush kept pushing the modified Playstation controller away. Lochridge testified that after a paying passenger shouted at Rush, the CEO finally surrendered the controls. Lochridge said Rush threw the controller at him, hitting him in the "starboard side" of his head.

This story has been updated with Lochridge's remarks later in the hearing. (More Titan submersible stories.)