The Titan submersible in camp. OceanGate
David Lochridge, a former senior submersible pilot for OceanGate, said back in 2018 that the company’s titanium submersible was not safe to dive.
In an email exchange, he told an industry leader that the submarine was “a failure,” The New Yorker reports.
Lochridge was sacked after raising concerns.
We’re currently testing machine translations of articles by our US colleagues at Insider. This article has been automatically translated and checked by a real editor. We welcome feedback at the end of the article
A former OceanGate employee said loudly „The New Yorker“ back in 2018, the company’s titanium submersible was a “riveter” and not safe for diving. The Titan imploded near the Titanic wreckage on June 18, killing all five people on board.
David Lochridge was the company’s former director of naval operations and chief pilot before being fired after raising concerns about OceanGate’s testing protocol.
Rob McCallum, a deep-sea exploration specialist, emailed Lochridge in 2018 to ask how OceanGate-CEO Stockton Rush cope with his departure.
read too
The Pareto principle: Two experts explain how you can achieve maximum results in your job with little effort
“Stockton must be devastated,” McCallum wrote to Lochridge. “You were the star and the only one who gave me a shred of confidence.”
“I think you’ll be even more surprised when I tell you what happens”
Lochridge countered that he will be “surprised” when he “tells him what’s happening,” adding that he would share his assessment of the Titan submarine privately but was scared because of his “power and money.” from retaliation by Rush.
“This submarine is not safe for diving,” Lochridge wrote.
“Do you think the submarine can be made safe to dive again, or is it a total failure?” McCallum replied. “You’re going to get a lot of support from people in the industry. Everyone watches and waits and quietly pees their pants.”
Lochridge replied, “It’s a flop.”
“Oh it is,” replied McCallum. “Oh it is, oh it is.”
Left: The Titan submersible underwater on an active tour. Right: Parts of the Titan submersible after salvage. Reuters
In 2018, Lochridge inspected OceanGate’s submersible model and found “several critical aspects to be flawed or unproven,” reported The New Yorker.
He wrote a detailed account of the problems, including concerns about the ship’s carbon-fiber hull, which experts now believe was the cause might have failed first.
read too
Explosive double role: Rheinmetall boss Armin Papperger has bought a supplier with his private fortune, who receives millions of orders from Rheinmetall
According to the article, Rush was “furious” after Lochridge’s report, and OceanGate management insisted no hull testing was necessary.
Rush ignored repeated warnings from inside and outside the company about potential problems with the ship and refused to have it classified by an outside maritime certification body, according to the report, because he believed it would hamper innovation.
The CEO of OceanGate exhibitions posed in Times Square in New York, United States, April 12, 2017. Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
When confronted by a friend in 2019, Rush claimed he would rather shut down his business than operate an unsafe vessel, emails reveal insiders are present.
Rush wrote an email to his friend Karl Stanleyan underwater vehicle expert, who raised serious concerns about Titan’s integrity after hearing cracking sounds while diving in the Bahamas that year.
read too
Identical twins did the same training for three months, but one trained twice as long – in the end, the result was almost the same
“Following our dive, I made it clear that I will not take any essential crew, customers or media on the sub until I am certain the hull is secure,” Rush said in reply to Stanley. “As I told you, I canceled last year’s expedition and will cancel this year’s as well or even close the company before I put an unsafe submarine into service.
All five passengers aboard Titan, including Rush, were pronounced dead after the submersible imploded on June 18 during a dive to the wreck of Titanic, four kilometers under the Atlantic.
Read the original article in English here.