The former operations director of the Titan submersible has made a shocking confession while testifying in the ongoing trial about the disaster.
It’s been just over a year since the OceanGate sub lost contact with its mother ship while journeying down to visit the Titanic wreck.
The small vessel was carrying five people at the time and, following a frantic search, it was confirmed that all those aboard had died.
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The people who lost their lives were named as OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British explorer Hamish Harding, French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman.
The US coast guard ruled the deaths as being due to a ‘catastrophic implosion’ and is now conducting a hearing to ‘uncover the facts surrounding the incident and develop recommendations to prevent similar tragedies in the future’.
During the trial, a former staff member of OceanGate revealed a ‘red flag’ that led to her leaving the company.
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Now, another ex-employee - former operations director David Lochridge - has made a shocking confession whilst testifying.
In the hearing, Lochridge said: “The whole idea behind the company was to make money, there was very little in the way of science.”
Instead, the former employee said that the firm had a ‘very strong social media team that would sell the company, sell the seats’.
He went on to add that paying clients were not scientists, but ‘people who had money’, revealing that customers would pay $35,000 to dive on the vessel.
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Lochridge went on to say that he was very vocal about the safety of the sub, telling ‘every director within the organization’, adding: “If you don't have the confidence in it, you don't do it. That's it.”
While testifying, Lochridge also described a dive he embarked on with Rush to a wreck on another sub.
In his account, there were tussles over who would pilot the vessel, which Lochridge said Rush won before claiming he performed reckless maneuvers, one of which being a 180 degree turn at full speed which saw them getting jammed in the wreck.
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Lastly, Lochridge recalled how Rush threw the controls at his head.
The trial heard how Lochridge assembled a quality inspection report on the Titan sub back in 2018, where he had expressed his concerns.
One chilling issue was that the pressure hull hadn’t been tested and a window in the sub was only tested to 4,265 ft - just a third of the way down to the Titanic.