OceanGate’s former director of marine operations detailed the “appalling” faults with the original model of the doomed Titan submersible that he refused to sign off on — and detailed how its CEO liked to “do things on the cheap.”
David Lochridge was hired by OceanGate in 2016 as a veteran diver and submersible pilot, but he was removed from the Titan project after he repeatedly clashed with CEO Stockton Rush, he told the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation Tuesday morning.
“The whole idea of the company was to make money. There was very little in the way of science,” Lochridge said.
Lochridge detailed the Titan’s list of “appalling” flaws, which he said were at least partly the result of Rush’s stinginess.
“Stockton liked to do things on the cheap,” Lochridge said of his former boss — who perished alongside adventurer Hamish Harding, Titanic explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet and multimillionaire Shahzada Dawood and his teen son Suleman Dawood — when the Titan imploded near the wreck of the Titanic in June 2023.
Lochridge was particularly concerned that the hull of the Titan — where passengers would sit — was made from carbon fiber and was only about five inches thick.
Typically, the hull should be made of metals like titanium, Lochridge explained.
The former British navy diver walked the panel through photos of the Titan’s hull that showed the layers of carbon fiber coming apart — and even one troubling photo that showed how a flashlight shine could be seen through the thin material.
The carbon fiber hull would also weaken and continue to thin out with each successive deep dive.
Lochridge also explained photos of what he called “Stockton’s idea” of a carbon scrubber, a device that maintains the atmospheric pressure in the sub.
Rush’s version of the essential equipment was made of a clear, plastic box from Home Depot with a fan affixed on top, the photos showed.
Everything from the original Titan was reused on the model that imploded last year, Lochridge added.
“They reused these domes, they reused these sealing faces, they reused the acrylic, they reused the interior. Everything was reused,” he said.
“It’s all cost. I wasn’t there for that, but I know firsthand that everything was reused. I am sure that will all come up as part of the investigation.
OceanGate initially worked with the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) at the University of Washington to develop its subs — but Rush opted to move engineering in-house due to his “arrogance,” Lochridge claimed.
“They thought they could do this on their own without proper engineering support,” he said of Rush and OceanGate engineer Tony Nissen, who testified on Monday that his own attempts to warn the CEO about the Titan’s shortcomings were ignored.
Lochridge was fired by OceanGate in January 2018, after he submitted an inspection report about the Titan that detailed the design’s flaws.
By that point, Lochridge said Tuesday, he had “no confidence” in the Titan.
While Lochridge was kept away from the project, he noted that Nissen’s staff was made up of “children that were coming in, straight out of university, some of them hadn’t even been to university yet.”
“There was no way I was signing off,” he said of the submersible.
“Hands down I would never go in [the Titan sub],” he added, adding he would not have “encouraged” anyone else to go in, including his own staff.
Rush, however, continued to insist that the submersible would be ready to launch in 2019.
After he was fired, Lochridge filed a report against OceanGate through OSHA.
He ended up being under whistleblower protection for 10 months, he said Tuesday.
“I didn’t want to see anybody dying for the sake of going in a sub,” he told the panel.
