‘People were sold a lie’

When the submersible Titan disappeared during a titanic wreckage dive in 2023, David Lochrridge hoped that the five people on board – including his former boss – could be rescued.

“I have always hoped that what had happened would not happen. But I just knew if they continued to continue the way they went and with this deficient equipment, so there would be an incident,” he told the BBC.

The denunciator had been dismissed by the company behind the submarine, Oceangate, after warning of security problems in 2018.

In June 2023, the sub -implication killed the five people on board – including the CEO of Oceangate Stockton Rush.

An American Coast Guard report (USCG) published on Tuesday revealed that the failures of Oceangate on Security, Tests and Maintenance were the main cause of the disaster.

“There are so many things that could have been done differently. From the initial construction design, to operations – people were sold for a lie,” Lochridge at the BBC told.

But he firmly believes that the American authorities could – and should have done more to stop Oceangate.

Lochridge had joined Oceangate seven years earlier as director of marine operations of the company. He moved his family from Scotland to the United States and was full of excitement about the company’s ambitions.

Oceangate built a new submersible to take paid passengers to the most famous wreck in the world – the Titanic.

And he was going to be involved in the project from the start, working alongside the team designing the submarine.

The fully parallel Glaswegian has been working at sea for over 25 years, first with the Royal Navy and later as a submersible pilot. He also managed submarine rescue operations, responding to the distress calls for people trapped underwater. He knows the risks involved in deep dives.

His responsibilities included planning of dives and, as chief pilot, he would be the one who would take the submarine and his passengers 3,800 m under the waves to see the Titanic. Security was at the heart of its role.

“As director of marine operations, I am responsible for everyone,” he told BBC News. “I was responsible for the security of all the staff of Oceangate and all the passengers who were going to arrive in the submarine.”

A prototype for the new submersible, which would ultimately be called Titan, was being developed with the Applied Physics Laboratory of the University of Washington (APL). The plan was to build its shell – the part where the passengers sat – in carbon fiber.

No deep diving submarine had been made from this previous material – most of them have hulls built in titanium or steel. But Lochridge had confidence in the APL team.

He said that the CEO of Oceangate said that the CEO of Oceangate Rush that the profession would undergo a safety assessment by an independent marine organization, known as certification.

Lochridge was categorical that this third -party monitoring was essential – especially because Titan had to be made of experimental materials.

But in the summer of 2016, he began to have doubts about the project.

Oceangate stopped working with APL and decided to provide the design and construction of Titan internally.

Lochridge was worried. He did not have the same confidence in the engineers of Oceangate. He told the BBC that he did not think that they had an experience in building submarines capable of withstanding the immense pressures found at the depth of the Titanic.

“At that time, I started asking questions … and I felt that I had the duty to continue asking them,” he said.

While Titan’s pieces were starting to arrive and the job was starting to take shape, Lochridge said he was spotting a problem after the problem.

“When the carbon shell has arrived, it was an absolute mess,” he said.

He saw shortcomings visible in the material, areas where the layers of carbon fiber separated – known as the dilapidation.

And he identified problems with other key components.

The carbon fiber shell had titanium domes installed at each end, but it said that the metal had been incorrectly machined. He also feared that the wearing of the sub-per Underdue to be designed to operate at extreme depths.

The most worrying, he learned that Titan was not going to be certified independently for security.

He told the BBC that he had always been frank on security problems – so he was not going to remain silent.

“I raised all the problems I saw … But I have just encountered resistance,” he said.

In January 2018, he again described his concerns at Stockton Rush. This time, Rush asked him to finish an inspection of the ship.

Titan was at a crucial point of his development. Passengers had already paid deposits for dives at the Titanic scheduled for later that year. The tests of the tests were about to start at the Bahamas before the start of these expeditions.

Lochridge wanted Oceangate to delay these plans.

“I made a report and sent it to all the administrators of the company.”

The next day, he was summoned to a meeting with Rush and several other Oceangate employees.

A transcription of the two -hour meeting, where the detailed report was chosen, reveals an animated exchange between Lochridge and Rush.

Towards the end of the meeting, in response to Lochridge’s security problems, Rush says: “I have no desire to die. I have a beautiful granddaughter. I will be there. I understand this kind of risk, and I go with open eyes, and I think it is one of the safest things that I will never do.”

To the surprise of Lochridge, immediately after this meeting, he was dismissed.

But he was so concerned about Titan that he contacted the OSHA of the US Safety and Health Government.

The OSHA told him that his case was urgent because it involved public security and that it would be placed within the framework of the Protection Program of Denunciators, designed to protect employees from reprisals by employers if they have reported concerns about labor safety.

As part of this process, the OSHA has exceeded Lochridge’s concerns about Titan at the American Coast Guard (USCG) in February 2018.

But Lochridge says that after the OSHA wrote to Oceangate to tell them that it started an investigation, everything has changed.

In March, Oceangate asked Lochridge to delete the OSHA complaint – and asked for that it pays $ 10,000 for legal costs. Lochridge has decreased.

Then in July 2018, Oceangate continued Lochridge – and his wife Carole – for breach of contract, embezzlement of commercial secrets, fraud and theft, among other allegations. The following month, Lochridge contradicted an unfair dismissal.

Lochridge argues that throughout the process, the OSHA was slow and failed to protect it from the ongoing reprisals he received from Oceangate.

“I provided all the documentation to the OSHA, I was on the phone at the OSHA every few weeks.” He said. “Osha did nothing.”

In December 2018, under the growing pressure of Oceangate lawyers, Lochridge and his wife made the decision to drop the case.

This meant that the legal proceedings were settled and, within the framework of this agreement, Lochridge withdrew its complaint to the OSHA. The OSHA stopped its investigation and also informed the American Coast Guard that the complaint had been suspended. Lochridge has also signed a non-divulgation agreement.

“Carole and I did everything we could physically, we just came to the point that we were completely burned … We had nothing left to give. They beat us.”

Oceangate continued rhythm with his plans to reach the Titanic.

In 2018 and 2019, the Sub prototype carried out its first tests at the Bahamas – including one, controlled by Stockton Rush, which reached a depth of 3,939 m.

A crack was later found in the carbon fiber hull of the submarine, and in 2020, this Hull was exchanged for a new one, in what has become the second version of Titan.

In 2021, the company began to take the passengers to the Titanic, and in the next two summer, made 13 dives to the famous wreck.

But in June 2023, the submarine disappeared with five people on board – including Stockton Rush. After days of anxious waiting, the wreckage of the sub-marin was found littered through the bottom of the ocean.

During the public hearings of the American Coast Guard who held last year, Lochridge criticized the OSHA for its lack of action. “I believe that if the OSHA had tried to investigate the severity of the concerns that I have raised several times, this tragedy may have been prevented.”

“It didn’t need to happen. It didn’t do it – and it should have been stopped.”

In response to Mr. Lochridge, a spokesperson for the OSHA said that his protection program for denouncing people was limited to the protection of persons against the employer’s reprisals. They declared that their investigation had “followed the normal process and the calendar for a case of reprisals”.

The OSHA said that it did not invest the underlying allegations of the denunciators concerning public security … but rather refers them to those of the appropriate agency – in this case, the American Coast Guard.

The spokesman said: “The Coast Guard, not the OSHA, had jurisdiction to investigate Mr. Lochridge’s allegations concerning the safe design and the construction of sea ships.”

But the American Coast Guard report on the disaster agrees with Lochridge and says that the slow treatment with the survey was a missed OSHA for early government intervention.

The report also criticizes an effective lack of communication and coordination between the OSHA and the USCG. He said measures have now been taken to improve this after the disaster.

Jason Neubauer, Chairman of the USCG Marine Board of Directors, told the BBC that the Coast Guard could have done more.

“The system did not work for the denunciator in this case, and that is why we just need to improve – and we did it.”

Oceangate said that in the wake of the accident, he had permanently removed his operations and managed his resources to cooperation with the investigation.