“People have sold a lie”

When the titan, submerged, disappeared during diving to the remains of Titanic in 2023, David Lochridge hopes the five people on board – including his former boss – to be rescued.

“I always hoped that what had happened would not happen. But I just knew that if they continued to continue the way they were going and with that insufficient equipment, then there would be an incident,” he told the BBC.

The whistles were fired by the company behind Sub, the Ocean, after warning of safety problems in 2018.

In June 2023, the warming of all five people on board – including Oceangate Stockton Rush CEO.

A US Coast Guard report (USCG), published on Tuesday, found that Ocengate’s failures due to safety, testing and maintenance are the main cause of the disaster.

“There are so many that it could be done differently. From the original design, the construction, to the operations – people were sold for a lie,” Lochridge told the BBC.

But he firmly believes that US authorities could – and should – do more to stop the ocean.

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

Oceangate was building a new submersible to take the payment of passengers to the most famous ruins in the world – The Titanic.

And he would participate in the project from the beginning, working with the team designing the floor.

The speaker voting has been working in the sea for more than 25 years, first with the Royal Navy, and later as a submersible pilot. He also runs rescue operations for submarines, responding to disaster conversations by people trapped under water. He knows about the risks associated with deep dives.

His responsibilities included diving for planning, and as the chief pilot he will be the one who takes the underground and his passengers 3,800 m below the waves to see Titanic. Safety was at the heart of his role.

“As a director of marine operations, I am the one who is responsible for everyone,” he told BBC News. “I was responsible for the safety of all Oceangate employees and all the passengers who would come to the floor.”

A prototype for the new submersible, which will eventually be called Titan, is being developed at the University of Washington Applied Physical Laboratory (APL). The plan was to build its body – the part in which passengers would sit – outside carbon fibers.

This material has not been a deep -diving submarine before – most have hulls made of titanium or steel. But Lohridge had confidence in the APL team.

He said he was told by Oceangate Stockton Rush CEO that the craft would evaluate safety by an independent maritime organization known as a certificate.

Lokhridge was adamant that this third -party supervision was essential – especially because Titan had to be made of experimental materials.

But by the summer of 2016, he began to doubt the project.

Oceangate stopped working with APL and decided to bring the design and construction of internal titanium.

Lokhridge worried. He did not have the same confidence in Oceangate engineers. He told the BBC that he did not think they had an attempt to build submarines capable of withstanding the tremendous pressure found in the depth of the titanium.

“At that moment I started asking questions … and I felt that I had an obligation to take care to continue to ask them,” he said.

As the Titan parts began to arrive and the craft began to form, Lochridge said he noticed the problem after a problem.

“When the carbon case came in, it was an absolute mess,” he said.

He saw visible gaps in the material, areas where layers of carbon fiber fall apart – known as stratification.

And he identifies problems with other key components.

The carbon fiber body had titanium domes mounted on each end, but he said the metal had been treated incorrectly. He was also worried that the port of Sub View was not designed to operate at extreme depths.

Most of this, he has learned that Titan will not be independently certified for safety.

He told the BBC that he was always honest about safety issues – so he wouldn’t be silent.

“I brought out all the problems I saw … but I was just greeted with resistance to the end,” he said.

In January 2018, he again outlined his worries on the 100th Rush. This time, Rush asked him to finish the ship’s check.

Titan was in a decisive moment in his development. Passengers had already paid deposits for diving Titanic, planned for later that year. The test dives were about to start in the Bahamas before these expeditions began.

Lokhridge wanted the Oceangate to slow these plans.

“I formulated a report and sent it to all the company directors.”

The next day he was called to meet with Rush and several other ocean officials.

A transcript of the two -hour meeting, where the detailed report was selected, reveals a heated exchange between Lokhridge and Rush.

Towards the end of the meeting, in response to Lohridge’s safety concerns, Rush says, “I have no desire to die. I have a nice granddaughter. I will be around. I understand this kind of risk and enter it with my eyes open and I think this is one of the most secure things I will do.”

To the surprise of Lokhridge, he was fired immediately after this meeting.

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

Osha told him that his case is urgent because it includes public safety and that it will be placed under the circuit for the protection of whistles designed to protect employees from revenge from employers if they have reported concerns about workplace safety.

As part of this process, OSHA accepted Lohridge’s concerns about Titanus before the US Coast (USCG) in February 2018.

But Lokhridge says that after Osha, he writes to Ocengate to tell them that an investigation is beginning, everything has changed.

In March, Oceangate asked Lochridge to refuse Osha’s complaint – and asked to pay $ 10,000 for court costs. Lokhridge refused.

Then, in July 2018, the Oceante filed a lawsuit against Lokhridge – and his wife Carrell – for breach of the contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, fraud and theft, among other charges. The next month, Lochridge opposes dishonest dismissal.

Lokhridge claims that during the Osha process he was slow and failed to protect him from the continued revenge he received from Oceangate.

“I provided all OSHA documentation, I was by phone to Osha every few weeks.” he said. “Osha did nothing.”

In December 2018, under more and more, pressure from Ocengate’s lawyers, Lochrridge and his wife decided to refuse the case.

This meant that court proceedings were settled and as part of this agreement Lochridge withdrew his complaint in OSHA. OSHA has stopped its investigation and also informed the US Coast Guard that the complaint had been suspended. Lokhridge also signed a non -disclosure agreement.

“Carol and I did everything we could physically, we just got to the point that we were completely burned … There was nothing to give it. They defeated us.”

Oceangate continued with its pace with its plans to reach the titanium.

In 2018 and 2019, the prototype selection made its first test dives in the Bahamas – including one, piloted by a hundred -rush, which reached a depth of 3,939 million m.

Later, a crack in the Carbon fiber of the SUB was discovered, and in 2020 that the damaged hill was replaced for a new one, in what became the second version of Titan.

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

But in June 2023, Sub disappeared with five people on board – including Stockton Rush. After days of anxious waiting, the remains of the underground were found through the ocean floor.

At the US Coast Guard hearing last year, Lochridge criticized OSHA for the lack of action. “I believe that if Osha had tried to explore the seriousness of the worries I raised repeatedly, this tragedy could be prevented.”

“It didn’t need to happen. It wasn’t – and it had to be stopped.”

In response to the OSHA spokesman, the Lochridge spokesman said the signaling program was limited to the protection of people from revenge on employers. They said that their investigation “followed the normal process and the timeline for a revenge.

OSHA said it did not investigate the main allegations of submitting signals for reporting reports … and instead refers to the relevant agency – in this case the coastal security of the United States.

The spokesman said: “Coast security, not Osha, had a jurisdiction to investigate G -N -Lochridge’s claims about the safe design and construction of sea ships.”

But the US Coast Guard report on the disaster is

The report also criticizes the lack of effective communication and coordination between OSA and USCG. It says that action has now been taken to improve this after the disaster.

Jason Nubauer, chairman of the USCG Maritime Council, told the BBC that coast guards could do more.

“The system does not work to signal in this case, so we just have to get better – we have.”

Ocengate said that after the incident, he transferred operations permanently and focused his resources on cooperation with the investigation.