Titan sub hearing latest: OceanGate scientific director says sub malfunctioned days before fatal voyage
Coast Guard announces ‘newly added witness’ to Titan Submersible Marine Board of Investigation’s hearing as another OceanGate mission specialist gets set to testify
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OceanGate’s former scientific director said that the Titan submersible’s platform malfunctioned just days before its fatal voyage, leaving one crew member to hanging upside-down.
Dr Steven Ross testified that he, along with other passengers, were trapped in the sub during a mission that took place in June 2023, just days before the vessel’s “catastrophic implosion” that killed all five people on board.
“The rest of the passengers tumbled about. I ended up standing on the rear bulkhead. One passenger was hanging upside down,” he said.
Earlier in the hearing, Renata Rojas, OceanGate’s mission specialist, tearfully addressed the US Coast Guard’s Titan Marine Board of Investigations panel. She talked about her role in preparing missions, her own trips down to the Titanic wreckage, and lamented the loss of her friends that died during the doomed expedition to the Titanic shipwreck.
“What we’ve all gone through is still very raw. Nothing is ever going to bring our friends back,” she said.
The Coast Guard announced a “newly added witness” to Friday’s hearing with testimonies from OceanGate mission specialist Fred Hagen, engineer from the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Lab Dave Dyer and co-founder of Triton Submarines Patrick Lahey.
‘It screams like a mother before it implodes’: Rush told Lochridge, the witness recalled
When he submitted the inspection report to senior management, Lochridge said he received a message about a meeting in the board room.
“That meeting turned out to be a two-hour discussion about my termination and how my disagreements with the organization with regards to safety didn’t matter,” he told the panel.
“It doesn’t just implode. It screams like a mother before it implodes,” Rush said about carbon fiber, according to Lochridge.
The witness said the company exhibited a “total disregard for safety.”
‘A lot of steps along the way were missed’ in the building of Titan
“I had no confidence whatsoever” with how the Titan was being built, he said.
“There was a big push to get this done and a lot of steps along the way were missed,” including safety concerns, Lochridge said.
“Stockton had no experience building submersibles. No one did,” he said.
Speaking about OceanGate’s social media that boasted photos of its previous missions, Lochridge said: “It was all smoke and mirrors.”
He reiterated that no one should be launching a submersible without proper safety precautions — or with “faulty, deficient equipment.”
Lochridge also revealed his note attached to his January 2018 inspection report to the directors. He wrote: “It is my opinion that until suitable corrective actions are in place and closed out, Cyclops 2 (Titan) should not be manned during any of the upcoming trials.”
Lochridge says Rush threw a controller at his head
David Lochridge said he was hired by OceanGate in 2015 as a contractor. He later became the director of marine operations.
“They were selling me as part of this project,” he said, adding that he was “responsible” for the training.
“They wanted to be able to qualify a pilot in a day,” Lochridge said of OceanGate. “It was a huge red flag,” since it is usually a “long process.”
“I don’t like being bullied into anything. I don’t tolerate liars. If I see something that’s a risk, I will put my hand up,” he said.
Lochridge also mentioned a dive on the Cyclops I to the Andrea Doria wreckage site that went awry. The test submersible “smashed” into the wreck, but Rush refused to hand over the “Playstation controller” to Lochridge. A “paying client” insisted he hand over control.
That’s when Rush threw the controller at Lochridge’s head, he said.
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