Titan sub Scot branded 'hero' for trying to halt dive before being fired for raising concerns
Glaswegian David Lochridge, who was the former Director of Marine Operations, warned OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush about the dangers of the Titan sub before he was sacked for speaking up
A Scot who tried to halt the journey of the fatal Titan submersible has been "unsung hero". Glaswegian David Lochridge attempted to stop the sub ahead of its doomed journey to the wreckage, which led to the death of five people on board.
David has been praised by viewers for his admirable efforts amid the release of a Netflix documentary on the disaster. The streaming platform released TITAN: The OceanGate Disaster last week, which explores the events leading up to the tragedy on June 18, 2023.
The submersible had been making a trip to the Titanic ruins in the north Atlantic when it imploded, killing everyone in an instant. Among the dead were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61, French Pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, British businessman and explorer Hamish Harding, 58, Shahzada Dawood, 48, a Pakistani/British/Maltese businessman, and his teenage son Suleman Dawood, 19, who was a student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.
The documentary shows the shocking footage of the moment American born Rush fires his Director of Marine Operations, Lochridge, for expressing his expertise concerns about the safety of the Titan vessel.
In one incident shown in the film, Rush told Lochridge at the last minute that he wanted to pilot the sub for a test dive to the Andrea Doria shipwreck despite the Scot's vast experience.
Lochridge managed to persuade Rush that he should at least let him join him and the other four paying passengers onboard. Luckily, he did, because at one point Rush crashes the sub onto the wreck and it is Lochridge who herocially guides them out of the danger.
After the incident, Lochridge explained how Rush told him "I owe you one" but then went on to leave him out of important meetings.
He said Rush "never really spoke to me the rest of the trip," adding the "dynamic changed" between them. He added that he was "cut out by senior management from the Titan project," and "was dropped from all email communications, verbal communications," leaving him "totally out of the loop".
After asking Lochridge to carry out an inspection on the sub, Rush fired him that day after receiving his notes which detailed faults.
In a recording of the moment Lochridge was let go by Rush, viewers can hear him telling him he was "full of s**t" as he says, "I don't want anyone in this company who is uncomfortable with what we're doing".
After Rush fired Lochridge, he then said he felt a duty to report his concerns to the Occupational Safety and Health Administrations, revealing that the sub was made from carbon fibre and that the OceanGate CEO has chosen not to classify the Titan vessel.
Lochridge, who repeatedly made his feelings clear about the doomed vessel, is hailed as an "unsung hero" by submersible consultant Rob McCallum who was also against the Titan being used.
Lochridge, who had previously piloted OceanGate expeditions, was advised that he would be protected after filing the complaint.
However, OceanGate discovered his responsibility and filed a lawsuit against him for breach of contract and fraud.
CEO Rush is heard saying in the documentary that he has no issue in "ruining a life" and Lochridge was forced to withdraw his complaint due to the financial impact it was having on his family and the slow pace which the case was moving at as OSHA investigator Paul McDevitt explained they had a number of other pressing cases to deal with first.
Lochridge described OceanGate's lawsuit as an attempt to "keep [him] quiet so they could proceed with the project".
He added that he could not believe Stockton and other staff members "were willing to play Russian roulette".
Speaking about the potential dangers of the Titan in 2017, he said: "The worst things that can happen take place at shallow depths - that's where you see the biggest pressure changes.
"The biggest hurdle, especially with the Atlantic, is that the weather conditions are at the beck and call of Mother Nature. We have a mobile subsea launch and recovery system, which we can deploy from once the sub is down at depth, so we should be out of the way of all the topside weather conditions."
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