Netflix documentary about Titan sub disaster reveals moment CEO fired pilot for raising security concerns
Titan: The OceanGate Disaster focuses heavily on what eventually led the Titan sub to implode, killing the five people inside.
A new Netflix documentary about the Titan Sub disaster has uncovered a recording that reveals the moment late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush fired a member of staff for raising security concerns.
Titan: The OceanGate Disaster focuses heavily on what eventually led the Titan sub to implode, killing the five people inside.
Stockton Rush was among the five to die in the sub that took paying passengers down to see the wreckage of the Titanic in June 2023.
The Netflix documentary includes a recording of the moment that Rush fired his former Director of Marine Operations, David Lochridge.
Lochridge, an experienced diver and submersible pilot, says Rush told him at the very last minute that he wanted to be the one to pilot the sub for the dive.
When Lochridge pushed back he was overruled, but convinced the late CEO to allow him to join the expedition.
Footage from inside the sub shows how Rush, a comparably inexperienced pilot, almost crashes the sub into a debris field, forcing Lochridge to have to step in.
In the documentary, he claimed that he was then 'frozen out' of meetings and senior decisions by the CEO.
Lochridge said: 'The passengers were hugging but with Stockton it was a complete turnaround for me.
'He never really spoke to me the rest of the trip, the dynamic changed.
'After I started getting cut out by senior management from the Titan project. I was dropped from all email communications, verbal communications. I was totally out of the loop.'
He also described how the sub was made from carbon fibre, suggesting it was an unsuitable material to make a submersible from.
Lochridge went on to claim he was the 'only person' to stand up to Rush over security and engineering
The late CEO had decided he did not see the need to classify the Titan sub, and said he was happy for Lochridge to do an inspection of it.
The former OceanGate Director of Marine Operations described how he sent an email with his inspection notes, including his concerns around the submersible.
The next day Lochridge was brought into a meeting, the recording of which is shared for the first time in the Netflix doc.
Rush seems noticeably agitated in the recording, suggesting that anyone who said carbon fibre couldn't work for a deep sea submersible was 'full of s**t'.
He goes on to say: 'I don't want anyone in this company who is uncomfortable with what we're doing.'
'It was about the decision-making that led to their deaths,' director Mark Monroe says of Titan documentary, which traces the events and key decisions that culminated in the disaster.
Official investigations into the Titan disaster began shortly after the incident, with inquiries launched by both the United States Coast Guard and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada as the vessel was operated by a US company and launched from a Canadian ship.
The US Department of Justice is examining OceanGate's financial practices. But the Coast Guard's Marine Board of Investigation has yet to release its final report.
But according to the director, the investigations are now in a "holding pattern".
The Titan submersible imploded due to structural failure during its descent to the Titanic wreck.
The documentary shows how the novel use of carbon fibre in the hull of the craft, coupled with other questionable engineering decisions, raised alarms for many OceanGate employees.
In particular, the film highlights the inadequacies of OceanGate's acoustic monitoring system, designed to identify weak points in Titan's hull in real time.
The documentary includes portions of Karl Stanley's September 2024 testimony before the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation.
In April 2019, Stanley, a deep-sea diving expert, went on one of OceanGate's first crewed dives of a prototype submersible in the Bahamas, and reported hearing cracking sounds in the hull.
In the film, Keith Fawcett, a Coast Guard technical adviser, asks Stanley if he partook in 'any meeting where the results of the real-time monitoring acoustic sensors were examined by the group and tried to isolate where the sound occurred?'
'That information was not shared with me,' Stanley replies.
Monroe believes the Coast Guard thinks OceanGate 'didn't even look at the data. OceanGate has this thing they're promoting as this state-of-the-art unparalleled safety mechanism.'
Taking note of the acoustic monitoring system picking up additional fibres breaking across the dives leading up to Titan's 88th and final voyage, lead Coast Guard investigator Captain Jason Neubauer notes in the documentary, 'That should've been a warning. In the end [OceanGate] discounted the one system that was going to be vital to their operation. It is really in my mind like the smoking gun of what eventually caused this.'
16 minutes after communications from the Titan ceased, an unexpected sound reached an underwater recording device 900 miles from the Titanic wreck.
'Science tells us that when an implosion of that scale happens in the ocean, it makes a humongous noise,' Monroe says.
'The Navy has acoustic monitoring throughout the oceans. We know how sound travels in water, and we know that if a thing is 900 miles away, it's going to be about 16 minutes for that noise to reach the recording device. My belief was that's most likely the sound, and so to include it felt like resolution, definitive, some feeling of, 'that's what happened.' '
Titan: The OceanGate Disaster is available to watch on Netflix now.
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The Sun
8 hours ago
- The Sun
I talked dozens out of boarding doomed Titan sub over catastrophic safety risks – Brit victims were deceived, says diver
A LEADING deep sea diver who warned Stockton Rush over Titan sub's catastrophic safety risks says victims were "deceived". Titanic expedition leader Rob McCallum talked almost 40 people out of going on the doomed sub - which claimed five lives when it imploded two years ago. 9 9 9 9 McCallum, who has led seven dives to the Titanic, implored OceanGate boss Rush to let an independent agency test his vessel. But his warnings over the sub's critical safety failings fell on deaf ears and "intolerant" Rush simply brushed aside cautions from experts. The world was put in a chokehold when the unclassed sub vanished from radar during a 12,500ft dive down to the Titanic wreckage. Five days after it disappeared on June 18, 2023, a piece of debris was found on the ocean floor - confirming fears it had imploded. All five on board - Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and son Suleman, 19 - were killed. Harrowing emails show McCallum tried to warn Rush over Titan's danger - but the OceanGate CEO replied he was "tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation". Rush wrote: "We have heard the baseless cries of 'you are going to kill someone' way too often. I take this as a serious personal insult." McCallum said their tense email exchange ended after OceanGate's lawyers threatened legal action, and so he focussed on limiting the number of people who boarded Titan. He told The Sun: "I'd written to him three or four times, and he wasn't going to change. "I'd run out of options. I thought the sub would not survive sea trials and so I just focused on trying to limit the number of people that got into that thing. 'What's that bang?' Chilling moment sound of doomed Titan sub imploding heard from support ship "I probably talked three dozen people out of going on Titan, and I wouldn't get melodramatic about it, because I didn't want to over dramatise it. "Both because I wanted them to keep listening to what I was saying, but also I didn't want to become a drama queen and sort of written off as hysterical. "And so my simple answer was always, I would never get in an unclassed vehicle and nor should you." McCallum said he spoke to both Harding and Nargeolet, who both decided to take the risk. But he said Dawood and his son Suleman would have had "no idea" about the danger they were putting themselves in on the £195,000 dive as OceanGate downplayed the risk. McCallum said: "Hamish and Paul-Henri knew it was risky, but not the level of risk that they were taking. "The other two had no idea at all. And the reason that there's that uncertainty is because I think there was a concerted effort of deception. 9 9 9 "If you look at the culture of OceanGate, they weren't willing to take outside commentary, and anyone inside the camp that spoke out got fired or worse. "And so you've got this diminishing group of people that are only listening to themselves and they just tuned out the talk of the risk. "The risk was still there. But they just weren't talking about it anymore." McCallum, who founded expedition company EYOS, said all of those who he successfully advised not to board Titan realise they had a "close call". He added: "Within 48 hours of the implosion one rang up in tears and said, 'I owe you my life. I was going to get into that sub, and I couldn't get your voice out of my head, and so I turned around and came home'. "He lost his deposit but he said 'I just couldn't get your voice out of my head', and he was in tears. "People are very conscious that they had a close call." McCallum said on the fateful day of the sub's disappearance from radar he "just felt sick". After the sub lost contact with its support ship Polar Prince rescue crews worked around the clock in what was thought to be a race against time to save the crew. But McCallum said it was clear the sub had imploded. 9 "I knew immediately what had happened," he said. "There were two or three days when everyone was going through the search and rescue. "I didn't understand that because we knew it had imploded. "I was sad to lose some friends and shipmates. But I was grateful for small mercies that it would have been instantaneous." Engineer Rush, who co-founded OceanGate in 2009, created Titan with an experimental design made up of a carbon-fiber pod with titanium rings bolted on. McCallum said carbon fiber material is not fit for submerging so deep underwater. But McCallum's warning that carbon fiber would not withstand such pressure, Rush informed him he was "going to carry on regardless". In 2018, OceanGate's then chief pilot David Lochridge was fired after his inspection report laid bare a series of safety risks. A report from the Marine Board of Investigation is expected to be released in the coming weeks. McCallum said: "The report will be comprehensive and should cover all of the attributing elements that led to the disaster. "It will also indicate who is responsible and who might be subject to prosecution." 9 How the Titan tragedy unfolded By Katie Davis, Chief Foreign Reporter (Digital) FIVE men plunged beneath the surface of the North Atlantic in a homemade sub in a bid to explore the Titanic wreckage. Four passengers paid £195,000 each to go on the sub, with the fifth member of the trip being a crew member. But what was supposed to be a short trip spiralled into days of agony as the doomed Titan vanished without a trace on June 18, 2023. The daring mission had been months in the making - and almost didn't happen at the hands of harsh weather conditions in Newfoundland, Canada. In a now chilling Facebook post, passenger Hamish Harding wrote: "Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023. "A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow." It would be his final Facebook post. The following morning, he and four others - led by Stockton Rush - began the 12,5000ft descent towards the bottom of the Atlantic. But as it made its way down into the depths, the vessel lost all contact with its mother ship on the surface, the Polar Prince. It sparked a frantic four-day search for signs of life, with the hunt gripping the entire world. There was hope that by some miracle, the crew was alive and desperately waiting to be saved. But that sparked fears rescue teams faced a race against time as the passengers only had a 96-hour oxygen supply when they set out, which would be quickly dwindling. Then, when audio of banging sounds was detected under the water, it inspired hope that the victims were trapped and signalling to be rescued. It heartbreakingly turned out that the banging noises were likely either ocean noises or from other search ships, the US Navy determined. Countries around the world deployed their resources to aid the search, and within days the Odysseus remote-operated vehicle (ROV) was sent down to where the ghostly wreck of the Titanic sits. The plan was for the ROV to hook onto the sub and bring it up 10,000ft, where it would meet another ROV before heading to the surface. But any hopes of a phenomenal rescue were dashed when Odysseus came across a piece of debris from the sub around 1,600ft from the Titanic. The rescue mission tragically turned into a salvage task, and the heartbroken families of those on board were told the devastating news. It was confirmed by the US Coast Guard that the sub had suffered a "catastrophic implosion".
The Independent
3 days ago
- The Independent
OceanGate CEO heard eerie ‘popping' sounds in doomed Titan sub before fatal implosion
Footage from a Netflix documentary reveals the Titan submersible made "attention-grabbing pops" during a previous test dive. These sounds, heard by OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, were eerie thumps from the carbon fiber hull, indicating tiny fibers snapping under pressure. Rush expressed concern, stating "as long as it doesn't crack, I'm okay," before safely resurfacing from that particular dive. The incident occurred before the fatal implosion on June 18, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of all five passengers onboard. Watch the video in full above.
The Independent
3 days ago
- The Independent
Titan sub heard ‘popping' on previous dive before fatal implosion in eerie audio
The doomed Titan sub can be heard making popping sounds on a previous dive before the fatal implosion killed all five passengers onboard the vessel on 18 June 2023. Footage from the Netflix documentary Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster shows CEO Stockton Rush inside the sub on a test run as he describes hearing some 'attenion-grabbing pops'. Eerie thumps can be heard coming from the carbon fiber hull, which were explained in the documentary to be tiny fibres snapping when the sub was under great pressure. Stockton can be heard swearing before saying 'as long as it doesn't crack, I'm okay'. He later emerges safely from the sub to applause from his colleagues.
