“People sold lies”

When in 2023, in 2023, the titanium, which plunged into the “Titanic” crash, David Lochridge hoped that five people are on board – including his former chief – could be rescued.

“I always hoped what happened.

After warning about security issues in 2018, Oceangate Oceangate was fired by the offenders.

In June 2023, the unit that died aboard all five people – including Oceangate CEO Stockon Rash.

The US Coast Guard report (USCG), published on Tuesday, found that Oceangate failures for safety, tests and service were the main cause of the catastrophe.

“There is so much that could be done differently. From the original design, to the assembly, to the operations – people sold a lie,” said Lochridge BBC.

But he firmly believes that US authorities could – and had to do more to stop Oceangate.

Lochridge joined Oceangate seven years earlier as a company’s maritime operations. He moved from a Scotland family to the United States and was full of excitement about the ambition of the company.

Oceangate has created a new submersion to pay passengers to the most famous crash in the world – “Titanic”.

And he was going to participate in the project from the beginning, working with the Sub team.

Directly bewildered by the glach worked at the sea for more than 25 years, first with the royal fleet, and then a pilot. He also headed the rescue operations of submarines, responding to calls with the disasters of the people who were trapped under the water. He knows about the risks involved in deep dives.

His duties included the planning of dives, and as the main pilot, he would be those who take the sub and the passengers 3800 m under the waves to see “Titanic”. Security was at the heart of its role.

“As a director of marine operations, I am responsible for all,” he said BBC News. “I am responsible for the safety of all Oceangate staff and all passengers who were going to come to the south.”

The prototype for the new loader, which will eventually be called “Titan”, was developed in the Washington University Physics Lab. The plan was to build your body – part where passengers would sit – from carbon fibers.

Previously, a deep diving was not made of this material – most there are housings built from titanium or steel. But Lochridge had confidence in the APL team.

He said he was told by Oceangate CEO Stockon Rash that the craft would be assessing the security of an independent maritime organization known as certification.

Lochridge was unwavering that this other supervision was important – especially since Titan was supposed to produce from experimental materials.

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

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

Locharidge was worried. He did not have the same confidence in Oceangate engineers. He said the BBC that he did not think that they have the experience of construction that can withstand the huge pressure found at the depth of “Titanic”.

“At this point, I started asking questions … And I felt that I had a duty to continue to ask them,” he said.

When the titanium parts began to arrive and the craft began to emerge, Lochridge said that after the problems he had problems.

“When the carbon housing entered, it was an absolute porridge,” he said.

He saw the visible gaps in the material, the sites where the layers of carbon fibers diverged – known as stratification.

And he identified problems with other key components.

Titanium domes were installed in the carbon fiber housing, but he said the metal was processed incorrectly. He also worried that the port overlooking Sub was not designed to work at the far depths.

In most cases, he learned that Titan would not be independently certified on safety.

He told the BBC that he was always open on security – so he was not silent.

“I raised all the problems I saw … But I just met with resistance all the way,” he said.

In January 2018, he again outlined his Stockton Rush problems. This time Rush asked him to check the vessel.

Titan was in the decisive stage of its development. Passengers have already paid deposits for immersion to the Titanic planned for the next year. Test immersion was going to start on the Bahamas before these expeditions began.

Lochridge wanted Oceangate to postpone these plans.

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

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

The transcript from a two -hour meeting, where a detailed report was selected, reveals a hot exchange between Lochridge and Rash.

At the end of the meeting, in response to the Locharja’s security problems, Rush says, “I have no desire to die. I have a good granddaughter. I will be around. I understand the risk, and I go to it with my eyes open, and I think it’s one of the safest things I will do.”

Surprisingly, Lochrja, immediately after this meeting, was fired.

But he was so concerned about Titan that he contacted the US -OSHA Labor Administration.

OSHA told him that his case was urgent because it provided public safety and that it would be located under the scheme of protection of violations intended to protect employees from employers when they report that concern is safety in the workplace.

As part of this process, OSHA conveyed the concern of Lochrja regarding the US Coast Guard (USCG) in February 2018.

But Lochridge says that after OSHA wrote in Oceangate to tell them he was starting the investigation, everything has changed.

In March, Oceangate asked Locchridge to refuse OSHA’s complaint – and demanded that he pay $ 10,000 for court costs. Lochridge refused.

Then, in July 2018, Oceangate sued Lochridge – and his wife Carol – for violation of the contract, illegal assignment of commercial secrets, fraud and theft among other charges. Lochridge went for an unfair dismissal next month.

Lochridge claims that throughout the OSHA process was slow and could not protect it from the constant revenge he received from Oceangate.

“I submitted all OSHA documentation, I called OSHA every few weeks.” he said. “Osh did nothing.”

In December 2018, under the increase in the pressure of Oceanger lawyers, Lochridge and his wife decided to abandon the case.

This meant that legal affairs were resolved, and in the framework of this Agreement, Lochridge withdrew the complaint against OSHA. OSHA stopped the investigation and also reported that the US Coast Guard that the complaint had been rejected. Lochridge also signed an agreement on non -disclosure of information.

“Carol and I did everything we could physically, we just got to the fact that we were completely burned … We had nothing left to give it. They beat us.”

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

In 2018 and 2019, the SUB prototype made its first test immersion in the Bahamas – including one, the pilot Stockon Rash, which reached a depth of 3939 million.

Later, the crack was found in the Sub carbon fibers housing, and in 2020, the damaged body was replaced by a new one, which became the second version of Titan.

In 2021, the company began to deliver passengers to Titanic, and over the next two summer it made 13 immersion to the famous crash.

But in June 2023, the missing disappeared on board – including Stockon Rush. After days of alarming, the fragments of sub -subjects were littered through the ocean floor.

At the US Coast Guard public hearing last year, Lochridge criticized OSHA for lack of action. “I believe that if OSHA tried to investigate the seriousness of the problems I caused several times, this tragedy may be prevented.”

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

In response to Mr. Lochridge Press -Secretary of the OSHA said the defense defense program was limited to protection against people from the vengeance of the employer. They said their investigation “adhered to the usual process and terms in the revenge.”

OSHA said it did not investigate the main charges of public safety … But instead refers to the relevant agency – in this case, the US Coast Guard.

The press secretary said: “The Coast Guard, not OSHA, had a jurisdiction to investigate the allegations of Mr. Lochrja’s relatively safe design and construction of the maritime courts.”

But the US Coast Guard report agrees with Lochridge and says the slow treatment of the Osh has become a missed opportunity for early government intervention.

The report also criticizes the lack of effective communication and coordination between OSHA and USCG. It states that it has now been taken to improve it after the disaster.

Jason Noibauer, Chairman of the USCG Maritime Council, said the BBC that coast guards can do more.

“The system in this case did not work for the offender, so we just need to recover – and we have.”

Oceangate said that after the accident, he constantly stopped operations and sent his resources to cooperate with the investigation.