‘People were sold a lie’

When the Titan submersible went missing during a dive for the Titanic debris in 2023, David elasticize hoped that five people could be saved on the board – along with their former bosses – along with their former bosses.

He said, “I always hoped that what happened would not happen. But I just knew whether they were leaving and with that lacking equipment, there would be an event,” he told the BBC.

After warnings about security issues in 2018, the whistleblower was dismissed by the firm behind the sub, Oceangate.

In June 2023, all five people were killed on board – including Oceangate CEO Stockton Rush.

A report by the US Coast Guard (USCG) published on Tuesday found that Oceangate failures on security, testing and maintenance were the main cause of the disaster.

Lokde told the BBC, “There is a lot that could have been done in a different way. From the initial design, from the construction, from the operation – a lie was sold to the people,” Lokde told the BBC.

But he firmly believes that American authorities should be done more to prevent Oceangate.

Lochridge joined Oceangate as a director of the company’s maritime seven years ago. He took his family from Scotland to America, and was full of enthusiasm about the company’s ambitions.

Oceangate was making a new submersible to pay passengers paying the world’s most famous debris – Titanic.

And he was going to join the project from the very beginning, working with the team working with the team.

Glasswagian, who spoke directly, has worked in the sea for more than 25 years, first with the Royal Navy and later as a submersible pilot. He also led the submarine rescue operations, which respond to the crisis call from people underwater. He knows about the risks involved in deep divers.

Dives were planned in their responsibilities and as the main pilot, he would be sub -and his passengers to take 3,800 meters under the waves to see the Titanic. Security was in the heart of his role.

“As director of marine operations, I am responsible for everyone,” he told BBC News. “I was responsible for the safety of all osangate personnel and all the passengers who were going to come up.”

A prototype for the new submersible, eventually called Titan, was being developed with the Washington Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) University. The plan was to build their hull – the part where the passengers would sit out of the carbon fiber.

Before this material, no deep diving sub was created – most of them have coordinates made of titanium or steel. But the elasticity believed in the APL team.

He said he was told by Stockton Rush, CEO of Oceangate that the craft undergoes safety evaluation by an independent maritime organization, known as certification.

Lochridge was adamant on the fact that this third -plot oversight was necessary – especially because Titan was to be made from experimental materials.

But by the summer of 2016, he had started doubting the project.

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

The elasticity was worried. He did not believe the same among the engineers of Oceangate. He told the BBC that he did not think he had the experience of making a manufacture with the immense pressures found at the depth of the Titanic.

“At that time, I started asking questions … and I felt that I have the duty to ask him,” he said.

For example, as parts began to come for Titan, and the craft began to take shape, the elasticize said he was facing the problem after the problem.

“When the carbon hull came, it was a complete mess,” he said.

He saw visible intervals in the material, areas where layers of carbon fibers were coming separately – known as delay.

And he identified issues with other major components.

The carbon fiber hull had titanium domes at each end, but he said that the metal was wrongly mechanized. He was also concerned that the sub -visual port of the sub was not designed to work at extremely depth.

Regarding most, he learned that Titan was not going to be independently certified for safety.

He told the BBC that he was always vocal on security issues – so he was not going to remain silent.

“I brought out all the issues that I was watching … but I just met with resistance,” he said.

In January 2018, he again underlined his concerns to Stockton Rush. This time Rush asked him to complete the inspection of the vessel.

Titan was at an important point of its development. Passengers had already paid deposits for the dive to the Titanic employed for that year. Test dives were scheduled to begin in Bahamas before those campaigns.

The eloquence wanted Oceangate to delay these schemes.

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

The next day he was called to a meeting with Rush and several other ostegate employees.

A two-hour long meeting reveals a hot exchange between the elasticity and the rush from a two-hour long meeting.

At the end of the meeting, in response to the safety concerns of the elasticity, Rush says: “I have no desire to die. I have found a good granddaughter. I am going to be around. I understand such a risk, and I am going into it, and I think it’s one of the safest things that I will do anytime.”

For the surprise of the elasticity, he was fired immediately after this meeting.

But he was so concerned about Titan that he was in contact with the US government’s professional security and health administration – OSHA.

OSHA told him that his case was necessary because it included public safety and would be placed under the whistleblower protection scheme, which was designed by employers to protect employees from retaliation if they have reported concerns about workplace safety.

As part of this process, OSHA passed the concerns of elasticity about Titan in February 2018 to the US Coast Guard (USCG).

But the elasticity says that Osha wrote to Oceangate to tell that it was starting an investigation, everything changed.

In March, Oceangate asked the elasticity to give up the OSHA complaint – and they demanded a payment of $ 10,000 for legal cost. The elasticity refused.

Then in July 2018, Oceangate filed an elasticity – and his wife Carol for misuse of contract violations, trade secrets, fraud and theft. The following month, elasticize countered for unfair dismissal.

Lochridge says that OSHA was slow throughout the process and failed to protect it from the ongoing vengeance that he was receiving from Oceangate.

“I provided all the documents to Osha, I was on the phone to Osha every few weeks.” He said. “Osha did nothing.”

In December 2018, under the increasing pressure from Oceangate lawyers, the elasticity and his wife decided to leave the case.

This meant that legal proceedings were resolved, and as part of the agreement, Lokde withdrew its complaint to OSHA. OSA stopped its investigation and also informed the American Coast Guard that the complaint was suspended. The elasticity also signed a non-recruitment agreement.

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

Oceangate continued to speed up with his plans to reach the Titanic.

In 2018 and 2019, the prototype sub created its first Test dives in Bahamas – including one, operated by Stockton Rush, reaching a depth of 3,939 meters.

A crack was later found in the sub -carbon fiber plow of the sub, and in 2020 when the hull was damaged, it was swapped to a new, which became the second version of Titan.

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

But in June 2023, all went missing with five people on the board – including Stockton Rush. After the days of anxious wait, the sub -debris was found beyond the floor of the sea.

Last year, in a public hearing of the US Coast Guard, elasticize criticized OSHA for lack of action. “I believe that if Osha had tried to investigate the severity of concerns raised on many occasions, this tragedy could be stopped.”

“It did not have to happen. It was not – and it should have been stopped.”

In response to Mr. Elasticity, a spokesman from OSHA stated that its object protection program was limited to protect individuals against employer vengeance. He said that his investigation “followed the general procedure and timeline for a vengeance case”.

OSHA stated that it does not investigate the underlying allegations of whistleblower about public safety … but refers to the appropriate agency instead – in this case, the US Coast Guard.

The spokesperson said: “Coast Guard, not OSHA, had the jurisdiction to investigate the allegations of Mr. Elastic, which had about allegations about safe design and construction of seaples.”

But the report in the US Coast Guard disaster agrees with elasticity and says that there was an opportunity for initial government intervention to deal with the slow pace of OSHA investigation.

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

Jason Nubore, president of the Marine Board of Investigation of USCG, told the BBC that the Coast Guard could have done more.

“The system did not work for whistleblower in this matter, and that’s why we just need to be better – and we have.”

Oceangate said that in view of the accident, it had permanently injured operation and directed its resources to cooperate with the investigation.