Ex-Employee Has Scathing Remarks About OceanGate CEO Over Titan’s Failed Voyage

An ex-employee at OceanGate had some scathing remarks during a U.S. Coast Guard investigatory hearing this week.

David Lochridge, OceanGate's former director of marine operations, during his testimony Tuesday. / Mandatory Credit - Andrew J. Whitaker / Pool via AP

The failed and fatal voyage of Titan in 2023 is back front and center as the U.S. Coast Guard investigatory hearing got underway this week.

In June of 2023, the OceanGate submersible named Titan was taking a diving tour to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean to see the Titanic. CEO Stockton Rush was piloting the vessel with four other people onboard.

Unfortunately, they met their demise when Titan imploded.

A two-week hearing is now being held to determine what led to such a disastrous event and safety measures that can be recommended. The Justice Department could have potential criminality deferred to it as well.

On Tuesday, a former employee, David Lochridge, testified. He was a marine operations director at OceanGate and had some harsh words to share about what happened.

In his opinion, this experiment was more about money than anything else, as shared by Erik Ortiz of NBC News.

"There was a big push to get this done. A lot of steps along the way were missed. 

"The whole idea behind the company was to make money. "There was very little in the way of science."

Lochridge was in his role at OceanGate for about two years before he was fired. Hired in 2016, he moved his entire family from Scotland on a work visa that the company helped him receive.

During his testifying, the former employee revealed that the relationship between him and Rush broke down months after he was hired because he “embarrassed” his boss during another deep dive exploration; the Andrea Doria.

Despite that falling out, it was Lochridge who was asked by Rush to inspect Titan when he was almost done being built in early 2018. What he saw was far from satisfactory, as shared by Ortiz.

“What he found was "an abomination of a sub," he said, and would later learn firsthand that much of the same materials were "reused" in a second Titan hull that was manufactured and ultimately involved in last year's calamity.

"Stockton liked to do things on the cheap," Lochridge testified.”

His firing occurred in January 2018 as he was considered “anti-project” for letting his concerns be known, he said while he testified.

In Lochridge’s opinion, how things were presented on social media or in the news was not how operations were going behind the scenes. Tensions rose as they tried to find ways to earn money.

"It was all smoke and mirrors," Lochridge said. "All the social media that you see about all these past expeditions, they always had issues with their expeditions."

Sadly, five lives have been lost because of hastiness during a project that required patience and thoroughness to be done correctly.