A key employee who deemed the doomed-to-sink experimental submersible unsafe before its final, fatal voyage testified Tuesday that the tragedy could have been prevented if federal safety agencies had investigated his complaints.
Ocean Gate’s former director of operations, David Lockridge, said he was disappointed with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s decision not to resolve the complaints.
“I believe this tragedy may have been prevented if OSHA had made an effort to investigate the seriousness of the concerns I have raised on a number of occasions,” he said before a panel investigating why the Titanic imploded last year as it sank, killing all five crew members. “As a sailor myself, I am deeply disappointed in a system that is meant to protect not only sailors but the public as well.”
In his testimony, Lockridge said that eight months after he filed his complaint with OSHA, a caseworker told him the agency had not yet begun an investigation and that he had 11 cases before him. At that point, Ocean Gate had sued Lockridge, and Lockridge had filed a countersuit.
About 10 months after the charges were filed, he decided to walk away from the case. The case was closed and both charges were dropped.
“I gave them nothing and they gave me nothing,” he said of Ocean Gate.
OSHA officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Lockridge said on the same day that he frequently clashed with his co-founders and felt the company was only interested in making money.
Lockridge was one of the most anticipated witnesses to appear before the committee, and his testimony echoed that of other former employees Monday, including one who described Ocean Gate President Stockton Rush as volatile and difficult to work with.
“The whole idea behind this company was to make money,” Lockridge says. “There was very little science involved.”
Rush was one of five people killed in the explosion. Ocean Gate owns the Titan and has taken it on several dives to the Titanic dating back to 2021.
Lockridge’s testimony came a day after other witnesses painted a picture of a troubled company that couldn’t wait to put its unconventional vessel out to sea. The incident has sparked a global debate about the future of private offshore exploration.
Lochridge joined the company in the mid-2010s as a veteran engineer and submersible pilot, but he said he quickly began to feel like he was being used to give the company scientific credibility, that the company was pitching him as part of the project “to get people to pay money,” and he didn’t like that.
“I thought I was just a front man,” he says. “The company asked me to get on stage and speak. It was hard. I had to get on stage and give a presentation. The whole thing.”
Referring to a 2018 report that raised safety concerns about Ocean Gate’s operations, Lockridge said there was “absolutely no way I would agree with this” given all the safety issues he’d seen.
When asked if he was confident about the way Titan was being built, he said, “I have absolutely no confidence.”
Lockridge said employee turnover was high at the time, but that management ignored his concerns because they were focused on “bad engineering decisions” and a desire to get to the Titanic as quickly as possible and make money. He said he was ultimately fired after raising safety concerns.
“I didn’t want to lose my job. I wanted to go on the Titanic, but I wanted to do it safely. It was on my bucket list,” he said.
Washington state-based Ocean Gate suspended operations after the explosion.
Tony Nissen, Ocean Gate’s former director of engineering, told investigators at the start of his testimony Monday that he felt pressured to get the ship ready to dive and refused to pilot the Titan on its final voyage several years before it made its final voyage. Nissen worked on prototype hulls that predated the Titanic’s expedition.
“‘I’m not participating,'” Nissen reportedly told Rush.
Bonnie Karl, Ocean Gate’s former director of finance and human resources, testified Monday that Lockridge described the Titan as “unsafe.”
Coast Guard officials noted at the start of the hearing that the submersible had not undergone the usual independent review. That, along with Titan’s unusual design, has exposed it to scrutiny from the undersea exploration community.
During the submersible’s final dive on June 18, 2023, the crew lost contact after exchanging text messages about Titan’s depth and weight as it descended. The support vessel Polar Prince then repeatedly sent messages asking if the vessel was still visible on Titan’s onboard displays.
“We’re OK,” one of the final messages sent by the Titan crew to the Polar Prince before the submersible exploded, according to a video reconstruction played earlier at the hearing.
After receiving reports that the submarine was delayed, salvage crews rushed ships, aircraft and other equipment to waters about 445 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, where the wreckage of the Titanic was later found on the ocean floor about 1,000 feet (300 meters) from the ship’s bow, Coast Guard officials said.
A US Coast Guard hearing revealed that the crew of the Titan submersible had sent a series of text messages before losing contact, including one that said, “We’re OK.” Less than two hours after diving toward the wreck of the Titanic in June 2023, the ship imploded, killing everyone on board.
OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Zoneline and former science director Steven Ross are scheduled to appear at a later hearing, according to a list compiled by the Coast Guard. Numerous Guard officials, scientists, government and industry officials are also scheduled to testify. The U.S. Coast Guard has issued subpoenas to witnesses who are not government employees, according to Coast Guard spokeswoman Melissa Leake.
Among those not on the witness list for the hearing is Mr. Rush’s widow, Wendy Rush, the company’s director of public relations. Mr. Lockridge said she played an active role at the company during his time there.
Asked about Wendy Rush’s absence, Leak said the Coast Guard would not comment on why it had not called specific individuals to specific hearings while the investigation was ongoing.
She said it is “common for the Marine Investigative Board to hold multiple hearings and/or take additional witness testimony in complex cases.”
Ocean Gate said in a statement that it does not currently have any full-time employees but will be represented by an attorney at the hearing.
The company said it has cooperated fully with the Coast Guard and NTSB investigations since they began.
The ongoing Marine Board of Investigation is the highest level of maritime casualty investigation conducted by the Coast Guard. Once the hearings are complete, it will provide a recommendation to the Coast Guard Commandant. The National Transportation Safety Board is also investigating.
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