Missing Titanic submersible: When OceanGate was warned of 'catastrophic' dangers with expedition
Several experts, both inside and outside OceanGate, had warned the company of potential 'catastrophic' problems with the Titanic wreckage expedition and urged the firm to undergo a certification process.
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FollowEven as the search for OceanGate's submersible vessel that went missing with five people aboard in the Atlantic Ocean continues, fresh details of the company ignoring numerous warnings of its Titanic wreckage mission have surfaced. In 2018, the firm's technical team was gearing up to hand over the Titan vessel to a new crew to ensure incoming passengers would be safe. However, specialists both inside and outside the corporation started raising red flags.
Around that time, according to court documents, OceanGate's director of marine operations, David Lochridge, began putting together a report. He eventually produced a damning document in which he argued that the craft required additional testing and emphasised "the potential dangers to Titan passengers as the submersible reached extreme depths."
Two months later, more than three dozen deep-sea explorers, oceanographers, and other professionals wrote to OceanGate's CEO, Stockton Rush, warning that the company's "experimental" approach and decision to forego a traditional assessment could result in potentially "catastrophic" issues with the Titanic expedition.
More information about the warnings levelled at OceanGate as the corporation raced to deliver extreme tourism for the wealthy is now emerging as the global search for the craft starts a new day.
OceanGate CEO Rush is one of the passengers on the Titan vessel and was serving as the pilot when it went missing on Sunday. An aeronautical engineer and pilot, he established the company in 2009, which is situated in Everett, Washington. He has been charging up to $250,000 a person for the past three years to see the Titanic debris, which perished in 1912 during its maiden voyage from England to New York.
Part of Rush's refusal to have the Titan inspected and certified by one of the top organisations that perform such work was the subject of criticism from Lochridge and the experts who signed the 2018 letter to the founder of OceanGate.
Submarine expert David Lochridge was fired after flagging safety issues
In court documents, submarine expert David Lochridge stated that although he had urged the company to undergo a certification, he had instead been informed that OceanGate was "unwilling to pay" for such an assessment. The company's executives attended a contentious meeting to examine the matter after receiving Lochridge's report, according to court records filed by both sides. The records were included in a lawsuit OceanGate brought against Lochridge in 2018, charging him with disclosing sensitive information outside of the business.
According to the records, Lochridge discovered that the viewport, which allows passengers to look outside the craft, was only certified to operate up to 1,300 metres below the surface. That is significantly less than what would be required for expeditions to the Titanic, which is located around 4,000 metres underwater. “The paying passengers would not be aware, and would not be informed, of this experimental design,” lawyers for Lochridge wrote in a court filing.
According to court documents submitted by both parties, the meeting resulted in OceanGate firing Lochridge. In court documents, OceanGate has claimed that Lochridge was not an engineer, that he rejected information from the company's technical staff, and that acoustic monitoring of the hull's strength was preferable to the testing that Lochridge believed was required.
In its lawsuit, the company states that it appeared Lochridge was attempting to be relieved of his duties. In response, the submarine expert claimed that his firing was unjustified. Later in 2018, a settlement came to an end to the legal dispute.
The warning letter to OceanGate CEO Rush signed by 38 experts
Thirty-eight submersible craft industry experts who are all members of the Marine Technology Society's Manned Underwater Vehicles committee, a 60-year-old trade organisation that promotes, researches, and disseminates information about ocean technology, issued a separate warning to OceanGate that same year. The experts expressed "unanimous concern" about the Titan's development and the missions planned to the Titanic ruins in their letter to Rush.
In spite of the fact that OceanGate had no plans to have the vessel formally certified by the organisation, the letter claimed that the company's marketing of the Titan had been "at minimum, misleading" because it implied that the submersible would meet or surpass the safety requirements of DNV.
“Their plan of not following classification guidelines was considered very risky,” Will Kohnen, the chairman of the committee, said in an interview on Tuesday.
In their letter, the industry's top executives demanded that OceanGate test their prototypes at the very least under the supervision of DNV or another reputable certifying organisation. “While this may demand additional time and expense,” the signatories wrote, “it is our unanimous view that this validation process by a third-party is a critical component in the safeguards that protect all submersible occupants.”
OceanGate's controversial response to experts
Rush reportedly called Kohnen after reading the letter and complained that innovation was being stifled by industry standards.
Similar arguments were made by the company in an unsigned 2019 blog post titled "Why Isn't Titan Classed?". Since OceanGate's Titan vessel was so novel, the company stated in the article that it might take years for the standard certification organisations to certify it. “Bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing is anathema to rapid innovation,” the company wrote.
Bart Kemper, another signatory to the 2018 letter, claimed in an interview that OceanGate had dispatched the vessel in international seas, outside of the jurisdiction of the Coast Guard, to avoid being subject to some US regulations. “This letter was basically asking them to please do what the other submarines do, especially the passenger ones,” said Kemper, a forensic engineer who works on submarine designs.
OceanGate's 'experimental vessel' for Titanic wreckage expedition causes alarm
Former New York Times technology columnist David Pogue said in a CBS report that he participated in one of OceanGate's Titanic expeditions and that the paperwork he signed before boarding the ship made clear that it was a "experimental vessel" that had not been "approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, emotional trauma, or death."
In a blog post from May, OceanGate, which has previously made two voyages to the Titanic site in 2021 and 2022, stated that it "always expects new challenges" with every journey. “We’re starting our Titanic Expedition earlier than usual and have been tracking all the social media posts showing icebergs and sea ice in the area,” the post read.
Even though the previous voyages were mostly successful, there were some issues. A Florida couple filed a lawsuit against Rush in February, alleging that his business failed to reimburse them for the $105,000 they had spent on the Titanic expedition in 2018. According to the lawsuit, the voyage was delayed numerous times, in part because the corporation said it needed to do additional tests on the Titan. The pair alleged that Rush broke his commitment to refund their money and that the company instead required them to take part in a trip to the wreckage in July 2021. The lawsuit is pending still.
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