A former OceanGate employee who was fired after voicing concerns about the safety of the Titan submarine wrote an email to a colleague expressing fears that the company’s CEO would force himself to “strive for self-improvement” and others would die.
David Lochridge, OceanGate’s former director of marine operations who worked for the company from 2015 to 2018, was fired after voicing concerns about the safety of much of the Titan’s structure.
The warnings were allegedly issued from the plant shop in the second half of 2017, but were repeatedly rejected when the premises were left from the building to begin testing.
It now appears that shortly after he was fired in 2018, Lodge Ridge sent an email to project assistant Rob McCallum (who also left OceanGate due to security concerns) expressing his concern that chief executive Stockton Rush would eventually end up dying in the submarine.
According to The New Yorker, Lochridge wrote of Rush: “I don’t want to be treated as gossip, but I’m concerned that he’s going to kill himself and kill himself for self-affirmation.”
Former OceanGate employee David Lochridge sent another former colleague an email warning of Titan Subs’ failure in 2018, saying he feared the company’s late CEO would kill himself and others in what he called “the pursuit of self-improvement.”
At the time, Lodge Ridge (not pictured) was OceanGate’s director of marine operations and possibly the company’s only experienced pilot. For most of 2017, he expressed concerns about the structural integrity of the ship, fragments of which were seen on June 28.
The intrepid engineer is reported to have continued, “I consider myself very brave when it comes to dangerous things, but this submarine was an accident waiting in the wings.”
Rush, a self-proclaimed “innovator” seeking to push the boundaries of passenger diving, was one of five people who died on the Titanic’s last voyage when his pressure chamber collapsed at a depth of 3,800 meters where the Titanic was moored and exploded.
According to the Daily Mail, a few days before the email was sent, Lodgeridge inspected all the important aspects of the sub, with which he was already intimately familiar, and quickly discovered a number of red flags.
First, court documents in a settled lawsuit filed by the terminated OceanGate workers show that Lodge Ridge found that the adhesive on the vehicle’s ballast bag seams was peeling off and that the rupture could have been caused by improperly installed mounting bolts.
In addition, an experienced diver found problems with the submarine’s ceiling panels, noting that they had protruding holes, and on the Titan itself, the grooves differed from the standard parameters.
The lawsuit also noted that there was a danger of tripping and that vital parts were allegedly protected by lightning bolts.
Lodge Ridge is also concerned about flammable floors and the presence of interior vinyl, which he says regularly releases highly toxic fumes when ignited.
However, on this list of potential safety hazards, Lodge Ridge’s biggest problem – and the part of the sub that ended up malfunctioning during last month’s dive – is the carbon fiber core responsible for keeping passengers alive in the icy depths. There is the wreckage of the Titanic.
Project Titan’s director of marine operations, David Lochridge, has been fired after meeting with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who was aboard the missing submersible.
According to the Daily Mail, in the days before the email was sent, Lodgeridge had inspected every important aspect of the submarine that he was already intimately familiar with and found many red flags, such as the supposedly important zippered part.
The intrepid engineer reportedly called Rush’s carbon-fiber production “an impending disaster.” He wrote to a colleague who was also absent from Oceangate due to Titan problems: “You are not paying me in any way to dive into this business.”
Outside water pressure is around 6000 psi and is felt all around the hull where it matters the most.
The truth about Lodge Ridge is that the pressure chamber is made of carbon fiber, a capricious material not used in any other bathyscaphe and therefore largely untested.
Since then, some experts have criticized Rush’s use of a rope-like material that is strong in tension but weaker in compression.
Perhaps most worrying, however, is OceanGate’s alleged decision not to certify the new technology and the lack of long-term deep-sea testing before it finally fails.
According to Lodge Ridge’s lawsuit, the decision was ultimately made by Rush and Tony Nissen, CTO of the Washington-based company.
In it, Lodgeridge argues that the pair maintained the position after he presented them with the aforementioned engineering report in January 2018, in which, along with previously asked questions, experts were working on part of the submarine’s hull.
As a result, Lochridge argued that the Titan needed more testing, saying passengers could be in danger once it reached “extreme depth,” according to a lawsuit filed in Seattle District Court later that year.
Referring to his refusal to sign the document, Lodgeridge reportedly wrote, “My oral submissions on the key points discussed in the attached document have been rejected several times, so I now feel I must submit this report in order for there to be an official record.” “Son.
”Cyclops 2 (Titan) is not to be flown in any upcoming trials until appropriate corrective actions have been taken and completed.”
According to the New Yorker, Rush was so furious that he nearly fired Lodge Ridge on the spot.
That same day, the CEO also called a meeting where he and other OceanGate executives insisted that hull testing was unnecessary.
Instead, Brass has implemented an acoustic monitoring system that can detect worn fibers. The company said at the time that the system was sufficient to warn pilots of the possibility of a catastrophic failure, “enough time to prevent descent and return to the ground safely”.
Both parties became embroiled in a bitter lawsuit, and the case was settled on undisclosed terms months after the case was filed.
In response to the wrongful death lawsuit, OceanGate sued Loughridge, accusing him of violating a non-disclosure agreement and filing a counterclaim alleging that he was wrongfully fired for raising questions about testing and security.
In his countersuit, Lodgeridge said that OceanGate was charging up to $250,000 for a seat on the ship, which would “put passengers in potentially extreme danger in an experimental submersible.” He also said that the Titanic equipment cannot reach a depth of about 13,123 feet, where the wreckage of the Titanic is.
OceanGate CEO and founder Rush (left) sits with submersible pilot Randy Holt in the company’s Antipodesin submersible June 28, 2013. Rush is a self-proclaimed rule breaker whose decisions during the construction of the Titan are now in question.
In a blog post titled “Why Wasn’t the Titan Classified?” OceanGate expressed its position on ignoring the quest for classification, suggesting that the process would take too long.
The report states: “While rating agencies are willing to seek certification for new and innovative projects and ideas, they often require multi-year approval cycles due to the lack of pre-existing standards. …
“Keeping third parties up to speed on every innovation before it is actually tested is the curse of rapid innovation.”
Its “innovations” include a real-time hull health monitoring (RTM) system, which is “currently not covered by any classification agency,” the company said.
OceanGate says its own internal security protocols are sufficient. The blog concluded that “rating alone is not enough to ensure security.”
Lodgeridge, whose job it was to oversee Titan’s security, encouraged Oceangate to seek classification years ago before being fired over disagreements over Titan’s security checks.
He also wants the company to scan the Titan’s hull to “detect potential defects” instead of “relying on acoustic monitoring” that can only detect problems “milliseconds before the explosion.”
The discovery is significant because rescuers don’t know if Titan is at the bottom of the ocean, raising fears that it could “explode” under intense pressure.
In a 2018 lawsuit, the company’s lawyers said Lodgeridge was fired from his job because he was “unacceptable” to their research and plans, including security protocols.
OceanGate also stated that Lodgeridge “wanted to be fired”, shared confidential information with others, and erased the company’s hard drives. It “refuses to accept the extensive safety information provided by Titan’s chief engineer,” the company said.
Lodge Ridge moved to Washington DC from the UK to work on Project Titan, formerly known as Cyclops 2.
A former naval engineer and Royal Navy diver, OceanGate describes him as “an expert in submarine operations and salvage”.
Legal documents obtained by DaiyMail.com show that he wrote a report in 2018 criticizing the company’s ship development process.
Lodge Ridge also “strongly recommends that OceanGate use classification agencies such as ABS to inspect and certify Titan.”
”OceanGate denied both requests and expressed an unwillingness to pay a classification agency to review its pilot project,” the lawsuit says.
Lodge Ridge “did not agree with OceanGate’s position that the submarine was sunk without any non-destructive testing to demonstrate its integrity and exposed passengers to potentially extreme hazards in the experimental submarine.”
Post time: Jul-05-2023