The company behind an underwater Titanic exploration vessel that has been missing for three days was previously accused of ignoring safety concerns and risking “potential extreme danger,” according to a years-old whistleblower lawsuit.
David Lochridge, the former Director of Marine Operations at OceanGate, had sued the company in 2018 over his firing earlier that year. Lochridge alleged that he was kicked out of the company for repeatedly raising safety concerns over its Titan vessel — the same one that lost contact with its support ship on Sunday some one hour and 45 minutes after launching an expedition to view the remains of the R.M.S. Titanic. Five people, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, were on board when the submersible began its mission Sunday to see the ill-fated ocean liner.
In a January 2018 quality inspection report, Lochridge flagged concerns over the Titan’s ability to stand up to the pressure of diving to 4,000 meters, or around 13,000 feet — the depth of where the Titanic lay on the ocean floor.
“Lochridge first expressed verbal concerns over the safety and quality control issues regarding the Titan to OceanGate executive management,” the complaint says. “These verbal communications were ignored.”
The Newsboys’ federal lawsuit is pushing back strongly against past allegations that a woman was raped by a Newsboys lighting technician and it asserts that the report was false and contradicted b...