A British deep-sea pilot who was fired for speaking up about the dangers of OceanGate’s Titan submersible was placed under federal whistleblower protection after the company turned on him in retaliation, a US coastguard inquiry was told.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the disaster last year in which five people were killed during a sightseeing trip to the wreck of the Titanic, David Lochridge testified that he was subjected to threats after he reported the company’s “total disregard for safety” to the authorities.

Stockton Rush, OceanGate’s co-founder, was driven by “arrogance” and fostered a corporate culture that put money over sound engineering decision-making, the US coastguard’s Marine Investigation Board was told.

WILFREDO LEE/AP

“The whole idea behind the company was to make money … There was no experience across the board within that organisation,” Lochridge said. “They wanted to qualify a pilot in a day — somebody who had never sat in a submersible … That is a huge red flag, that is a no-no, you don’t do that. It’s a long process.”

Lochridge, a former military and commercial diver, worked for OceanGate from 2015 to 2018. He was fired as director of marine operations because he was “vocal” about the design and development of the Titan submersible and its lack of structural integrity.

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