“People have been sold a lie”

When Titan’s purpose disappeared while diving in Titanic wreckage in 2023, David Lucharidge was hoping that the five people on board – including his former boss – would be saved.

“I always hoped that what happened would not happen. But I only knew whether they continued to continue the way they were going and with those missing equipment, there will be an accident,” he told the BBC.

Violations of violations were dismissed by the company behind SUB, Oceangate, after a warning of safety cases in 2018.

In June 2023, the branch killed all five people on the plane – including CEO, CEO Stockon Rush.

A USCG report, which was published on Tuesday, found that Oshngit’s failures on safety, testing and maintenance are the main cause of the catastrophe.

“There is a lot that could have been done differently. From the initial design, to construction, to the processes – people have been sold a lie,” Luchridge told the BBC.

But he believed a firm belief that the American authorities could do – he should have done more to stop Ochgit.

Lochridge joined Oceangate seven years ago as the company’s marine manager. He moved his family from Scotland to the United States, and was full of excitement about the company’s ambitions.

Oceangate was building a new submersion to transport passengers who pushed to the most famous debris in the world – Titanic.

He would have participated in the project from the start, and work alongside the team that designs the branch.

Glaswagia, who spoke directly at sea for more than 25 years, first with the Royal Navy and then as a submersible. He also led the submarine rescue operations, and in response to distress calls from people trapped underwater. It knows about the risks involved in deep diving.

His responsibilities included diving planning, and a pilot chief, who would take the sub -branch and its passengers 3800 meters under the waves to see Titanic. Safety was at the heart of his role.

“As the director of maritime operations, I am responsible for everyone,” he told BBC News. “I was responsible for the safety of all Oceangate employees and all the passengers who would have come in the interior.”

A preliminary model for the APL Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) has been developed. The plan was to build its body – the part in which the passengers – from carbon fibers.

No deep diving from this substance has been made before – most of them have been created from titanium or steel. But Lochridge had confidence in the APL team.

He said that Stoconin Rush, CEO of Oshngit, said that the craft would be subject to safety assessment by an independent naval organization, known as martyrdom.

Lochridge was determined that this supervision of the third party was necessary – especially because Titan would have been made of experimental materials.

But by the summer of 2016, he began to doubt the project.

Oceangate stops working with APL and decided to bring Titan design and build at home.

Lochridge was anxious. He did not have the same confidence in Oceangate engineers. He told the BBC that he does not think they have experience in building submarines capable of bearing the tremendous pressure on the depth of Titanic.

“At that point, I started asking questions … and I felt that I had the duty to care for continuing to ask them,” he said.

When the Titan parts began to reach, and the craft began to crystallize, Lochridge said it was discovering a problem after a problem.

“When the carbon body came, it was absolute chaos,” he said.

He saw visual gaps in the materials, and the areas where the carbon fiber layers were separated – known as Delamination.

Determine issues with other major components.

Carbon fiber body was a tannium -stormed titnery, but he said that the mineral was incorrectly manufactured. It was also concerned that the SUB exhibition port was not designed to work in extremist depths.

It has learned more than that, that Titan would not be independently approved for safety.

BBC told that he was always explicit on safety issues – so he was not silent.

“I raised all the issues I saw … but I just met resistance all the way,” he said.

In January 2018, he identified his fears again to Stockon Rush. This time, Rush asked him to complete the ship’s examination.

Titan was at a decisive point in his development. The passengers had already paid delicacy deposits to the planned Titanic later that year. The dive was about to start the Bahamas before these campaigns began.

Lochridge Oceangate wanted to delay these plans.

“I drafted a report and sent it to all managers of the company.”

The next day he was called to attend a meeting with Rush and many other Oceangate employees.

A copy of the two -hour meeting, where the detailed report was chosen, reveals a hot exchange between Lochridge and Rush.

Near the end of the meeting, in response to Salama Luchidge’s concerns, Rush says: “I have no desire to die. I have a nice granddaughter. I will be in the neighborhood. I understand this kind of risk, and I go to it with open eyes, and I think this is one of the safest things that I will do.”

For a surprise Lochridge, immediately after this meeting was expelled.

But he was so worried about Titan to the point that he was in contact with the OSHA Occupational Department – OSHA.

OSHA told him that his case was urgent because it included public safety and that he would be placed under the system of protecting those who are violations, designed to protect employees from revenge by employers if they report concerns about safety at the workplace.

As part of this process, OSHA approved Lochridge’s concerns about Titan to the US Coast Guard (USCG) in February 2018.

But Lochridge says after OSHA wrote to Oceangate to tell them that he would start the investigation, everything has changed.

In March, Ochengit asked Lochridge to drop the osha complaint – and demanded that $ 10,000 to pay for legal costs. Lochridge refused.

Then in July 2018, Ochengit filed a lawsuit against Lochridge – his wife Carroll – to violate the contract, embezzlement of commercial secrets, fraud and theft, among other allegations. The following month, Lochridge opposes an unfair dismissal.

Lochridge confirms that during the operation, OSHA was slow and failed to protect it from the continuous revenge he was receiving from Oceangate.

“I presented all the documents to OSHA, you were on the phone to OSHA every few weeks.” He said. “Osha did nothing.”

In December 2018, under increased pressure from Oceangate lawyers, Lochridge and his wife made a decision to drop the case.

This means that legal procedures have been settled, and as part of this agreement, Lochridge withdraws his complaint in OSHA. OSHA stopped the investigation and also informed the US Coast Guard that the complaint had been suspended. Lochridge also signed a non -disclosure agreement.

“I did Carroll and I am everything we could physically, we just got to the point that we were completely burning … nothing left for us to present to him. They hit us.”

Oceangate continued in the pace of its plans to reach Titanic.

In 2018 and 2019, the first SUB model cleared its first test in the Bahamas – including one, which was tried by Stockton Rush, which reached a depth of 3,939 million.

A crack was found later in the SUB carbon fiber body, and in 2020 Hal was replaced by a new one, while it became the second version of Titan.

In 2021, the company began transporting passengers to Titanic, and over the next two summer, 13 divings to the famous debris.

But in June 2023, the branch was lost with five people on board – including Stockon Rush. After a few days of anxiety, the branch wreck was found bored across the ocean floor.

In the American Coast Guard sessions held last year, Lochridge Osha criticized his lack of work. “I think that if OSHA tries to investigate the seriousness of the fears it raised on multiple occasions, this tragedy may have been prevented.”

“He didn’t need to happen. It was not – and it should have been stopped.”

In response to Mr. Lochridge, a spokesman for OSHA said that the program to protect the violations is limited to protecting individuals from the employer’s revenge. They said that their investigations “follow the regular process and the time schedule of revenge.”

OSHA said it is not investigating the laboratory allegations of public safety … but instead it indicates that appropriate agency – in this case, the American Coast Guard.

“The Coast Guard, not OSHA, had a specialty to investigate the allegations of Mr. Lochridge over safe design and seafood building,” said a spokesman.

But the American Coast Guard report in the disaster is consistent with Lochridge and says that OSHA’s slow treatment for investigation was a lost opportunity for early government intervention.

The report also criticizes the lack of effective communication and coordination between OSHA and USCG.

The investigation found that the email from OSHA to the Coast Guard about Mr. Lochridge’s complaint was not received. He was sent to an employee bearing the responsibility for monitoring OSHA cases – but the employee moved to a new job within the agency.

Jason Newpaore, head of the USCG Marine Investigation Council, told the BBC that the Coast Guard could have done more.

“The regime did not succeed with those informed of violations in this case, and for this reason we only need to improve – and we are.”

Oshngit said that in the aftermath of the accident, it has permanently finished the operations and its resources towards cooperating with the investigation.