The former director of marine operations for the US company whose Titanic tourism submersible is missing raised safety concerns before being fired, according to a 2018 lawsuit.
David Lochridge's misgivings about the safety of the missing submersible, the Titan, are contained in a response he filed to a lawsuit brought against him by its owner, OceanGate.
A massive US and Canadian coast guard search effort is underway in the North Atlantic after the OceanGate submersible carrying five people went missing on Sunday during a dive to the wreck of the Titanic.
Lochridge, a submarine pilot and diver from Scotland, began working for OceanGate in May 2015 as an independent contractor before being promoted to director of marine operations, according to court documents.
In the lawsuit filed in Washington state five years ago, Oceangate accused Lochridge of violating a nondisclosure agreement by divulging confidential and proprietary information.
In a counterclaim, Lochridge said he was fired by OceanGate in January 2018 after he "raised critical safety concerns regarding OceanGate's experimental and untested design of the Titan."
"Lochridge first expressed verbal concerns over the safety and quality control issues regarding the Titan to OceanGate executive management," the document said. "These verbal communications were ignored."
Lochridge was concerned, the counterclaim said, about "the quality control and safety of the Titan, particularly OceanGate's refusal to conduct critical, non-destructive testing of the experimental design of the hull."
Passengers on the Titan could be exposed to danger as the submersible reached extreme depths, Lochridge warned.
In his filing, Lochridge said the viewing port at the forward end of the submersible was built to sustain a certified pressure of 1,300 meters (4,265 feet), although OceanGate planned to take passengers down to depths of some 4,000 meters.
"OceanGate refused to pay for the manufacturer to build a viewport that would meet the required depth of 4,000 meters," the document said.
The Titanic rests on the seabed at a depth of around 3,800 meters.
- 'Unanimous concern' -
Lochridge also "strongly encouraged" OceanGate to use a classification agency such as the American Bureau of Shipping to inspect and certify the Titan, the document said.
"Rather than address his concerns or undergo corrective action to rectify and ensure the safety of the experimental Titan, or utilize a standard classification agency to inspect the Titan, OceanGate did the exact opposite -- they immediately fired Lochridge," it said.
According to Insider and the New Republic, which first reported on the lawsuit, the complaint was settled out of court in November 2018.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush is one of the five people on board the Titan.
Besides the safety worries put forward by Lochridge, The New York Times on Tuesday published a March 2018 letter from the Marine Technology Society to Rush in which the industry group's members voiced "unanimous concern" about the Titan.
"Our apprehension is that the current experimental approach adopted by Oceangate could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry," the letter said.
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