Titanic: The behind-the scenes arguments over 'money' before doomed sub imploded with Scots student on board

A key employee who labelled a doomed experimental submersible unsafe prior to its last, fatal voyage testified on Tuesday that he frequently clashed with the company’s co-founder and felt the company was committed only to making money.

David Lochridge, OceanGate’s former operations director, is one of the most anticipated witnesses to appear before a commission trying to determine what caused the Titan to implode en-route to the wreckage of the Titanic last year. All five people on board were killed, including a student at a Scottish university.

Mr Lochridge’s testimony echoed that of other former employees from Monday, one of whom described OceanGate head Stockton Rush as volatile and difficult to work with. OceanGate owned the Titan and brought it on several dives to the Titanic going back to 2021.

The Titanic submersible that imploded | PA

“The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Mr Lochridge said. “There was very little in the way of science.”

Mr Rush was among the five people who died in the implosion, alongside British adventurer Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, as well as Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

Mr Dawood was a London-based businessman and adviser to the King’s charity Prince’s Trust International, with a focus on its work in Pakistan. His 19-year-old son was a student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.

Mr Lochridge began giving evidence a day after other witnesses painted a picture of a troubled company that was impatient to get its unconventionally designed craft into the water. The accident set off a worldwide debate about the future of private undersea exploration. The company, based in Washington state, suspended its operations after the implosion.

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OceanGate’s former engineering director Tony Nissen began Monday’s evidence, telling investigators that he felt pressured to get the vessel ready to dive and refused to pilot it for a journey several years before Titan’s last trip.

“‘I’m not getting in it,’” Mr Nissen said he told Mr Rush. When asked if there was pressure to get Titan into the water, Mr Nissen responded, “100 per cent.”

But asked if he felt the pressure compromised safety decisions and testing, Mr Nissen paused, then replied, “No. And that’s a difficult question to answer because given infinite time and infinite budget, you could do infinite testing.”

OceanGate’s former finance and human resources director, Bonnie Carl, said Mr Lochridge had characterised the Titan as “unsafe”. Mr Lochridge is expected to provide more perspective on what caused the implosion.

Coast Guard officials noted at the start of the hearing the submersible had not been independently reviewed, as is standard practice. That and Titan’s unusual design subjected it to scrutiny in the undersea exploration community.

During the submersible’s final dive on June 18 last year, the crew lost contact after an exchange of texts about the Titan’s depth and weight as it descended. The support ship Polar Prince then sent repeated messages asking if the Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display.

Wreckage of the Titan was subsequently found on the ocean floor about 300m off the bow of the Titanic, Coast Guard officials said.

OceanGate has no full-time employees at this time, but will be represented by an attorney during the hearing, the company said in a statement. It said it has been fully co-operating with the Coast Guard and NTSB investigations since they began.