As the United States Coast Guard continues to investigate the 2023 OceanGate Titan submersible disaster, a new discovery has come forward about the company’s CEO.
According to OceanGate whistleblower David Lochridge, who spoke before the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation on Tuesday, the company’s late CEO Stockton Rush had been in another submersible incident years before he lost his life last summer when the Titan sub imploded.
Lochridge shared that Rush had crashed a Cyclops submersible into the Andrea Doria wreck, located off Massachusetts, in the summer of 2016. He shared that this incident sparked concern among employees but allegedly wasn’t heeded by Rush.
“He wouldn’t listen,” Lochridge said, adding that Rush refused to address warnings about several potential risks, including tide conditions and weather warnings.
Lochridge said Rush ignored his pleas to stay away from the Andrea Doria and instead “smashed straight down” with the Cyclops and “basically drove it full speed” towards the port side bow of the wreckage.
“It was unprofessional behavior by him,” he said, noting that Rush had reacted poorly, asking if there was enough life support on board while in a panic after the crash.
Even after the incident, Lochridge said that Rush at first refused to hand over the Playstation controller that they used to steer the submersible, only agreeing after the paying customers shouted at him to do so.
Lochridge said that Rush then struck him in the side of the head in frustration and threw the controller, causing one of the buttons to fly off. After reattaching the button, they rose to the surface within “10 to 15 minutes” with Lochridge at the wheel.
“It shouldn’t have got to the stage it got to. If he in any way had behaved as any other sub pilot that I know, [it wouldn’t have happened],” Lochridge said.
Lochridge shared with the investigation board that from that point on, he was pushed out of the Titan submersible project, and his warnings of safety were all but ignored up until his firing in 2018.
Five years after his warnings were cut off, the Titan submersible took five passengers to the wreck of the Titanic, imploding along the way.
All five passengers on board the Titan submersible, including Rush; businessman Hamish Harding; diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet; billionaire Shahzada Dawood; and Dawood’s 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood, were killed on their way to the Titanic wreckage.
The Coast Guard reported last year during its initial investigation that the vessel made it 1 hour and 45 minutes into its dive when it imploded and lost contact with its mother ship, sparking an international rescue mission.
“It was inevitable something was gonna happen … it was just when,” Lochridge said Tuesday afternoon.
The investigation into OceanGate and the Titan incident is still ongoing at this point.