The disaster with the tourist submarine Titan – which dove towards the Atlantic liner Titanic's wreck and imploded at great depth last summer – is being investigated by a commission in the USA.
A key witness, also the operational chief of the company Oceangate, criticized the employer in harsh terms during the interrogation about the fatal accident. Operational chief David Lochridge said that he often had conflicts with Oceangate's CEO about, among other things, the safety of the project.
The whole idea behind the company was to make money. Very little had to do with science, said Lochridge.
Oceangate's CEO Stockton Rush was one of the five on board who died during the dive. Titan had then made several trips to Titanic since 2021.
The commission asked engineer Lochridge if he thought Titan was a safe vessel.
Not at all, replied Lochridge, who has worked at the company since 2010.
Even colleagues of Lochridge have previously this week criticized safety aspects within the company. The American maritime authority's investigation commission was supposed to have been completed within a year, but the investigation has dragged on. The interrogation is taking place in North Charleston in the state of South Carolina.
The six-meter-long Titan was supposed to dive towards Titanic's wreck at a depth of 3,800 meters in the Atlantic, off Newfoundland. Already an hour and 45 minutes after the descent, the icebreaker and escort vessel Polar Prince lost contact with the expedition.
The last message heard from those on board was "all good here".
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