OceanGate co-founder reveals sad truth about Titan sub disaster that killed five on excursion to the Titanic

The man who co-founded OceanGate with Stockton Rush has revealed what exactly went wrong during the Titanic excursion. We may never know what exactly went wrong.

Guillermo Sohnlein told a Coast Guard panel Monday he could not say what exactly led to it the submersible implosion in June 2023, killing five people.

“I don’t know what happened. I don’t know who made what decision when and on what information,” he said.

“And honestly, I don’t know if any of us will ever know, despite all of your team’s investigative efforts.”

Sohnlein could only say that the crash, which killed five people – including adventurer Hamish Harding, father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood and Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet – “should not have happened.”

On Monday, he testified that the company wanted to assemble a fleet of four or five deep-sea submersibles capable of taking five people to a depth of 20,000 feet.

The plan for the company was not to have its own mothership, which would significantly reduce costs, he said.

“We wanted to give humanity more access to the ocean, especially the deep ocean,” Sohnlein said.

He presents himself as a radical optimist, who hopes that people will be inspired by his and Rush’s original intention to explore the “magical” deep ocean.

However, he said:It appears that OceanGate is not participating in that effort.’

Sohnlein contradicted former director of naval operations David Lochridge, who said he was in frequent conflict with Rush and felt the company was only interested in profit.

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

Sohnlein said Monday that neither he nor Rush were ever “driven by tourism” and that the idea of ​​visiting the Titanic, which had already been explored by others, was not very appealing to either of them.

But Lochridge and other witnesses painted a picture of a struggling company impatient to get its unconventionally designed vessel in the water. The accident has sparked a global debate about the future of private undersea exploration.

Earlier on Monday, it was revealed that Lochridge said Rush told his crew five years before his fateful voyage to the Titanic that he would not die in his Titan submarine, according to newly released transcripts.

The U.S. Coast Guard has released a redacted transcript of the January 19, 2018, conversation between Rush and Lochridge as part of an extensive investigation into the cause of the implosion.

The two men were discussing a quality inspection report on the submarine’s design when the argument became heated and Rush defended the ship’s safety, the agency reported. BBC.

“I don’t want to die, and I’m not going to die. I’m not going to die. Nobody dies on my watch — period,” Rush said.

Rush interviewed Lochridge about his concerns with the quality of the submarine’s hull, which was made of carbon fiber, and the way the vessel was built and tested.

“I am addressing what I see as safety concerns, concerns that I have raised verbally … and that have been dismissed by everyone,” Lochridge said.

The CEO insisted that he had listened to the directors’ concerns and provided solutions.

“No, I listened to them and I gave you my answer and you find my answer inadequate,” he said.

“All I’ve done on this project is people tell me it won’t work. It can’t.”

Rush reiterated that the Titan is safe and that he truly believes in the submarine’s stability.

“I have a lovely granddaughter. I’ll be there. I understand these kinds of risks and I’m going into it with my eyes open and I think this is one of the safest things I’ll ever do,” he said.

Lochridge was fired from OceanGate after that meeting for describing himself as “anti-project.”

He said he subsequently notified the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of the Titan’s safety problems.

After contacting them, Lochridge said he was covered by the whistleblower protection scheme as they considered his concerns to be serious.

“I didn’t want anyone to get into that submarine, it was dangerous,” Lochridge told the Coast Guard Committee on Sept. 17.

Lochridge said that after raising their concerns with OSHA, he and his wife received a settlement and release agreement from OceanGate’s attorneys.

“OceanGate wanted me to drop the OSHA claim. They basically demanded that I pay them money to settle with them because they had to hire an attorney to represent them in the case with OSHA,” he said.

“They claim that if I don’t do this, they will contact previous employers, ex-partners, US Immigration, fraud, theft, it’s all in there.”

He then decided to sue OceanGate in federal court to ensure that information related to his claims became public, as a matter of “public safety.”

After months of back and forth, he was told by OSHA that his case was in a backlog of 11 cases and that it was unclear when they would investigate his claims.

Lochridge said this was difficult for him and his family and in November 2018 he decided to withdraw his claim and lawsuit against his former employer.