New Titan submersible recording shows moment CEO fired pilot for raising security concerns
A new Netflix documentary, focused on the Titan Sub disaster, has released a recording of the moment late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush fired a member of staff for raising security concerns.
The doc, Titan: The OceanGate Disaster, focuses heavily on what we know of what eventually led the Titan sub to implode, killing the five people inside.
Stockton Rush was among the five to die in the sub that took paying passengers down to see the wreckage of the Titanic in June 2023.
Netflix’s documentary includes a recording of the moment that Rush fired his former Director of Marine Operations, David Lochridge.
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Lochridge, an experienced diver and submersible pilot, details an incident in which Rush told him at the very last minute that he wanted to be the one to pilot the sub for the dive.
When Lochridge pushed back he was overruled, but convinced the late CEO to allow him to join the expedition.
Footage from inside the sub shows how Rush, a comparably inexperienced pilot, almost crashes the sub into a debris field, forcing Lochridge to have to step in.
In the documentary, he claimed that he was then ‘frozen out’ of meetings and senior decisions by the CEO.
Lochridge said: “The passengers were hugging but with Stockton it was a complete turnaround for me.
“He never really spoke to me the rest of the trip, the dynamic changed.
“After [the test dive] I started getting cut out by senior management from the Titan project. I was dropped from all email communications, verbal communications. I was totally out of the loop.”
He also described then how the sub was made from carbon fibre, suggesting it was an unsuitable material to make a submersible from.
Lochridge went on to claim he was the ‘only person’ to stand up to Rush over security and engineering concerns.
The late CEO had decided he did not see the need to classify the Titan sub, and said he was happy for Lochridge to do an inspection of it.
The former OceanGate Director of Marine Operations described how he sent an email with his inspection notes, including his concerns around the submersible.
The next day Lochridge was brought into a meeting, the recording of which is shared for the first time in the Netflix doc.
Rush seems noticeably agitated in the recording, suggesting that anyone who said carbon fibre couldn’t work for a deep sea submersible was ‘full of s**t’.
He goes on to say: “I don’t want anyone in this company who is uncomfortable with what we’re doing.”
Lochridge says that he ‘will not force people to join his religion’. He goes on to insist that he ‘will not die’ in the sub, and when asked if he is letting Lochridge go he says: “I don’t see we have any choice.”
Titan: The OceanGate Disaster is available to watch on Netflix now.
Topics: Titan Submersible, Titanic, TV and Film, Film, Documentaries
Michael Slavin