OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush crashed a submersible into a shipwreck and then threw the vessel’s rudimentary controls at a more experienced employee years before he piloted the doomed Titan voyage last summer.

Lochridge. a submarine pilot and inspector, was so frustrated with operations and safety issues at OceanGate that he sounded the alarm, and was dismissed from the company for allegedly violating a nondisclosure agreement. He then sued the company arguing that he was dismissed for being a whistleblower.

A former OceanGate worker gave a warning to the CEO of the company before the Titan submersible disaster. It’s been just over a year since the Titan sub suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ on its mission to visit the wreck of the Titanic.

OceanGate’s former operations director David Lochridge, who blew the whistle on safety concerns he had with operations at the company, outlined gaps and holes in the carbon fibre hull of the Titan, which he says was addressed by spraying truck bed liner onto the hull.

The Titan submersible experienced a malfunction days before its dive an OceanGate scientific director testifies.

David Lochridge, OceanGate’s former operations director testifies to Coast Guard investigators about wreck during mission to Andrea Doria site in 2016.

OceanGate’s former director of operations testified that Stockton Rush crashed a submersible in 2016 and only gave up control when a tearful passenger screamed at him.

At a U.S. Coast Guard hearing, a pilot described a disastrous trip in which OceanGate’s founder got a submersible stuck under a shipwreck and then threw the controls at his head.