A transcript of a key company meeting that led to the ill-fated Titan submersible revealed the CEO saying in 2018: “No one dies on my watch – period.”
It captures a heated exchange between OceanGate chief Stockton Rush and his former director of marine operations, David Lochridge, along with three other staff members.
The log shows Mr Lochridge raised safety concerns, to which Rush responded: “I have no desire to die… I think it’s one of the safest things I’ll ever do.”
The document was released by the US Coast Guard as part of its investigation into the disaster in June 2023, when the submarine imploded while en route to the sinking Titanic. All five passengers were killed, including Rush.
OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations following the incident, which raised questions about the submersible’s safety and design.
During two weeks of hearings, investigators are seeking to uncover what led to the tragedy and make recommendations to prevent incidents from happening again.
The transcript was uploaded to the inquiry’s website on Friday, but some sections of the document were redacted.
The US Coast Guard has now confirmed to BBC News who was speaking during the key exchange during the two-hour meeting.
Mr Lochridge, who gave evidence at the public inquiry last week as a former OceanGate employee, was summoned to the meeting on January 19, 2018.
He had written a “quality inspection report” which raised serious problems in the submarine’s design.
These included concerns about the poor quality of the submarine’s hull, which was made of carbon fibre, and problems with the way Titan was built and tested.
He told the inquiry last week: “That meeting turned out to be a two-hour and ten-minute discussion… about my dismissal and how my disagreements with the organisation, in relation to safety, were irrelevant.”
The 2018 meeting was recorded and the transcript shows Mr Lochridge saying: “I’m addressing what I consider to be safety issues, issues that I’ve raised verbally… that have been dismissed by everybody.”
Stockton Rush was recorded responding: “I listened to them, I gave you my answer, and you think my answer is inadequate.”
Rush went on to say, “All I’ve done on this project is have people tell me it’s not going to work, you can’t do that.”
After telling attendees that he had no desire to die and that he believed his submarine was safe, Rush went on to say, “I have a beautiful granddaughter. I’m going to be there. I understand that kind of risk, and I’m going into it with my eyes open and I think it’s one of the safest things I’ll ever do.”
He then added: “I can come up with 50 reasons why we should cancel everything and our business should fail. I’m not dying. Nobody’s dying on my watch, period.”
Mr Lochridge was fired after the meeting and later raised his concerns with the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
But he said the U.S. government agency was slow to respond. Under increasing pressure from OceanGate’s lawyers, he dropped the case and signed a confidentiality agreement.
At the end of his testimony at the Titan inquiry last week, he said that if authorities had investigated OceanGate properly, the tragedy would have been avoided.
In other developments related to the case, the US Coast Guard also released an image of Titan showing how its dome fell off as the submersible was being lifted out of the sea after a dive in 2021.
A paying passenger who was aboard that particular Titan mission described the incident in his own testimony Friday.
Fred Hagen said: “The force of the platform hitting the bridge… tore out several bolts that exploded like bullets. And the titanium dome fell.”
It was one of 118 technical incidents recorded by the US Coast Guard during dives on the Titanic that took place before the 2023 disaster.
Public hearings continue this week.
The evidence presented Monday came from OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein, the company’s former chief technology officer Phil Brooks and Roy Thomas of the American Bureau of Shipping.
