The carbon fibre hull had titanium domes fitted on each end, but he said the metal had been machined incorrectly. He was also worried that the sub’s view port had not been designed to work at extreme depths.
Most concerning, he learnt that Titan was not going to be independently certified for safety.
He told the BBC that he had always been outspoken on safety issues – so he wasn’t going to stay silent.
“I brought up all the issues that I was seeing… but I was just met with resistance all the way,” he said.
In January 2018, he outlined his concerns again to Stockton Rush. This time Rush asked him to complete an inspection of the vessel.
Titan was at a crucial point of its development. Passengers had already paid deposits for dives to the Titanic planned for later that year. Test dives were about to start in the Bahamas before those expeditions got underway.
Lochridge wanted Oceangate to delay these plans.
“I formulated a report and I sent it out to all the directors in the company.”
The following day he was summoned to a meeting with Rush and several other Oceangate employees.
A transcript from the two-hour-long meeting, where the itemised report was picked over, reveals a heated exchange between Lochridge and Rush.
Towards the end of the meeting, in response to Lochridge’s safety concerns, Rush says: “I have no desire to die. I’ve got a nice granddaughter. I’m going to be around. I understand this kind of risk, and I’m going into it with eyes open, and I think this is one of the safest things I will ever do.”
To Lochridge’s surprise, immediately after this meeting he was fired.
But he was so concerned about Titan that he got in touch with the US government’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration – OSHA.
OSHA told him his case was urgent because it involved public safety and that he would be placed under the whistleblower protection scheme, designed to protect employees from retaliation by employers if they’ve reported concerns about workplace safety.
As part of this process, OSHA passed Lochridge’s concerns about Titan to the US Coast Guard (USCG) in February 2018.
But Lochridge says after OSHA wrote to Oceangate to tell them it was starting an investigation, everything changed.
In March, Oceangate asked Lochridge to drop the OSHA complaint – and demanded he pay $10,000 for legal costs. Lochridge declined.
Then in July 2018, Oceangate sued Lochridge – and his wife Carole – for breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, fraud and theft, amongst other allegations. The following month, Lochridge countersued for unfair dismissal.
Lochridge maintains that throughout the process OSHA was slow and failed to protect him from the ongoing retaliation he was receiving from Oceangate.
“I provided all the documentation to OSHA, I was on the phone to OSHA every few weeks.” he said. “OSHA did nothing.”