CHILLING new audio captures the moment OceanGate’s founder dismissed the company’s operations director after the latter raised alarms about the safety of the ill-fated Titan sub.
The audio clip was obtained by Netflix and has been used in its documentary Titan: The OceanGate Disaster.
American businessman Stockton Rush, who would go on to be one of the victims of the Titan disaster, can be heard David Lochridge in the clip.
Lochridge had raised concerns around the safety of the submersible ahead of its doomed voyage.
Rush tells him: “I don’t want anybody in this company who is uncomfortable with what we are doing.
“We’re doing weird s*** here. I’m definitely out of the mold, I am doing things that are completely non-standard.
“I’m sure the industry thinks I’m a f****** idiot.
“That’s fine, they’ve been doing that for years. And I’m going to continue on the way I am doing.”
A woman can be heard saying: “We need David on this crew, in my opinion we need him here.”
Lochridge says Rush’s remarks left him “a tad let down” and “pretty gutted”.
“This is the first time on paper I’ve ever put any health and safety concerns,” he adds.
“You know every expedition we have had, we’ve had issues.”
Rush concedes the point, and Lochridge asks him: “Do you now want to let me go?”
But Rush bluntly replies: “I don’t see we have a choice.”
Rush would later die on board the Titan alongside Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood and Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
The vessel imploded during a June 2023 expedition that initially prompted a major rescue operation.
But the discovery of a piece debris in the North Atlantic dashed any hopes of a successful rescue mission.
Speaking to filmmakers, Lochridge said: “To me it was just sheer arrogance.
“I didn’t know what to say, but I was blown away that at this point they were willing to play Russian roulette.”
Lochridge was fired back in 2018 after he had worked at the firm for three years.
He would go on to inform the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of Titan’s safety issues after he was fired.
He reportedly got a settlement and release agreement from OceanGate’s lawyers after flagging these concerns with OSHA.
It wasn’t first time concerns had been raised about Rush’s approach to safety.
Karl Stanley, a veteran submersible expert and longtime friend of Rush, shared with author Matthew Gavin Frank: “Rush’s ego was so immense, he was prepared to risk lives, including his own, to be a crucial figure in this narrative.
“He wanted to go [die] at the wreck [of the Titanic].
“The more renowned the incident, the better. He didn’t just cause the deaths of four wealthy individuals and earn a significant sum from it — they have now become a part of the Titanic legend.”
How the Titan tragedy unfolded
By Katie Davis, Chief Foreign Reporter (Digital)
FIVE men plunged beneath the surface of the North Atlantic in a homemade sub in a bid to explore the Titanic wreckage.
Four passengers paid £195,000 each to go on the sub, with the fifth member of the trip being a crew member.
But what was supposed to be a short trip spiralled into days of agony as the doomed Titan vanished without a trace on June 18, 2023.
The daring mission had been months in the making – and almost didn’t happen at the hands of harsh weather conditions in Newfoundland, Canada.
In a now chilling Facebook post, passenger Hamish Harding wrote: “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023.
“A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.”
It would be his final Facebook post.
The following morning, he and four others – led by Stockton Rush – began the 12,5000ft descent towards the bottom of the Atlantic.
But as it made its way down into the depths, the vessel lost all contact with its mother ship on the surface, the Polar Prince.
It sparked a frantic four-day search for signs of life, with the hunt gripping the entire world.
There was hope that by some miracle, the crew was alive and desperately waiting to be saved.
But that sparked fears rescue teams faced a race against time as the passengers only had a 96-hour oxygen supply when they set out, which would be quickly dwindling.
Then, when audio of banging sounds was detected under the water, it inspired hope that the victims were trapped and signalling to be rescued.
It heartbreakingly turned out that the banging noises were likely either ocean noises or from other search ships, the US Navy determined.
Countries around the world deployed their resources to aid the search, and within days the Odysseus remote-operated vehicle (ROV) was sent down to where the ghostly wreck of the Titanic sits.
The plan was for the ROV to hook onto the sub and bring it up 10,000ft, where it would meet another ROV before heading to the surface.
But any hopes of a phenomenal rescue were dashed when Odysseus came across a piece of debris from the sub around 1,600ft from the Titanic.
The rescue mission tragically turned into a salvage task, and the heartbroken families of those on board were told the devastating news.
It was confirmed by the US Coast Guard that the sub had suffered a “catastrophic implosion”.
