A key employee who labeled a doomed experimental submersible unsafe prior to its last, fatal voyage testified Tuesday that the tragedy could have been prevented if a federal safety agency had investigated his complaint. David Lochridge, OceanGate's former operations director, said he felt let down by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's decision not to follow through on the complaint. "I believe that if OSHA had attempted to investigate the seriousness of the concerns I raised on multiple occasions, this tragedy may have been prevented," he said while speaking before a commission trying to determine what caused the Titan to implode en route to the wreckage of the Titanic last year, killing all five on board.
"As a seafarer, I feel deeply disappointed by the system that is meant to protect not only seafarers but the general public as well." Lochridge said during testimony that eight months after he filed an OSHA complaint, a caseworker told him the agency had not begun investigating it yet and there were 11 cases ahead of his. By then, OceanGate was suing Lochridge and he had filed a countersuit.
About 10 months after he filed the complaint, he decided to walk away. The case was closed and both lawsuits were dropped. "I gave them nothing, they gave me nothing," he said of OceanGate.
OSHA officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Earlier in the day, Lochridge said he frequently clashed with the company's co-founder and felt the compa.