![]() ![]() John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, and are planning to start dive operations around 4 a.m. “A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow. Harding, the British billionaire who last year travelled into space Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, and previously plunged on another submersible into the depths of the Mariana Trench, wrote on social media Saturday that the upcoming Titanic trip had been hampered by poor weather. The lawsuit didn’t progress much further and both parties settled, reported the New Republic. None of those allegations were proven in court. It was in his counterclaim that his safety concerns about the sub came to light. Lochridge was fired, then sued by OceanGate for disclosing confidential information about the Titan. “David Lochridge disagreed with OceanGate’s position to dive the submersible without any non-destructive testing to prove its integrity, and to subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible,” read the counterclaim. In that counterclaim, obtained by the Star, Lochridge also said he learned that the forward viewport of the submersible was only built to a certified pressure of 1,300 metres, though the Titan was intended to take passengers to depths of 4,000 metres. In his counterclaim to a lawsuit by OceanGate, Lochridge said he refused to sign off on manned tests of earlier versions of the submersible, citing concerns about the lack of non-destructive testing on the carbon fibre hull and the hull’s ability to repetitively withstand the pressures of the extreme depths for which the sub was designed. OceanGate employee David Lochridge, a submersible pilot and director of its marine operations at the time, was tasked with doing a quality and safety inspection of the Titan. “The ocean is taking this thing, and we need to document it before it all disappears or becomes unrecognizable,” Rush told The Associated Press in 2021.Īnd according to court documents obtained by the New Republic, in 2018, OceanGate faced a lawsuit over the Titan’s ability to safely dive to the depths to which it would be required. Since the Titanic’s discovery in 1985, it has been slowly succumbing to metal-eating bacteria, and some have predicted the ship could vanish in a matter of decades as holes yawn in the hull and sections disintegrate. The company said at the time that in addition to archeologists and marine biologists, the expeditions would include roughly 40 paid tourists who would take turns operating sonar equipment and performing other tasks in the five-person submersible. This year’s expedition would have been its third such voyage. In 2021, OceanGate Expeditions began what it expected to become an annual voyage to the Titanic, to chronicle the deterioration of the historic ocean liner, which struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers and crew. in 2009, it was with the intent to provide crewed submersibles for researchers and explorers. When he founded OceanGate - based in Everett, Wash. Three years later, Rush became a flight engineer for McDonnell Douglas on the F-15 program. According to the company’s website, he became the youngest jet-transport-rated pilot in the world when he obtained his DC-8 Type/Captain’s rating in 1981 at 19. Rush, who founded OceanGate in 2009, had a background in aerospace and technology. Garriott said work was underway to obtain approval to deploy a remotely operated vehicle from the United Kingdom that had visited the Titanic site many times and was capable of descending to 6,000 metres. ![]() Department of Homeland Security stating that a Canadian rescue plane had detected sounds of “banging” in 30-minute intervals coming from the area where the submersible is believed to have disappeared. The message followed closely the release of a Rolling Stone report based on official reports to the U.S. Harding is a founding member of the board of trustees of the New York-based club. “There is cause for hope, based on data from the field - we understand that likely signs of life have been detected at the site,” wrote Richard Garriott, president of the Explorers Club, in a statement published Tuesday night. ![]()
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