A digital marketing entrepreneur named Chris Brown claims he almost joined the lost Titanic expedition via submarine but decided against it out of fear for his safety.
Mr. Brown told Good Morning America that he was first lured to join the mission because of the historic and scientific possibilities.
Businessman Avoids Titanic Submarine Expedition Amid Safety Concerns
One of the five people on the missing submersible and British billionaire Hamish Harding are friends with Mr. Brown.
The businessman said to host Michael Strahan, “The focus right now has to be on trying to rescue these folks,” without going into further detail as to what his worries were about.”
Details have emerged that seem to indicate OceanGate, the company that built the sub, has a dubious safety record, as The Independent has revealed.
In 2018, the business sacked a senior official who claimed in a wrongful termination lawsuit that The New Republic had obtained that he had been let go for raising alarming safety concerns.
The lawsuit claims that David Lochridge provided senior management and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush with highly critical updates regarding the ship’s quality control, highlighting alleged problems like visible flaws in the carbon fiber hull, prevalent flaws in a scale model, flammable materials on board, a viewing window not rated for the Titanic’s depth, and crucial safety documents that were not shared with him.
Leaders in the submarine business were worried by the company, which made a point of praising its distinctive carbon fiber design and attitude toward marine industry regulations.
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Unaddressed Issues and Past Incidents Raise Alarms
The Marine Technological Society alerted the business to catastrophic problems with how it produced the missing craft in 2018.
A total of thirty-two signatories—executives, oceanographers, and explorers—expressed “unanimous concern,” notably over the company’s choice not to seek outside testing and review.
While the firm continued to test the vessel, including with a 4,000m deep dive in the Bahamas, the CEO of OceanFate confessed to GeekWire in 2020 that the submarine’s hull was exhibiting fatigue, one of the same technical difficulties the former employee from the lawsuit had warned about.
As a result, the company temporarily lowered the Titanic submarine’s hull depth rating to 3,000m, which is 1,000 meters less than the Titanic’s depth, according to TechCrunch.
According to court documents obtained by The New York Times, a 2022 voyage saw the prototype have battery problems that prompted the ship to be physically linked to a crucial lifting station.
A CBS News correspondent saw the submarine experience a communications problem with the ship supervising its voyage and become lost for over three hours underwater last year when visiting the Titanic program.
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