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Washington: The US company whose submersible craft went missing during a Titanic wreckage expedition ignored calls to get its vessel independently checked and certified, believing this would stifle innovation.
As the international mission to find the Titan and its five occupants continued into its third day, documents have placed OceanGate – the company at the centre of the search – under fresh scrutiny over its refusal to have the vessel “classed” despite repeated warnings about the safety risks.
The OceanGate expeditions Titan submersible.Credit: Instagram
Court filings, industry letters and OceanGate’s own website reveal how the company was warned years ago that the Titan should undertake rigorous testing and assessments or run the risk of potentially “catastrophic” problems during its expeditions.
However, in a 2019 blog titled “Why Isn’t Titan Classed?” OceanGate argued that traditional certification, which is usually done through agencies such as the American Bureau of Shipping or Norwegian firm DNV-GL, could hold the company back. Instead, the company insisted its own safety testing and risk assessments were sufficient.
“When OceanGate was founded the goal was to pursue the highest reasonable level of innovation in the design and operation of manned submersibles,” the company wrote.
“Bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing is anathema to rapid innovation.”
The documents stem from a period in which OceanGate was preparing for its mission to take passengers on tours to see the wreckage of the Titanic, the infamous ship that sank on its maiden voyage in 1912. It now sits 3800 metres at the bottom of the Atlantic and expedition participants are charged $US250,000 for what the company promises to be a “thrilling and unique travel experience” to view the wreckage on board its 6.5 metre vessel.
Authorities from the US, Canada and France are now racing against the clock to find the Titan after it disappeared off the coast of Canada on Sunday.
Underwater banging noises heard by a Canadian P-3 aircraft on Tuesday night refocused the search effort, which now spans an area two times bigger than size of Connecticut. But Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick said on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) that the authorities were yet to find anything, and it is still not known if the noises represented signs of life, or came from unrelated sources, such as sea animals or other vehicles.
Frederick said acoustic analysis was now underway but acknowledged this was an “extremely difficult” period for the families of the five people who are on the Titan: British billionaire Hamish Harding; British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman; French maritime expert Paul Henri Nargeolet and OceanGate chief executive Stockton Rush.
OceanGate CEO and co-founder Stockton Rush, who is one of five people inside the missing submersible.Credit: AP
Asked if he still had hope for survivors, he said: “When you’re in the middle of a search and rescue case, you always have hope.”
Three more ships arrived on the scene Wednesday morning to continue assisting with the search and several privately owned vessels, one with a decompression chamber and some with underwater search devices, are also preparing to join the recovery mission. OceanGate is helping to lead underwater search efforts because of its knowledge of the site.
It is still not clear why the submersible disappeared about one hour and 45 minutes into its dive on Sunday when it lost contact with its command ship, the Polar Prince.
However, the documents that have emerged so far paint the picture of a company that declined to heed advice from experts over the years, insisting that its own methods and assessments were superior.
One scathing letter, dated March 2018, from members of the Maritime Technology Society, warned: “Our apprehension is that the current experimental approach adopted by Oceangate could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry.
“Your marketing material advertises that the Titan design will meet or exceed the DNV-GL safety standards, yet it does not appear that Oceangate has the intention of following DNV-GL class rules. Your representations, at minimum, are misleading to the public and breaches an industry-wide professional code of conduct we all endeavour to uphold.”
Court filings from the same year by the company’s then marine operations director David Lochridge also raised alarm bells.
Lochridge claims he was sacked because he raised critical safety concerns regarding OceanGate’s experimental and untested design of the Titan. Among them were warnings that the submersible posed potential “extreme danger” to passengers because it had not been properly tested for use at very low water depths.
British millionaire Hamish Harding is among the five people who went missing aboard a tourist submarine visiting the shipwreck of the Titanic.Credit: Instagram
Lochridge’s lawyer Blake Marks-Dias told this masthead his client had no further comment, but added: “We pray for everyone’s safe return.”
OceanGate has also not yet responded to questions about its safety record, although company’s website talks up the measures it had put in place.
“In addition to designing and building an innovative carbon fibre hull, our team has also developed and incorporated many other elements and procedures into our operations to mitigate risks,” the company wrote.
“OceanGate’s submersibles are the only known vessels to use real-time (RTM) hull health monitoring. With this RTM system, we can determine if the hull is compromised well before situations become life-threatening, and safely return to the surface. This innovative safety system is not currently covered by any classing agency.”
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