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Coast Guard officials are continuing to uncover why the Titan submersible imploded, as the second day of the highly anticipated hearing kicks off.
The experimental Titan submersible imploded as it was heading down to the ruins of the Titanic, killing all five people on board, including OceanGate founder Stockton Rush, in June 2023.
Ten former OceanGate employees will give testimony in the hearing in North Charleston, South Carolina, which is probing whether any criminal activity led to the tragedy tragedy.
Witnesses scheduled to testify on Monday include David Lochridge, an employee who had branded the submersible 'unsafe' prior to its last voyage.
The former operations director will testify a day after witnesses painted a picture of a troubled company that was impatient to get its unconventionally designed craft into the water. The accident set off a worldwide debate about the future of private undersea exploration.
Scheduled to appear later in the hearing are OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein and former scientific director, Steven Ross.
Follow DailyMail.com's live coverage of day two below.
'Arrogant' OceanGate CEO and Engineering Director kicked science team off Titan vessel to do it themselves
CEO Stockton Rush and Tony Nissen, the former engineering director of OceanGate, kicked the University of Washington Applied Physics Lab (APL) from the project to design the Titan vessel themselves.
Lochridge said: 'Stockton decided to do all project engineering in house. He said he had lost confidence in APL. I think it was mostly a time thing.
'He introduced Tony Nissen and brought him in for the Titan build, they'd already put everything online that the vessel was going to Titanic.'
Lochridge said that Nissen took over and phased everyone out of the project including the team at the University of Washington.
He said: 'I said to Stockton I wasn't happy we were phasing out APL. It got to the point that Tony and Stockton told me I was never to speak to Dave Dyer again.'
Dyer is the Principal Engineer at the APL team.
Lochridge said that neither Nissen or Stockton weren't happy with APL and wanted them off the design and build of Titan.
He said the decision to kick the team off the build was down to 'arrogance', adding: 'Thinking they could do this on their own without proper engineering support.'
According to Lochridge, Nissen also had no previous experience in building submersibles - something which he also raised concerns about but was shunned.
Director testifies that company was 'very little' on science
Lochrige told the hearing that the basis behind OceanGate was to make money.
He said: 'There was very little in the way of science', adding that they had strong media team that could sell the seats aboard the submersibles.
The former director of the company said it wasn't scientists onboard but rather 'people who had money'.
According to Lochridge people would pay up to $35,000 to dive on the Alcatraz vessel.
OceanGate CEO attacked employee with controller after crashing sub
Lochridge described an incident on the Andrea Doria in which he was supposed to take four paying clients to the wreck of the ocean liner that sank in 1956.
He said he was to drop down over several days and keep his distance from the deteriorating wreck while aboard one of the OceanGate submersible's.
Lochridge said: 'Unfortuantely the CEO [Stockton Rush] decided he wanted to take it down, I objected. He told me I was staying out, I objected again.
'I was sort of reigned in at the time, "just remember I am the CEO you are just an employee", he said. I eventually persuaded him to let me come on the dive.'
Lochridge said that Rush took the helm of the sub which was controlled by a Playstation controller.
Despite the plan to drop over several days, Lochridge said that Rush said 'don't tell me what to do' and went straight for the wreck.
Lochridge added: 'He came straight down hard on the bottom, smashed straight down - visibility went everywhere.
'We could see metal plates, we could clearly see the starboard side of the bow of the Andrea Doria. It was an absolute mess.'
Lochridge said that Rush continued to argue with him in the sub despite him offering him help as to how to get out - with two paying clients onboard.
The CEO then went full speed into the portside of the ship, causing it to crack. Which caused him to panic, according to Lochridge.
After one of the customers shouted at the CEO to hand over the controls Rush threw the the controller into the side of Lochridge's head, causing it to break.
Lochridge then managed to get the sub away from the wreck and back to the surface within 15 minutes.
It was this incident that Lochridge said left the CEO embarassed and led to him being phased out of programs with OceanGate.
OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush is seen here on May 27, 2023
Lochridge begins testifying
At the start of the hearing Lochridge laid out his work history, telling officials that he had been a navy diver before earning his qualifications in underwater inspection offshore, and as a commercial diver.
Lochridge told the hearing that he then became involved in submarine rescue in 2001, with his wife seeing an advert for OceanGate in 2015.
He said the company and him ‘seemed like a good fit’ after spending two weeks with the company in May of that year where he was informed of the plan to visit the wreckage of the Titanic.
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage
DailyMail.com will be providing live updates today as the second day of the OceanGate Titan submersible hearing continues.
Key witness David Lochridge is to testify before Coast Guard officials, Lochridge had previously branded the submersible that imploded ‘unsafe’.
He wrote in a 2018 report that the craft needed more testing and passengers may be endangered when it reached ‘extreme depths’.
Follow our coverage as we bring you the latest news from the hearing in South Carolina.
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