Crime Weekly - S3 Ep322: OceanGate: A Culture of Criminal Negligence (Part 2)

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

It was marketed as a voyage for the boldest among us - a ticket to the bottom of the world, where only a handful of humans had ever dared to go. But what began as a high-tech adventure turned into an unthinkable tragedy, and at the center of it all was one man: Stockton Rush. He called it innovation. Critics called it recklessness. And five people would pay the ultimate price. In this series, we’re diving deep into the story behind the Titan submersible disaster. From the birth of OceanGate and Stockton Rush’s obsession with rewriting the rules of deep-sea exploration, to ignored warnings, missing safety certifications, and a catastrophic implosion that sent shockwaves across the globe. Who was Stockton Rush- visionary pioneer or dangerous idealist? What happened in the final hours of the Titan’s descent? And how did a vessel built for discovery become a tomb in the dark silence of the Atlantic? This is not just a story about engineering failure; it’s a story about ego, ambition, and the fatal cost of a man with a god complex who gambled with human lives in the name of legacy. We're coming to CrimeCon Denver! Use our code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your tickets! https://www.crimecon.com/CC25 Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. https://www.FactorMeals.com/CrimeWeekly50Off - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY50OFF for 50% off and FREE shipping! 2. https://www.SKIMS.com/CrimeWeekly - Shop Stephanie's FAVORITE bras today! After you've placed your order, let them know we sent you! 3. https://www.SimpliSafe.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 50% off a new system with a Professional Monitoring Plan! 4. https://www.LiquidIV.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY for 20% off your first order!

There's a time and a place for a filet of fish. But breakfast is for sausage biscuits. McDonald's breakfast comes first. Hello everybody, welcome back to Crime Weekly, I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Lavasser. And today we're diving into part two of the Titan submersible disaster, the whole ocean gate and Stockton Rush fiasco. And I will say I'm very excited to really launch into this episode today because I put

a lot of work into it because I put a lot of work into it, I did a lot of research, I learned a lot. I feel like I'm a submersible expert right now. If any other companies. I got so many invites to go diving. Yeah, I mean if any other companies are interested in bringing somebody on as a contractor to give advice on how submersibles should be built, I know it all now.

That's why we're here in the first place. They brought people who thought they knew it. Oh no, they brought people who knew. There were a couple there. They were like, we want to have people here that know what they're doing. And then when those people open their mouths, they were like, shut up. We don't want to know your opinion. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, we're going to get into it. Very, very interesting episode. Oh, very interesting. Lots of shocking things. Once again, I watched the Netflix thing, I talked about all this stuff before,

it's still even doing my own research, listening to the Coast Guard hearings, looking at this testimony, going in deep to it, which I have like lawsuits and everything. It's just unconscionable that this happened. It's even way 10 million times worse than we thought. we're gonna talk about that but first we have a very exciting announcement. Two exciting announcements. Two exciting ones. First one's a criminal coffee announcement. We've been telling you guys we're waiting for an update on

the Houston case that we're working. Not ready yet but I will tell you it's coming soon and I think you guys are going to be extremely proud of yourselves because we wouldn't have been able to do it without you, but I'll have that update for you shortly. We're just waiting for the approval to say anything publicly, but just hold on tight. It's coming soon. The second thing, which I'm sure a lot of you are waiting on, is the CrimeCon giveaway. We asked you guys to subscribe and turn on your notifications on Apple or Spotify, leave a review. A lot of you did. We had I think like 600 or 700 submissions. So I went through all the

comments. Stephanie was going through the comments. We were going back and forth trying to decide which one to choose. A lot of you guys were putting the word CrimeCon but you took it a lot further than that you gave us a whole Breakdown of why you should be selected and we found one that we finally both agreed on and I won't lie to you was Partially because they made us laugh, but there was also a lot of good other points. I'm gonna read the exact The exact review from you that they wrote they wrote on Apple podcasts and they put Crime con is right after my birthday. That was the title of their review. So they wrote, I've wanted to go to CrimeCon

for the past several years just to see you guys. I live within driving distance of Colorado and can easily get there, but the tickets are always just too expensive. My birthday is September 3rd, which is by the way, right around the time for CrimeCon. And my husband and I plan to go this year for my birthday and to celebrate our honeymoon because we got married last November and haven't gone on a honeymoon yet. So birthday and

honeymoon, so she's really pulling on the heartstrings there. I love this podcast and the work you guys do. I've listened to every episode multiple times and I watch on YouTube on Sunday after listening on Friday. Gotta love that. We don't know if it's true or not, but at least she's saying it right. And would love the opportunity to meet you guys in Denver. Then like you can do on the reviews after you leave a review, you can write like edits so you can go back and edit your review years later. If you want to say we suck that you can go and do that. But she writes, uh, first edit was edit to this ad I've already started planning my birthday trip to Denver so if I win the tickets I'm there and if I don't win I'll

just hang out in Denver for a week and the first thing I thought of was like this girl's gonna be like outside the window just look with her husband who's like we've been married a year we haven't had a honeymoon and you dragged me to Denver yeah we're sitting there like can we come in and say hello? So I was like, okay now not now I feel obligated and then the final edit that she put which which sold us if all Of that didn't it was Editing again to let you guys know that I just watched or just listened to this week's episode Unfortunately, I just found out I'm related to Stockton Rush

through our shared ancestor, Benjamin Rush, period, bummer. Period. He was the period bummer. Bummer. That's what got us. Period bummer. You got it. So congratulations to Jackie Falk.

You have won the two tickets to CrimeCon. Do us a favor, send us an email to contact at crimeweeklypodcast.com. We're going to ask for some verification to make sure it's you. So anybody out there who's getting the bright idea, unless your name is Jackie Falk and you have the proper identification to prove it, you're not going to have much luck because I'll be vetting it myself. So I'll be going through it, making sure Jackie, congratulations,

reach out to us. We'll get that digital code to you. But I also have some good news for everybody else. We reached out to CrimeCon We always have a very good turnout there. We Twisted some arms pulled some strings and we got two more passes So here's what I would say don't wait go over leave your review now turn on your notifications Subscribe to Apple podcast and Spotify. Hell, leave a review on both because that's going to double your odds. When we announced that we're officially, Hey, this is the period. It'll be two weeks.

And then we're going to go through and look at not only the new comments, but also these comments. Cause there was a couple others that we really liked and we noted. So if you already entered, don't worry, you're automatically entered in this one. But if you signed up on one platform, sign up on the other, when we announce it, like I said, two week period, and then we'll pick another two winners, or I should say one winner for two tickets. So we are going to do it again. Thank you to everyone who entered this one. Thank you for the kind words. We read them all.

We really do appreciate it. And we love the community that we have here of people who are like-minded individuals looking to learn grow and make the world a little bit better of a place by Just being a contributing member to society Yes, yes now for Stockton rush ocean gate and the Titanic because that's what you guys came here for That's what I'm here for That's what you're here for man. Well, you're gonna be at crime-con, so you don't have to worry about it Yeah, I don't I don't have to worry about it. I will be there

I just booked the airline tickets, so you're telling me I don't look mine to yeah I know we I know I was like Derek we gotta get who haven't done it Then I was like oh my god This is why I always do it months and months in advance because the closer you get the more expensive it gets but whatever I'm actually gonna put it in my phone right now because I haven't done it either And I'm gonna paying double price just for waiting too long. I also haven't flown out because technically Denver is considered

to be like on the West Coast, right? That would be the West Coast. Yeah. Yeah. So I haven't flown out to the West Coast in like quite a while and that's because I always, I'm very nervous, I'm a nervous flyer and I always get nervous flying over desert.

Like when we went to Vegas for CrimeCon, I was a wreck,er now. He's get nervous flying over desert like when we went to Vegas for CrimeCon. I was all wreck Wreck the whole time because I'm just flying over desert for like three hours, and I'm like if we go down This is gonna be a yellow jacket I saw you on one of your flights, but you didn't see me that was going back Yeah, you're going back, and you looked like you're about to crawl up the wall. Yeah, I'm a very nervous flyer It's not it's not it's not a choice. This is gonna be a surprise to nobody watching this. You play with slime while recording an episode.

Yeah, I mean, I have anxiety. I think it's the worst kept secret ever. But what I don't have anxiety about is going down into submersible. I will never do it, especially after talking about this. So let's dive in. All right, so we kind of talked about last time how there's all these names, right?

There was Antipodes, that was their first submersible. They got that already kind of built and they just like added onto it. And then they started developing their own submersible. And the first one was Cyclops-1. And then they were like, oh, we're gonna do another one. That'll be Cyclops-2. It was Cyclops-2 for a while,

but Cyclops-2 would eventually become Titan, which is what we all know to not it. Cyclops 2, it was Cyclops 2 for a while, but Cyclops 2 would eventually become Titan, which is what we all know to not it. Yeah, very, especially if you're going to the Titanic. It's almost like, are you really, you really trying here? Well that's the selling point, right? It's a genius marketing move because the selling point I don't think is the submersible, although maybe for some, it's the opportunity to see the Titanic with your own eyes.

That's the selling point. The unfortunate thing is, it's pretty frigging deep. It's not off the coast of like Nantucket. So the problem is, if you could have made, if the Titanic was at, you know, 150, 250 feet deep, it'd be a great thing and a lot more people would go visit it, but because it's so deep and so dangerous, there's a reason people haven't gone down there.

Some people have. There's a reason they only send robots. Yeah, people know, people have gone down. I know people have, but what I'm saying, this is why it's not a common thing where Stockton has said a lot, like this was, this was something he was trying to tap into because there wasn't a lot of people in this area. It was mostly government-owned submersibles that could do this.

Not really, it hadn't been privatized yet, but there's a reason for that. For research and stuff, they'd go down and map the wreck and stuff, but it's not like we're bringing passengers down, we want this to be a tourism thing. John and Jane down there to take pictures. Yeah.

But I think people, like we love the story of the Titanic and we don't love what happened, but I think a lot of people are, you know, especially after the movie, we many people find the story of the Titanic extremely interesting. And if you told me it was completely safe and I could go see the Titanic without any risk, I would. But then when you put in the risk that comes with it, I would say, nah, I'm good from up top. I'll just look at the photos.

Yeah, there's no need for this. It's the same thing as going to space for me, I think. It's like, yeah, would that be cool? I would do space. Theoretically? I would risk it. I would not. If you said to me I could go on,

what's Jeff Bezos' thing? I don't freaking know. Blue Origin, Blue Origin. You told me I can get a ticket on that I'm going Jeff Bezos and blue origin and all of this weird space tourism thing. They can go somewhere. It's so pointless It's so dumb. There's people starving here like enough. I can tell you what I wouldn't do I wouldn't be one of the pioneers of it though There'd be a lot of people that would go before me They have all this talk about like oh we're gonna like

Settle colonies on different planets because the earth is dying. And it's like, okay, or we could put all our resources into fixing the fact that the earth is dying, try to fix that. And I don't wanna be around, okay, when we have to be spacemen. I don't want to live that way.

No, but your kids or your kids' kids or their kids' kids, maybe. You just don't care. You're just like, ah, whatever, I didn't know. No, I'm all sad. This is not what humans were meant for, okay? So we were created on Earth and evolved on Earth because this is the environment that is ideal for us.

So go into the ocean and going in space. Y'all are tempting fate, it's dumb. You're a human, act like a human, stay on Earth and try to funnel your resources and your energy into making this place the best you can You know nobody hears Captain Picard. Okay, Captain Picard. I know everybody likes Captain Kirk I was a Captain Picard a girl myself Star Trek next generation, but I could see you with the little ears I could see you doing that. He was such a cute man Captain Picard, will revisit it again at the end. I have no qualms with exploration

My problem is with privatizing it and trying to make money off it. So early. Well, I mean, he's sent a lot of ships up there at this point. I mean, they wouldn't be sending Katy Perry and all these people Oprah up there if they, if they hadn't well, Oprah didn't go. I don't think any of them actually went. I think it's all a, don't do that. No, no, into the episode. Okay. into the episode he said before I leave Jeff Bezos is Lex Luthor You can't convince me

Otherwise leave a comment down below if you think they actually went I'm actually curious and leave me a comment if you actually believe that Jeff Bezos is Lex Luthor cuz he is Alright, so during the development of Cyclops one. This was before the Titan We know the University of Washington's applied physics lab was very hands-on. They're providing engineering services They continued this relationship with Ocean Gate into the early stages of developing Cyclops 2 aka Titan Now Stockton Rush would phase out APL even though he still held an office in their facilities and there'd be like, you know Some overlap but when APL started being like, we don't really know what you're doing here. And like, we suggest you don't do this, or we suggest this, he got mad at them. And he was

like, we're phasing you out. And that's when he hires Tony Neeson, who then Tony Neeson hires a bunch of engineers who, according to David Lockridge, were like a bunch of kids right out of college who didn't know their assets from their elbows had no idea what was happening, right? Stockton Rush and Ocean Gate sort of phasing APL out doing their engineering and building and stuff in-house and David Lockridge testified about how badly Rush and Tony Neeson treated members of APL after that simply because they wouldn't go along with everything that Stockton wanted to do and you can also tell that David Lockridge is not a fan of Tony Neeson. And the way he talks about how things went down, it sort of feels like Neeson went along

with Stockton Rush more than he didn't. And I know we talked about this last episode, Tony Neeson's testifying, his watch is like going crazy. He's like, my blood pressure's rising. I think his blood pressure's rising. My opinion, allegedly. His blood pressure's rising because he let Stockton Rush get away with a lot of stuff that he probably shouldn't have allowed in the sake of self-preservation, right? So he could

keep a job, so he could keep working on this, so maybe he thought that he could eventually talk him out. I'm not saying this guy's nefarious necessarily, but I'm saying he was an enabler, and I do think personally myself that Tony Nisen should probably answer for some of these things. Well, that's why I think they have him testifying in some of these hearings. I know, I believe he's on the Netflix documentary too. I saw him on like some of the clips.

Oh, he's everywhere. He's talking about this everywhere. Still defending the use of carbon fiber, by the way, for that whole. I think you're spot on. I'd like to believe based on what I have seen in what you've told us that he pointed out the flaws But whenever he had any pushback, he would just roll over and say yeah, you're right And we'll just go with it where David Lockridge on the other hand would be like no

This is a flaw and this is wrong. And if you're gonna do it this way, I want no part of it That's a difference, but I think you nailed it with the phrase self-preservation Tony Neeson wanted to keep his job at that point. So he was covering his ass by putting things out there. But also when Stockton would push back, he would say, OK, yeah, we'll just do it your way. I think there was also a little bit of this boys club thing. Oh, I am in upper management.

And you'll see, because there was a meeting that was recorded between David Lackridge, who's coming in talking about all these things he's found wrong, and Tony Neeson's there and Stockton Rush is there, and Tony Neeson is going hard at David Lackridge. Like no, that's not what's going on here. You don't know what you're talking about. And we're going to hear this, okay? All I know is when Tony took over, they were going to be changing a lot. So, me being me, being

quite vocal, I said to Stockton that I wasn't happy that we were phasing out APL. It got to the point that Tony and Stockton, I remember one day Dave came in to see me, we used to borrow dive gear from each other, and Dave came in to see me and they stood in the corner, wouldn even speak to him and when Dave left they told me I've never to speak to that gentleman again which is ridiculous. Who was never to speak to the gentleman again? I was never to speak to Dave Dyer again. This is during 25th, correction, 2016 so I had to have no correspondence with Dave Dyer.

That's what I was told. And that was said to you by who? Oh, it was said to me by Stockton Rush and Tony Nissen. What was the relationship that you witnessed between Mr. Tony Nissen and the University of Washington Applied Physics Lab? Tony wasn't happy with APL. Stockton wasn't happy with APL. Stockton wasn't happy with APL. The two of them were very vocal,

saying that they did not want APL to do anything else with regards to the design concept and the build of Titan. They were gonna do it all themselves. Do you know why they made that decision? Can I say arrogance? Thinking they could do this on their own without proper engineering support. I mean, proper engineering support from people that have built things that have been subsea.

May not be submersibles, but known products, proper engineers that work for the university. So when you hear him talk about Dave, that's David Dyer. He was a very high up engineer with APL when they phased APL out. David Dyer, who's still friends with Lockridge, they like shared diving equipment. He comes in and Stockton and Tony like little little high school boys like, don't speak to that man ever again because they didn't do what we wanted. So Lockridge said that after APL was phased out, he was then told the project was being handed over to Tony Nyson and his team, who he had no confidence in whatsoever. Now, at this time, Lockridge had also been cut out of the project because of the Andrea

Doria incident, right? We remember that he embarrassed Stockton when they were down at the Andrea Doria wreck. Stockton threw the controller at his head. He had to fix it and put it back together and get them the hell out of there. And then Stockton basically wouldn't talk to him, wouldn't even let him see anything when it came to them putting Titan together. Now, Lackridge said he voiced his concerns

to senior management, which included Stockton Rush, obviously, Tony Nyson, who's the head of engineering, and the CEO, the chief operating officer, Neil McCarty. Did Tony Nyson have any that you were aware of, any previous submersible design or construction? He had none. Which I voiced my opinions on to the Chief Operating Officer, Neil McCarty,

and Stockton Rush and Joe Perry, I think pretty much all of them. And what was their response to your concerns? Stockton will do what he wants to do. That was it. So dismissed and I didn't let it lie. I kept saying we need to get APL involved or you know there was all this talk of getting Boeing involved, NASA involved. I never saw Boeing, never saw NASA. All that was spoken to me at my interview when I was going across. So hearing all these big names and APL obviously I met with those guys. And did you have a relationship like that with

the director of engineering at Ocean Gate? We never had a relationship. It was the opposite. Yeah, we didn't go on because he didn't like my opinion on his thoughts, his process, more so even more when the components for Titan, which 80% of were on the submersible that was involved in the incident, they were reused. So yeah, I voiced my displeasure. I'd say it was quite regular and I'm sure some of my previous team who left because they weren't happy with the conditions, the way they were being treated by senior management, I'm sure they would back me up on that. So at this time, David Lackridge was doing all he could to raise the alarm, even though

Rush wouldn't really even let him near the project. And the issues became more evident as pieces of equipment for Titan began arriving for assembly. You have to have the confidence in the equipment to do the job. It's like every other industry. If you don't have the confidence in it, you don't do it. That's it. And did you have confidence in the way that the Titan was being built at this time?

No confidence whatsoever. And I was very vocal about that and still am. And as an experienced engineer and operator of submersibles with over 25 years of experience, why do you think they dismissed your concerns? They cost cutting, bad engineering decisions. I would say that's the two main things. The desire to get to the Titanic as quickly as they could to start making profit. I knew nothing about the financial side of things but yeah there was a big push to get this done and a lot of steps along the way were missed and it was pretty evident not just to

myself, to Mr Tim Carterson, to Chris Imes who are both very experienced submersible pilots with years and years of experience and we all voiced concerns about what was happening in terms of the engineering of Titan and even more so when the components started arriving at the facility in Everett during 2017. If the CEO is saying do this and you don't agree with it you go to your Nixon command you let them know that you're not happy with it. Anytime I would give my displeasure and what was happening or disapproval, and say that's probably the best word, I was dismissed. So everybody knew from the engineering team, I mean I spoke to every single one of them, all the children

that were coming in straight out of university, some hadn't even been to university yet that Tony Nissen had employed. Stockton had no experience building submersible, none of them did. None of them were experienced submersible operators. I know the company had been on the go since 2009. There was no experience across the board within that organization. That initially was the entire appeal for me going across and transforming things and making something good out of what at the time was nothing. It was nothing. It was all smoking mirrors, all the social media that you see about all these past expeditions. They always had issues with their expeditions. I didn't know this at the time until

I went across, speaking to contractors that had been on the previous jobs. So in the fall of 2017, the first Titan hull was being put together. The winding of the titanium was complete. The parts were starting to come in and David Lackridge was not involved in any of this. He said his office overlooked the loading dock and so when he would see things come in, he would go down there, he wasn't invited to, but he would go down there, and he'd inspect and look at all the components on the shop floor before they went onto the engineering department. And Lockridge said, quote, there wasn't anything,

and I mean anything on that build, that gave me any confidence in them producing inefficient product, nothing, end quote. And again, as he always did, Lockridge told everyone his feelings. Everyone, every director within the organization even stocked in Rush's wife. Inefficient product nothing end quote and again as he always did lacqueridge told everyone his feelings Everyone every director within the organization even Stockton rush his wife Suddenly in January of 2018 when Titan was completed and after lacqueridge and many others had raised concerns about evident flaws during the build process

Stockton rush asked lacqueridge to carry out a well. He asked him to carry out an inspection of the vehicle and It's often called a quality inspection, but that's not what happened. Stockton Rush told David Lackridge, yeah, inspect it. I think it was busy work. Lackridge ended up doing a full quality inspection and putting together a report. And this was because apparently Stockton Rush told David Lackridge, I'm choosing you to do this inspection because of your vast and extensive experience working with submersibles. It seemed like the right thing to do, right? Have the guy who's actually done it before give the approval because he knows what it

takes for a successful mission? Seems like it would make a lot of sense, huh? It would. But once again, I don't think that Stockton Rush ever expected or wanted Lackridge to do anything with it. I think it was just because Lackridge kept complaining and he was the squeaky wheel and he's in everyone's ears and Stockton Rush is like, all right, let me give him some busy work. Let me keep him busy.

Let him think he's doing something. Just the fact that they were using parts from the previous titan is just insane to me. Like you've had issues with that one. At minimum you shouldn't be reusing the parts anyways, but it all came down to dollars and cents. Exactly, exactly. And this would have been done, this would have been requested of Lackridge to be done before the submersible was handed over from engineering to the operations team. So after being asked to do this, Lackridge spent the next several days working on his

report that he wasn't asked to create, he was just asked to do an inspection, and he was requesting paperwork from the engineering team, which remember was led by Tony Neeson. And this paperwork would have concerned a lot of stuff, but specifically the viewport design and pressure test results of the Titan viewpoint along with other key information. And Lackridge claims he was met with hostility and denied access to the necessary documentation that should have been readily available as part of his inspection process Now what we're about to play for you is a portion of an audio recording taken the day after David Lackridge Submitted his final report and you're going to hear the head of engineering Tony

Nice and arguing with Lackridge along with Stockton Rush arguing with Lackridge basically trying to make him feel along with Stacton Rush, arguing with Lackridge, basically trying to make him feel stupid. And like, we don't bother explaining this stuff to you because you're just not smart enough to understand. You're a pilot, you're not an engineer. Shut up. Even though keep in mind, Stacton Rush was not an engineer of submersibles either.

I am just trying to do my job. I have approached Tony, you, and to you Scott, okay, on the matters, the O-ring, okay, the hull issues, okay. I've approached it and I've just been dismissed. No, I told you the O-ring doesn't matter because it's a metal to metal C11 high pressure. You don't believe that. The reason being is I ask questions, I'm done, I'm dismissed, that's it, okay. So instead of me like here getting the kangaroo court. I don't dismiss you when I answer. Tony.

No I take issue with that. Okay good. No, no, no, no, no, let's go back to the O-ring. I do take issue with that. We had a great conversation about the O-ring in the plunge hole. I answered all your questions. Okay. And what did I say?

It first. It enlightened all of us. Do you think so? Do you think it will fail? That's what you said to me. That's what you said in the short form. Do you think so? And I said yes. The chances of that failing are high. Okay, so keep going. What are we talking about? Go for it.

No, enlighten us. I didn't dismiss you. What did I tell you that I did to verify that? I walked you through the design process to know that that was okay. No you didn't. Yes I did. When did you do that? Absolutely did. What I told you was... When was that?

Months ago or? No, when we were mounting the aft dome. What I told you was this. I said, look, I know as well as you do, I've never seen a plunge hole like that on a ceiling surface like that. Do you remember this? I do. I remember you saying that. There you go.

That was the D. It came and I communicated with it. You didn't say you communicated with it. Both Typhan and Parker agrees that that plunge hole is appropriate. Really? Yes. And who did I call to know this? Their R&D engineers. Okay. So the design was done in concert with their R&D department.

Okay. Now, if you can Google this on Google Images and go look for plunge holes on ceiling surfaces, and in fact they're all over the place. Okay. But we did talk about this and I said look I've never seen it either and then and then I commented I said if it's gonna leak we're gonna know. Okay so that's who you hear mainly there's Stockton Rush a little bit at the beginning where he's like well you just didn't like my answers I didn't dismiss you I answered you just didn't like them and then you got Tony Neeson coming in he's like I'm offended that

you would say this and and David Lockridge, so for context, David Lockridge and Tony Neeson, they don't like each other. They've never liked each other. No relationship there that is positive. And David Lockridge is like, Tony, Tony. And he's like, no, no, I mean it, tell me. I told you this.

And he's like, no, you didn't. So they're going back and forth. Tony Neeson is completely on board with this. And you hear things like, oh, rings and pl plunge holes And that doesn't make sense to you now But it makes sense to me because I went through David Lackridge's Quality inspection report and I got all the info and it is shocking What do you think generally about the way the conversations going with them all ganging up on on David Lackridge? well for me there's a few things here and I have the luxury of seeing some of the

Interviews since then through the internet through the news, right and I've seen Tony a few times I've definitely seen David a bunch and For me, I think there were things that Tony thought were okay And there was the self-preservation mode where he even the words he uses in that conversation He says we us he's referring to him in Stockton as their team They're all in this together. There's a united front and it's basically all of them against David Lockridge What pisses me off now is That in a lot of the interviews that I've seen

Tony is portraying himself as as David Lockridge the I told you so guy the guy who actually was like you listen to David talk and everything he's saying unfortunately came true and And from the conversations that we've seen so far and heard so far at the time that was not Tony now in his to his credit I will say when it comes to the carbon fiber hole, which we talked about last episode Maybe we'll address it again here fiber hole, which we talked about last episode. Maybe we'll address it again here. Tony did have some concerns with that and he did raise some, some areas that he wanted addressed regarding the audio frequency monitoring system that he wanted more microphones on there and Stockton wasn't for that.

And Tony pushed back, but was he as forceful with his opinions as David Lockridge was, which is what you need in a situation like this. You need debate, you need these conversations to make sure everyone's safe. Tony was not that guy. And I do take issue, to use his phrase, with the fact that now, when you look at these interviews he's done, he's very flippant in a way about it. Like, yep, I knew this was going to happen. This was preventable. I knew it all along. I was letting him. Yeah. I addressed this. That's the stance he's taking, but that's clearly not what happened.

Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, he wants to be David Lockridge he's not even Lockridge was the guy who against everyone else and did the right thing and and I'm not saying that Tony's at the level of complacency of as as Stockton Rush, but he was kind of like you had described him early like a yes, man And so yes, let's take that break and we'll continue because there is a lot more to cover. You know what summer is great for? Sunshine, relaxing, doing absolutely nothing, you know, outside of work, except maybe solving crimes from your couch. But you know what it's not great for? Standing in front of a hot stove while your AC wheezes like it's about to give up on life. And that's why we love Factor. Their chef-crafted, dietitian approved meals are ready in

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One more time, factormealscom slash crime weekly 50 off. All right. So let's go through David Lackridge's report and the issues he raised and urged to be fixed in the name of safety. And I didn't know a lot of this stuff. So first the viewport on Titan, which was a large 21-inch acrylic window designed to provide a wide view for passengers during dives. This was the largest viewport for any submersible at the time, and it played a central

role for why this vessel was never certified by any marine classification body. It was designed in-house, and they had it manufactured by a third party before Ocean Gate installed it. Now the big issue with this was the viewport had only been rated for a depth of 1300 meters by its manufacturer, when we know the Titanic rests at 4000 meters under the Atlantic. So let's talk about this viewport, which even Tony Neeson described as being non-standard. Viewport was made of acrylic, which is a transparent thermoplastic used in submersible windows because of its optical clarity

and decent compressive strength, but the 21-inch diameter was much larger than what classification standards allow for deep sea depths. And no known acrylic viewpoint of that size had ever been certified for such depths. Classification societies like DNV, ABS, or Lloyd's require that all components of a pressure hull, including viewports, meet tested and verified standards for the maximum rated depth.

But Ocean Gate's viewport did not meet these standards, and no manufacturer could produce an acrylic viewport of that size with proven reliability at 4,000 meters. So David Lackridge obviously raised this alarm and he claimed that no testing had been done with the viewport at its full intended dive depth, which was true. So when the Titan wreckage was recovered, the acrylic viewport was notably absent from the recovered titanium end cap and investigators believe this is because the viewport catastrophically failed during the implosion. They even considered the possibility that the

viewport became the failure point that initiated the collapse. Acrylic, while strong, behaves very differently than metals or composites. It's brittle under high-pressure shock and when it fails it can shatter explosively, disintegrating into fragments or vaporize due to extreme compression. Now this viewport was never found, they think it vaporized. Additionally, for reasons that no one can understand, the viewport, it was bonded into the hull with adhesive described in interviews and court filings as an epoxy resin or glue. Now this method of attachment was highly or glue. This method of attachment was highly unconventional for deep-sea submersibles, and it was one of the many decisions that alarmed marine engineers and former OceanGate employees.

Stockton Rush, on the other hand, was very tongue-in-cheek about this. He casually compared the bonding method to peanut butter, a remark that alarmed experts given the critical nature of that seal under extreme pressure. In most deep-sea submersibles, viewports are mechanically secured using metal compression rings, o-rings, or bolted flanges, but adhesive bonding without a secondary mechanical retention is virtually unheard of in high-pressure marine environments. I'm sure you understand why. Now the design for the viewport was actually pretty smart and innovative because Spherical viewports are great Stockton Rush specifically wanted this shape because he wanted a person's whole head to be able to like fit in and look through it

But the disadvantage of a spherical viewport is something called Demagnification which means objects look further away So this is William Conan CEO of Hydro Space Group, who worked with OceanGate on the design of this viewport. If you want larger diameters, you're best off to going to an arch. They call these spherical sector windows. The outside is round and the inside is round. 100% certifiable, all tests, we have all the PVHO rules that says how you design these. The issue is when you have a spherical window, you get some demagnification effect.

When you look through it, things look a little bit farther away. So, well, that doesn't really make any sort of difference. But if you're trying to sell a thrill ride, you want to say, well, I want things to look closer. Flat windows do not have this visual effect. And Ocean Gate thought, well, maybe we could have a hybrid window of it is round and it is flat, flat on the inside and round on the outside, and be as strong as an arch, and

we have the optical benefits of a flat window. It's an idea. It's a non-standard window. You'd have to do testing for it, but it's worth trying out. If it's important for your business, figure it out. You want some better optical effects and the strength. So do you understand what he's saying there? Yeah, completely. And I mean for me, it just as a layman, it's pretty simple. You think about a plane, right? The weakest point of that pressurized hole is those windows. That's why

unfortunately on a plane we don't have these big windows that you can look out. They're smaller and on a spaceship they're even smaller than that because they have to be you want to make them as small as possible while still giving enjoyment to the passengers but there's a happy medium there and it seems to me like Stockton Rush put the experience over safety. There was a it was a very simple thing These windows hadn't been tested yet. Yeah, like he was saying, you give it a shot, you test it out. What did he say his name is Kempner or Cohen?

Conan of Hydro Space Group, yeah. I get it, you wanna try it out, but it hadn't been tested fully, it hadn't been rated, and therefore it shouldn't have been used. And he's saying, listen, if you have the regular spherical window, that can absolutely be rated, that's fine. Yeah, you can create it so you have that demagnification. But then you're gonna have the regular spherical window. That can absolutely be rated. That's fine.

You can create it so you have that demagnification. But then you're going to have the demagnification. So if you're taking people down there and you want things to look good because you're doing a tourism thing, then this is why Stockton Rush comes in and says, well, I want to do this kind of hybrid window, like flat on the inside, spherical on the outside. And Conan told Ocean Gate he would build it. But if it was going to be certified for 4,000 meters, it would have to undergo extensive testing.

And he provided these testing procedures to Ocean Gate, which would allow the window to meet PVHO requirements. I'm sure you're aware that Hydrospace gave it a reduced depth rating, which was not to the depth of the Titanic. Will wanted us to go make a testing program for it. And I said, great, let's convince Dr. to go do that. And so I didn't want to do it. It was going to take some time.

It was going to take some money to go do that. Will said, well, I won't certify it. And Stockton said, I don't care. Let's make me the window. So we took the statue out papers, and we developed some dimensions and a prediction. And Will said, I'll make it for you, So, Will Conan also gave Stockton Rush plans for a standard spherical sector viewpoint that could certify. He would certify that to 4,000 meters, but it would cost $24,000.

So, you can kind of hear Conan's going to them and they're, but it would cost $24,000. So you can kind of hear Conan's going to them and they're like, he's like, hey, I want you to do testing. Like I can only certify it to this. And Stocking Rush was like, well, I'm not gonna do testing. And I don't care if you only certify it to 1,300 meters, which to me is bananas.

They knew, and so did Tony Neeson knew that viewport wasn't certified anywhere close to 4,000 meters. They put it in there and they didn't care. And that is, that's unconscionable to me. So now you have a vulnerable carbon fiber hole which is in certain applications extremely strong but not tested for submersible. And then you also have this viewport as well.

So two points of failure and I'm sure there's others. And Will Conan's like, okay, here, you can try your little experimental thing, but here is the plans for a standard spherical sector that can go to 4,000 and will be certified and is proven to be safe, but it will have a little of that demagnification, right? A little bit of demagnification, but again.

Things will look a little further away. Right. But you'll survive. Yeah. Stockton Rush was even like, no, I don't even want to do that. And maybe because it was going to be $24,000 or maybe because it would take more time or maybe because he was just so, his head was so far up his own ass that he's like, I want to do everything on here the way that nobody else would do it.

Which doesn't make sense But okay, which would be fine if it were just him using the submersible and nobody else Right, like listen if Stockton Rush who had money said I'm building this submersible for me I want to make this very clear because this is this is of an important distinction If he was building it for personal use and himself alone to go down on it, no problem. You do what you wanna do, take all the risks you want. But when you're making it for a commercial application where the people who are getting on the submersible

are relying on you to ensure their safety, that's the problem here. Yeah, I mean, if you want to be some weirdo Howard Hughes and just do crazy things and- There's no issue with that. Nobody would be talking stocked in that way if he was doing it for himself I mean, there's an issue, but it's there's an issue, but you're an adult. We can't stop you, right? You can do what you want. You got the money you get the time do your thing But you're making this for commercial application where there's gonna be

People like myself who you know would maybe want to go down there I'm insured like even when we go on a roller coaster, I'm not an engineer. I'm entrusting the engineers who designed the roller coaster to ensure the safety of myself and my family. That's your obligation. That's your responsibility. It's no different with the submersible.

You're taking people down there who are putting their lives in your hands. It's your responsibility to take every precaution to ensure their safety, not to jeopardize that by just a little bit more viewership. That's why we have third party systems for classification, whether it's roller coasters, whether it's planes, whether it's even automobiles, cars.

There are bodies of people who are experts in this, and there's standards that are met by the industries, and that's how you know something is safe, because all of these industries have said, this is safe based on how it was built. But Stockton Rush and Ocean Gate are building something that no classification bureau is going to even touch or go near.

That should have been a red flag to everybody, including Stockton Rush and Tony Neeson. So Will Conan from Hydrospace, he also sought out the opinion of Bart Kemper, who was a certified engineer. And Kemper did a computer analysis on the window design and found three issues he was concerned with, including inward creep of the window. This is going to refer to the gradual, irreversible deformation of the acrylic viewport caused by the enormous pressure exerted

on it during deep dives. Inward creep means the viewport would slowly bow or deform inward during or after each drive. This is a progressive weakening of the window's structural integrity. And during his 2018 inspection, David Lockridge reported visible signs of inward creep in the acrylic viewpoint after pressure testing, which he warned could compromise the pressure seal. Kemper was also concerned about flexing at the center of the window, so when a submersible deep dives, external pressure increases dramatically, every surface of the vessel is being crushed inward by that force, which obviously includes the viewport.

And acrylic is strong, but it's also flexible to a degree and under pressure it bends inward at the center of the pain. Kemper's analysis showed that the flexing movement of the center window was about a fourth of an inch a quarter of an inch which he found very alarming. Kemper also saw high stress and strain at the inner edge of the window. This is the Ocean Gate window taking the 5800 PSI that was sent to Ocean Gate. And I clearly showed the strains are well above, at this point, 8%.

I say six here, but the top of the line is 8%. That type of profile is more localized strains. Strains is a fancy way of saying stretching. It's locally deforming. This does not look like code. This is consistent with something on the path to failure, where a crack would initiate at that point and then dive in a little bit, but that would be the crack initiation point. That crack runs deep. At that point, you've compromised a major part of your integrity at that point." Lockridge also noticed visible flexing of Titans viewport during dives and

pressure tests and he warned that the window was not structurally sound for repeated dives to Titanic depths which was the company's entire business plan. Yeah Titan. Yeah they scheduled all of these dives to the Titanic in in one year even and they were advertising this selling tickets Okay, they knew where their bread was butter. They were the selling point was not the submersible. Like I said earlier it was the Opportunity to see the Titanic in person. That was the reason the tickets were selling not the submarine I don't think a lot of people like oh man. I'd love to go in a sub You can there's a lot of subs you can go in out there all throughout the world

But this sub in particular was going to the Titanic. That's why people were paying up to a quarter of a million dollars to go on it. That's why. Which is at the bottom of the Atlantic, which is already deep. This is way out in the Atlantic. This isn't, this is serious.

So, Lackridge then requested, after he saw these issues with the viewport, he's like, we need more in-depth testing, and we need third-party certification with the viewport, he's like, we need more in-depth testing and we need third party certification of this viewport. Lockridge noted that because the viewport had been installed before he was able to inspect it, he couldn't even verify the acrylic or the O-rings. He requested pressure test documentation from the HydroSpace group, but he was denied access by Tony Neisen, who was director of engineering.

Lockridge mentioned that the O-ring ceiling faces had something called plunge holes machined into them, which deviated from the standard design, and these holes created potential leaks for seawater under pressure. So O-rings on a submersible like Titan are one of the most critical components for survival at extreme depths.

They're round donut-shaped rubber or elastomer seals. Think of them like a thick rubber band in the shape of a perfect circle. They're used anywhere two parts of a structure meet and need to create a watertight or airtight seal. O-rings sit inside precision machined grooves in the sealing faces of a sub's pressure hull. So when two parts, like a titanium dome and a carbon fiber cylinder, are pressed or bolted together, the O-ring is compressed slightly inside its groove, which then forms a tight uniform seal

that should prevent any water from entering the cabin. Now, a plunge hole is a manufacturing defect or design shortcut where the O-ring groove contains a small drilled hole typically left from a machining operation like using a milling tool. Sometimes these are intentional to allow access or alignment, but they're never ever supposed to be in a ceiling surface under deep sea pressure. So in his report, David Lockridge wrote, at the 12 o'clock position, a plunge hole is present.

This will create the least path of resistance of seawater on this critical ceiling face. O-rings are not fully captivated due to the plunge hole, and this void creates the potential for seawater intrusion." End quote. So basically, yeah, like why would you want a hole to be drilled into the rubber seal that's supposed to be preventing water from coming into the submersible? You wouldn't, Stephanie. You wouldn't. But they were present in the O-rings of Titan, and David Lockridge pointed it out, right? Because the plunge hole created a gap in the O-ring's compression surface, meaning the

O-ring couldn't press tightly against the full surface. So if the material around the hole buckles or flexes during descent, which, hey, by the way, carbon fiber is known to do, which it's actually meant to do, the intrusion path widens and under enough stress, this small design flaw could allow a pinhole leak to become a blowout. So at titanic depths, the pressure is over 6000 psi, so if the O-ring groove is not perfectly machined, or if the O-ring isn't fully sealed and evenly compressed, water can find a way in fast. And Lockridge noted that this issue was present on both the forward and aft sealing faces of titans and domes,

and he wanted the grooves to be re-machined and to have the plunge holes removed and restore full contact for the o-rings. I mean, not a hot take, right? He's like, this isn't crazy. Let's just redo it. Let's get, let's get o-rings without holes drilled in them. How about that? And they were like, no, I would say as a guy who's not that smart, the less holes, the better when you're in a submarine. I would say no holes is ideal. No holes would be preferable. Yeah, and there was a ton of issues that Lockridge raised in his report. I believe it was 25 points he listed out altogether.

He pointed out structural and assembly flaws, including missing bolts and nuts and key attachment points on the forward horizontal supply. So this is the side to side structural beam or bracket located near the front end of the submersible. It's part of the whole structure that helps secure the carbon fiber pressure hull to other components, such as the front titanium dome and the mounting brackets for ballast systems, thrusters, internal systems. Very important stuff. Basically, it adds lateral stability to the front end of the vessel. Very important.

So Lockridge wrote that where the support met with segment 1, lower attachment bracket, two of the four bolts were missing and there were no nuts present, which meant the forward horizontal support was not properly fastened to the submersible's forward structure and the mechanical joint was incomplete or insecure, which could have caused a structural misalignment or failure under stress, especially during launch or recovery or pressure loading. And some missing bolts or screws might not matter so much if you're putting together a table from Amazon at home, but in a vessel that's supposed to be designed

to withstand crushing pressure, even minor issues like missing bolts or support structures can and will compromise overall integrity or cause flexion, flexing in critical seals and joints. So once again, you don't want to see missing bolts. You don't want to see that. You just don't. The quality control is just not there.

You can just tell that other than David Lockridge, people are the culture that's created there. It's more like it's going to be fine. It's going to work itself out. We're doing something magical here and we're just going to go down there. We're going to scoot around the Titanic. We're going to take some photos and we're going to work itself out. We're doing something magical here, and we're just going to go down there. We're going to, you know, scoot around the Titanic. We're going to take some photos, and we're going to be super successful. And it's more about expedience than effectiveness here.

They're trying to get it done as fast as possible. And when you do something fast, you make mistakes. That's what's happening here. I don't think they left out those bolts intentionally, but when you're under extreme pressure from the CEO to get things done and get them done fast You're bound to miss certain things and that's why you're something as simple as a bolt and a nut May not seem like a big deal like a perfect what you said there building a table not a big deal But when you go into a pressurized hole down 4,000 meters, that's the difference between life and death

One little bolt can kill everyone and all the things we've discussed so far individually could have been the reason for that failure. We may never know exactly what it is or maybe he'll tell us, but overall it could have been a totality of different things that happened at the same time where one thing went caused the other to go and then it was this domino effect where within seconds the titan was the size of a tin can. Exactly and we know, yes, there's cost-cutting measures happening here, but time was also a big thing, because like I said, Ocean Eats are already selling

fair. They're getting paid passengers to give them money, which they're then using this money to pour back into the submersible. So if you wanted to refund these people, that would be difficult. You'd have to come out of pocket to do that because you used their money to invest back into your business plan. And I remember it's obviously a lesser scale, but when I used to serve tables and people would order and then 10 minutes later they'd be like, where's my food? Where's my food? I'd always say, hey, do you want it done faster? Do you want it done right? Because you can't have both. You cannot have both. And I think this goes back also to kind of what

you said about Stockton Rush when we were first doing this series. In the beginning 10 minutes, you were like, he's brilliant. He has this idea. He's brilliant. You can tell he's passionate. I think that's what the people who worked around him felt. And we know Tony Nielsen hired a lot of young people

right out of university. As David Lockridge said, some of these people hadn't even attended university for this. So he's hiring a bunch of young people right out of university. As David Lockridge said, some of these people hadn't even attended university for this, so he's hiring a bunch of young people who are going to be A, just glad to have the job and a place in this historical thing, and B, are going to be so young and so inexperienced that when somebody like Stockton Rush comes in

and starts talking like, you know, like he's Elon Musk and he's talking about all this stuff and he's using all these terms and he's so passionate, he's talking fast, they know, like he's Elon Musk and he's talking about all this stuff and he's using all these terms and he's so passionate he's talking fast they're gonna say well he knows more than me what the hell do I know? This doesn't seem right to me but he clearly he's older he's gone to all these colleges he built his own planes he has all this education and experience what do I know? I'm gonna follow his lead which is why I think Tony N and and Stockton rush decided that hiring all these young very on inexperienced people to be on the engineering team That's why they did that so that they wouldn't have pushback

I think it was a combination of things and I mean not being in there I don't know exactly but obviously when you get someone who's fresh out of college They're gonna be cheaper than the person who's got 20 years of experience, right? That knowledge and experience comes with a higher dollar amount. And so Stockton was able to get someone who on paper was certified and capable of doing this type of work. But education, anybody who has a degree, you know, the books can only teach you so much. It's about experience. I would take experience over education any day of the week.

And so you have these people who are fresh out of college who on paper know what they're doing, but don't really have the experience to diagnose and figure out actual issues that would happen when you're down 4,000 meters where someone like David Lockridge would. With someone like David Lockridge, 25 plus years of experience, practical, practical experience, hands on, been in a sub when shit went down and had to think on his feet and keep a level high enough to get them out of

there. Exactly. So yeah, on paper, these kids had engineering degrees and David Lackridge did not. But at the end of the day, who do you want in that sub with you when shit goes down? It's David Lackridge. Well, it's just like what you described in episode one. You talked about the incident off the coast of Nantucket where Stockton Rush, I still stand on this hill that he's a smart guy.

He was a smart guy, right? Did a lot of things. Definitely not a dummy. But when you describe that incident where David Lockridge basically forced his way down onto that sub with them, when they were in the mud, when s*** hit the fan, Stockton Rush panicked and didn't know what to do. He was a deer in the headlights because he hadn't been in that situation before where David Lockridge, who's sitting right next to him, is under the same pressure, under the same threat, stayed cool, calm, and collected and got him out of there now if he

Hadn't been on that ship or on that submarine That might have been the end of it But because he had been there before the groans and the pains and the aches of that little sub and what he was seeing and Hearing he'd been there before and so he had that experience So just to answer your question in full these kids they got the experience, but they don't actually have the knowledge They have the knowledge. They have the knowledge or the piece of paper that says they went to school for it. Right. They, so they have that, but also first job, maybe second job out of college. They're trying to keep it.

They're not going to be as apt to come out and speak out against the person who's signing their checks. And they're also going to feel like, well, I'm just young. Like, I barely know what I'm talking about. He is a Stockton Rush. Yes. He knows everything. Yeah, this is his thing. All right, we're gonna take a quick break

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Yeah, that's Crime Weekly. In case you didn't know, that's where you're going. Go check them out skims.com. Okay we're back so David Lackridge also talked about components. Segment one and segment two being glued to the carbon fiber hull before inspection. So segment one connects the forward titanium dome to the front of the carbon fiber pressure hall, and segment two connects to the aft dome to the rear of the carbon hall. Both of these are bonded joints, transitional rings that served as mechanical and adhesive interfaces between materials like titanium and carbon fiber. So in deep sea submersibles, these bond lines are where extreme compressive forces and material stress differentials convergeibles, these bond lines are where extreme compressive forces and material stress differentials converge.

So these bond lines carry the load of the domes pressing against the hull under 6,000 psi of ocean pressure. So basically, if the bond fails, the dome could separate, the seal could break, or the structure could collapse violently inward, which is what we know happened to the Titan. So once these are glued, you can't see or assess the surface anymore to check for things like voids, contaminants, like dust, moisture, improper curing or misalignment.

And we're talking about the carbon fiber hull. Once these things are sealed onto the carbon fiber hull, you cannot look at that carbon fiber and test it for anything. And Lockridge wanted non-destructive testing of the bond line to be carried out because this was the only option. After they're glued, there's no practical way to test the quality of the bond. You have to use non-destructive testing like ultrasonic or x-ray imaging. Ocean Gate would not take Lockridge's advice to perform

non-destructive testing. Lockridge's report also talked about mechanical and component issues and there were quite a few of these, which was alarming to me as I went through each one. I actually started feeling sick to my stomach. It was insane. I didn't even know that there was all these issues. I'm surprised something didn't happen sooner. So Lackridge said the ballast bags had glue coming off of them. And to understand how bad this is, you have to know that ballast bags are important, by the way. They're important to ascent, to descent. They're externally mounted to the submersible's outer structure and they help the submersible control its buoyancy, in other words,

whether it's going to sink or float. They usually contain heavy weights that are released when it's time for the sub to ascend, to come up, so when the dive's over, the system would drop the bags to become lighter and then float up to the surface. Lockridge saying the glue was coming off would have been bad because if the glue wasn't strong enough the ballast bags could fall off Unexpectedly which could make the submersible accidentally rise at the wrong time

Let's say you're very close to the Titanic and there's like a bow or something over you and then you lose a ballast bag and all Of a sudden few the Titans going right up into that bow if only one or two bags fell off the sub could tilt Roll basically become uncontrollable for the pilot adhesive bonding of the ballast bags is rarely used for external load-bearing or life critical components and the fact that Ocean Gate chose to use glue instead of mechanical fasteners like bolts or brackets implies that they either wanted to get it done really really quick or it shows a just complete basic done really, really quick, or it shows a just complete basic misunderstanding or total disregard for industry best practices. I, or maybe all of the above. I was gonna say probably all of the above. Because I mean even you and I it's

like yeah these are ballast bags glued, glued to the external components of the of the Titan and you need these. You need these to get back up to the surface dude. You need them. You need them to control how fast you go down. It's just crazy. Yeah. Have you ever dove before? No. I don't know if I asked you that. No, no, no.

It's kind of similar with the, when you're diving, you wear like a vest, and in the vest you throw all these weights in there, right? And you can throw the weights in the actual vest, or you have like a buoyancy belt that you put on, and you have to basically figure out your buoyancy before you go down because like you just said if you go up too fast Well in our case it would be decompression seconds But here if you ascend too fast you could hit something you could knock yourself out before you even get up there So it's so important. It sounds kind of trivial like oh, it's just this bag that would fall off

But this could this could be the difference between you getting to the surface or not. And so having that right and making sure that they're going to work when needed is extremely important when it comes to diving. I've never been in the submarine, but I can tell you the buoyancy and having them and being able to control your ascent and descent, like I'm talking by inches, is very important. Exactly. And when we have a pilot like Stockton Rush, who we talk about the Andrea Doria David lacquer just like the plan was to go and like look at it from afar. He brought us right in there, right?

So what if a balustrade had fallen off during that and they're in the shipwreck? You're done. You're never getting out You're dying in there go up too fast You cracked it you crack the little viewport off the bow or something to that boat You get the hairline crack in that acrylic game over. It's like they didn't They didn't really I don't they did they did realize how important it was. He did realize the sea It's just it blows my mind. So in his report David Lackridge noted the glues already Already peeling off the ballast bags during this inspection which meant the bags were already Failing before the submersible even entered the water for a test dive.

Absolutely ludicrous. Okay, so in Lackridge's report, he noted that the electrical pods and trays, which are the housings and mounting platforms for the submersible's internal and external electronic systems, these were using what he called dissimilar metals, and this made him worry about corrosion.

So what he meant when he's saying dissimilar metals is these important components, very important components, had been manufactured using metals that were chemically different like titanium and brass. And this is very interesting to me, I never knew before. But if you join dissimilar metals together in the presence of an electrolyte like saltwater, you're going to get corrosion and you're gonna get something called galvanic corrosion. So when two dissimilar metals touch in this environment, one metal becomes the anode and sacrifices itself by corroding faster.

And then the other becomes the cathode, which is protected at the anode's expense. So one of the metals will get weaker so that the other one can be stronger. Basically, the electrons go from the anode into the cathode, making one of the metals stronger and the other metal very, very weak. It's so cool. So yeah, that's really cool. I never really, I didn't know that metals worked that way, but yes, it does, it does make sense.

And in the Titan, bolts, screws, trays, and mountings made of different metals were assembled directly against each other. And so when these would be exposed to humidity, salt water, high pressure water vapor, it could eventually cause rusting or weakening of the fasteners. It could cause cracks in the trays and potential short circuits or failures in the electronic systems they held because these trays are housing the electronics of the submersible, which is important for everything, right? You got to be able to communicate control the book the sub all of its connected to electrical Components the thrusters everything so because ocean gate was actively avoiding

Classing and actively avoiding third-party inspections No one was checking to make sure that these components were marine grade or properly protected Lockridge also talked about how the thruster mounting bolts were Deflecting into the ballast bags which meant the bolts were coming into physical contact with the bags, which could obviously cause the bags to bulge, tear, or degrade, leading to ballast loss and loss of control over the ascent or descent of the vessel. Lockridge was very alarmed that he was unable to inspect certain important systems of Titans, such as the house batteries, which were the main power source for Titans' internal systems

that included life support, navigation, cameras, lighting sensors, communication, the oxygen system, which pumped breathable air into the submersible, and the high pressure air system. Oh, and the control and computer systems, which would have been the actual brain of the submersible. He was not able to inspect these at all. So what Lockridge was saying without mincing words is that Ocean Gate launched dives in Titan without being able to physically inspect

or test the systems that actually kept people alive. The oxygen, the computers, everything. If you're piloting a submersible to a depth where no light reaches and pressure can crush steel and you haven't even confirmed your oxygen or control systems are working, you're not innovating, you're gambling with people's lives. And David Lackridge pointed out that the floor of the cabin was made from something called HDPE, which is high density polyethylene. This is a common plastic used for a lot of things, but also highly flammable. And it burns really, really easily and fast once it's ignited, especially in oxygen-rich

environments like the Titan's cabin, because just like a plane, oxygen is being pumped into the cabin of the Titan. And what would happen if you lit a match on a plane in the cabin of a plane? It would be very bad because of all the oxygen that's in there. Want to know a little side note, a little fun factoid? You know how I just had my hernia surgery? They use polyethylene in those mesh repairs now. I did the stainless steel threads, but yeah, polyethylene. I remember that came up. It's used a lot.

They use it a lot and yeah, it's a very strong material. But highly flammable. So unlike materials- I'll keep my areas away from the match, I guess. Please be careful. Don't light a match around there. So unlike materials designed for aerospace or submersible interiors, this HDPE does not self extinguish and when it burns it also produces toxic fumes. So if a fire did start, there's no emergency hatch for quick evacuation. Even if you weren't at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, Titan was made so that it

had to be unbolted from the outside. There's 17 bolts, so the people on the outside who are on the support ship have to unbolt you. And so even if you're in there and you've been brought up and there you're like there's a fire bring us up, they still have to unbolt 17 bolts, okay? And then not only is the fire burning and it's burning fast and it's not self-establishing, but it's releasing toxic fumes There's no way these people are surviving this and it's going to be very bad. Very painful. Very scary Any onboard fire would be devastating and with such flammable material used to the floor with all that oxygen being pumped in even a small spark Or a short circuit from the electrical pods could start a cabin fire.

So you've got. Got some problems. You've got all these. Put it lightly. Yeah, you've got all your electronic stuff encased in metals that are dissimilar, so it's gonna cause corrosion. And then they're saying,

hey, even if a small spark happens from any of these electrical things, the whole cabin's gonna go up in flames. It's over. Yeah, because of those fumes that are in there and it's kind of like going into the cabin itself. So even though you may not be smelling it or tasting it, there's some type of hazardous gas inside there. On top of that, you have the acrylic window that's not

regulated for that depth. You have the carbon fiber hole which is literally cracking and the fibers are breaking. So yeah, this is a this is a suicide mission at this point, and we're not even done. All marine safety standards dictate that only nonflammable materials can be used in vessels carrying human passengers. Okay, that's obvious. So OceanGate knowingly used flammable flooring, ignored fire safety protocols, and then dismissed the concerns raised by David Lackridge, who was the director of marine operations. During this testimony before the U Coast Guard, Lackridge talked about how OceanGate reused

so many components from previous versions of the submersible. Just for the record, this is on the original first Titan hull as we previously discussed. It's on the original Titan hull and it's also on the second hull which was involved in the incident.

They reused these domes, they reused these ceiling faces, they reused the acrylic, they reused the interior. Everything was reused, it's all cost. Now I wasn't there for that but I know firsthand everything was reused and I'm sure that'll all come up as part of the investigation. How the hell they managed to get the carbon removed from segment one segment two. That'll be an interesting topic All right So let's talk about that carbon fiber haul because Lagrange found plenty of issues there He wrote that the haul could not be inspected externally due to the Rhino coating which had been applied under the direction of Tony

Neeson we're gonna talk about that in a second because it's Ludicrous, you know what that is, right? It's the thing you put on your car. Yeah, it's like the rough surface that you see in the back. You see it very often in the back of trucks, pickup trucks. He also said that it must be noted that visible voids and delaminations

were present in the carbon end cutoff segments. And Lockridge took photos of these defects. The cutoff segments refer to sample pieces that photos of these defects. The cutoff segments referred to sample pieces that were cut off from the ends of the actual carbon fiber hull. This is usually excess trimmed off material that they're going to when they're kind of fitting all the pieces together. Now these segments would have represented a cross section of the hull. So you could visibly see the internal layering of the carbon fiber and you'd be able to see whether the material was uniform and most critically whether there were structural flaws like voids

and delamination which is going to weaken carbon fiber extremely. And that was proof of why my justification of questioning the feasibility of using a hull that had so many imperfections in it. The image on the right side, on the starboard side there, that is me shining a torch through the back. Now that one section itself, that is a five inch section of carbon fibre. That is part of the hull winding, the initial hull. All the way through that, I mean, I just held my torch and took a photograph of one of the sections of the hull. You could see all the way through it. It was like porous

paper. It was disgusting. When I saw this, when I saw the imperfections in the hull itself, I highlighted this repeatedly, repeatedly, and I was constantly put down about it. It'll be fine, it'll be fine, the glue will hold it together. You could honestly put micrometers down this, vernias, you can actually feed it down several millimetres, hope you don't mind me using the metric system for that, don't know how manyths of an inch that is, but you could actually put the thin end of a Vermeer into some of these holes of this five inch thick hull. It was disgusting. Here, how they mitigated all these holes was they got this company in from Everett, Washington. company in from Everett, Washington. They took the hull out into the car park at the back of the marina

and they created a pop-up tent and sprayed it with truck bed liner which I have never seen or heard of in any subsea application in my life. So basically in the back of your F-150 or your Ram truck, the hardy material that you stand on to stop it getting rusty and scratched, that's what Ocean Gate engineering team decided to do to stop water getting in through these holes.

Now, I'm sure I'm not the only one, I'm looking at all your faces here, that's got the common sense to question this, this method, especially when it's never been done before. Appalling. Absolutely appalling. Can I just say like, not only is David a smart guy, not only is he brave, but he knows how to tell a story. He's Scottish, right?

That's in their blood. I'm just, the way he's just breaking it down for them putting it into context He's good man. And the fact that he was this guy was on their team yeah, and they let him go and they didn't listen to him is just an Absolute waste of talent and if you're watching on YouTube, you can see the photos that he included in his report He took pictures of the photos even if you don't listen to our episode go look at the photos He shined a light through one end. You can see holes in his report, he took pictures of these segments. Even if you don't listen to our episode, go look at the photos. He shined a light through one end.

You can see holes, holes, just, and he's like, yeah, you could put something in there from one side to the other. These holes, they're just sitting there. It's insane. All right. So we're going to talk about the reaction to David Lackridge's extremely thorough and accurate report. But before we do, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

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director Scott Griffith, and human resources director Bonnie Carl. In this meeting, supposedly to discuss Lockridge's safety concerns, it got pretty heated as it turned into the ultimate battle of ego. We already heard some of this in the earlier clip. Right from the start, Rush asked Lockridge, what brought this all on? How long have you had these concerns? And Lockridge said, I've had these concerns since the second dome came in. And we got these end segments from the Titanium, from the carbon fiber hull. And Lockridge had wanted to know if they were still getting them scanned to check for defects, right?

Because Stockton Rush had told him, hey, we'll get these scanned. And Rush replied back that they looked into that and it turned out they couldn't do it. They couldn't get it scanned. And then he says to Lockridge, so keep going as in, yeah, we already decided we aren't going to do that. So what's the next item on your list? Then Lockridge asked Stockton if he could quote him on what his actual response had been in Lockridge quoting Stockton Rush said quote I'm not going to waste the money getting Boeing to inspect this piece of

end quote and Stockton Rush was like well I I wouldn't have said that without saying we have acoustic monitoring which will tell me way before it fails and yeah I don't think I said piece of sh**, but either way, Boeing can't scan it, so it doesn't really matter. Lockridge kept pushing. He said, okay, so are we just not going to make any efforts to get it scanned? We're just not doing that? And Rush replied that the data they would get from a scan wouldn't be meaningful.

And Lockridge said, really? And Stockton Rush said, quote, yeah, I mean, unless it was a gross delamination, so it has a gross delamination and it is a piece of sh- we might see that in a scan. We will also see that with the acoustic monitoring. We've done enough testing with the acoustic monitoring that we know we will see that. You want to see a bad hole? That sample we have, that 1 third scale, clearly had delamination a quarter of the way through. It went to 6,500 PSI before it failed and we knew at 4,500 PSI that it was going to fail. No one from Boeing, any of the experts I've talked to, has questioned that acoustic monitoring will

not detect problems in your hall before they happen, okay? End quote. So what he's saying is, he's like you want to see what a real piece of shit is, that one quarter model we had, that had huge delamination going a quarter of the inch of the way through. And it failed, it did not fail until 6,500 PSI. But because of the acoustic monitoring system, we knew it was gonna fail at 4,500 PSI. So there you go, if something's gonna happen, we're gonna know.

Even if it's a piece of shit, it's gonna get to 6,500, right? And what was, what's the PSI at the Titanic? They said 6,000. Yeah, so 6,000 PSI But here's my question and we may not have the answer here But just if I were in that room and just someone who doesn't know much about this stuff. I would say to Stockton Okay, you have this audio monitoring system and where you're gonna start to hear the cracking and the tearing of the carbon fiber It's gonna happen somewhere. Let's hope between 6,000 and 6,500 psi. Great. Well here's my question Stockton. Let's say we're down there and

this monitoring system that you've implemented that you've created starts to indicate the carbon fiber hole is failing. It's starting to snap. We're 4,000 meters down. We have to ascend at a certain speed. So if it starts to snap at that depth, even though you have the remote monitoring software, even if it detects it and tells you, hey, this is happening, there's nothing we can do to rectify it at that depth,

and we still have to go all the way back up, and before we get there, there could be a complete failure. So wouldn't you want to prevent it so that with that remote monitoring software, if you get down that deep, you're not gonna have any cracking or any snapping because you've taken the precautions and you've put in the time

to make sure that the hole was intact. You know what I mean? Like I just, I don't understand his thought process and maybe I'm just not smart enough to understand it. The remote monitoring software through the audio microphones that they have on there, it's great, but it almost seems like, and I don't want to sound disrespectful here, but it's basically just like an alarm to let you know

that if you're at that depth when you start to hear it, you're about to die. Am I, maybe I'm interpreting it wrong. No, I mean, it could be that. That's the problem with carbon fiber, which Stockton Rush acted like he was an expert on, right? But he wasn't. That's the problem with carbon fiber, which Stockton Rush acted like he was an expert on, right? But he wasn't, that's the problem with carbon fiber. You just don't know.

It could hold up, it could not hold up, right? So if you've got voids or delaminations, which is the carbon fiber layers starting to come apart, okay, so let's say you go down and you hear cracking, so you're like, let's go back up. Well, now you still have cracks and snaps in there, and you're gonna what, bring that back down for another day?

No, you'd have to redo the whole thing. You'd have to redo the whole thing, which they're never gonna do. No, it's not cost effective. I just, for me, it's like, and if you're not on video, you're not gonna see this, but okay, here's our carbon fiber hole. It's completely intact.

Well, is it stronger now or when I go like this? No, so even if they crack but hold, the more that, the more of those fibers that snap, the weaker the hole is. So if you start to hear even a couple, you're more likely to have that catastrophic failure at any point. It's not like, oh, a couple cracks and snaps are okay because it's still intact. No, every fiber that's holding that hole together after it snaps, it makes just a micro millimeter less less credible to hold up. So That's my concern like if you're hearing any cracking it shouldn't go down

Yes, every time you're hearing cracking snapping the structure is getting weaker It may not fail then but it will eventually if you can take taking if you can and if you continue taking the same vessel Down for deep dives and you hear crack crack crack crack and then you take it down again, and you hear crack crack crack crack. It's just getting weaker It's just more of the carbon fiber pulling apart or failing So I don't I just don't understand what this brilliant man thought was gonna happen here Yeah, I mean, I know we're spending a lot of time on it But if I had to guess just you know, we're almost two-thirds through the episode now not being down there and maybe through the investigation It will be determined exactly what happened. But here's the one thing I will say as it was going down

If it was starting to crack and snap and do all those things I would like to think but I can't say it for certain Stockton would have said we have to return we have to turn around and go back up It's cracking too much is too many snaps that I'm hearing What's more than likely is what you were saying earlier about that viewing port where it would be like an immediate failure. There would be no warning system that would tell you, this thing's about to implode.

That's what I lean towards happening here. Or you'd be so egotistical that you'd be like, I remember when we did the model dive and it didn't fail until 6,500 PSI. But because of our acoustic monitoring system, we knew at 4,500 that it was going to fail eventually, but it still got down there. It still got down there before it blew up.

So if I just go to 6,000, I should be fine. And I get back, like, this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. It's a dumbest, it's almost like knowing Stockton's background and all that. But like you said at the top of episode one, hubris, right? Like it takes precedent in his mind over what his brain is telling him as far as this is not good.

He's more on the ego side of things where he knows he's under a lot of financial pressure. He has these people who paid him a lot of money to go on this trip, and he has to deliver. And I also think there's a part of him, you know, because he wants to be the Elon Musk of the ocean. He wants to get it done. He wants to not only do it, but he wants to be first. Okay, so we're going to play a little audio from this meeting and you can hear Stockton just going through the acrobatics of trying to make a completely unsafe vessel seem safe

to a guy, David Lockridge, who knows it's not. Does it not alarm you seeing what we see? Arnold, I mean, they're lying all over the place. We've got them in the order table. Right, those are scraps. We've got them out of the way. And they are from the five-inch hull. Those are segments from that hull.

The only part of that segment that matters is the segment that is the part that was cut. The rest of it is scrap and it's meant to be crap. That's why you cut it off. It's like judging a GM plant by what's in the dumpster. Correct, but all that porosity, the voice that delams everything in there, the glue runs, it doesn't concern you. Not at all, because carbon fibre is better in compression than tension, and that's what nobody understands.

It's completely opposite of what everyone else says. Everyone says, oh, carbon fiber can't handle compression. They're full of shit and I've proven them to be full of shit. If you want to see bad, you take a look at this third scale model that we tested. It is, that was poorly done. It was, it had a massive delamination. It had porosity.

It had voids. And it still worked. No, okay, Tony will join us. I didn't hear you join us. So that unit was, he did not heat it sufficiently. It was undersized. It was designed for, if you scale up that third scale model, it scales up to a 4.2 inch, not a 5 inch hole. It was, he didn't have thermal couples in it like we did

with this one so he could get the temperature. And as you scale up, the scale factor is in your favor because the fibers are smaller as a relationship to the diameters. All three of those say that this will be better. And that one was, anyway, also that one was good enough. And it, but what's amazing is how poor it was. So, you know, it's a good news, bad news.

You know, the bad news is what the hell is Spencer doing creating such a product? And the good news is Spencer knows. That's why Fawcett went to him and why he's the only person who's made these hulls is carbon fiber in massive uniform compression is highly tolerant of voids, mistakes, and manufacturing defects, which is the opposite. I've talked to experts at DARPA.

I've talked to experts at Boeing. I've talked to Spencer. I've talked to ATK. I've talked to experts at DARPA, I've talked to experts at Boeing, I've talked to Spencer, I've talked to ATK, I've talked to General Dynamics. It's been an eight-year project. I know what the hell I'm talking about. So keep going. Okay, so when you heard Rush tell Lackridge to keep going, Lackridge asked, okay, well, do you want me to just like go through the list of concerns in this report? And Rush responds in a very manipulative way. He said, quote, I'd like to go down all these things but you know part of it I also want to know what led up to this what's

your goal with this document? End quote. And Lackridge is like well my goal is to be sure that everyone who rides in this thing is safe including you. And then Rush along with Tony Nielsen they he they chime in arguing with Lackridge and you can hear Nissen tell Lackridge and you can hear Nielsen tell Lackridge that he never dismissed him. We heard that earlier. You never dismissed. I never dismissed you when you talked about the O-rings and the plunge holes.

And Nielsen is like, those plunge holes are fine. Go Google it. Plunge holes are always all over the place. I talk to people. Stockton's talked to people. They all said it's fine. And Lackridge was like, okay, great. Well can I see documentation from the people you've talked to saying that this is an

appropriate application and Neeson was like, no you cannot. I talked to them over the phone. So then Lockridge brought up the acrylic viewport window and they knocked his objections down. One of the great things about acrylic, it doesn't just fail. And so we have determined this is part of the test program. We're gonna test it. I am confident that Will doesn't know what he's talking about. And even Will says the data is wrong, and then he goes back and says, but the data says you can't do this.

So it's not certain. It won't be certain. So what does the data, when you say it goes off the chart, what does the data say that you've got to get it? Go to PBHL, if you go to PBHL, it's right in there. And you look at the type of, they have a chart, and it goes out, and what they come up with is you come up with a critical pressure, which is the failure, and then you multiply by what they call a conversion factor because they didn't want to call it a safety factor

because they knew every engineer would laugh at them because it's four to ten. There's not a safety factor of less than four under Kronenstein. I mean, he's such a he's like so egotistical. You could tell you wouldn't be an easy person to work with. He's like these. Or work for. These stupid safety regulations. Like any engineer who's worth their weight

would laugh at these safety regulations. It's just ludicrous. So I have to cut in here, though, because they were all talking over each other at some point. And you can't really hear, but I have the transcript as well. I was reading along. So Tony Nyson says, the acrylic viewport window meets requirements and lacquerage asked if they had documentation of this and he was told Yes, and he said yes, we do then lacquerage was like well

Can I see it and and he said was like no and then Stockton rush goes into a monologue about how there has to be some Trust in senior management. It's like you don't need to see everything, you don't need to know everything, you just have to trust us. So one of the issues is there has to be some confidence in senior management who spent their time doing this and engineering that is doing this. It's not everybody's job.

Everybody at Boeing doesn't get to sign off on the aerodynamics. Even the chief pilot doesn't get to sign off to say the wing's designed right. He doesn't even get to sign off to say the wing's designed right. He doesn't even get to sign up to say the control system's right. He gets to find out how is this done, how do I operate, what are my limits and what do you want me to do? Okay. I disagree with that comment, Stockton,

and I disagree, Tony, that you're not going to present that documentation for me to look at. Okay. I would like to see it. Okay. And I requested it in email, you rejected it, I requested it in person yesterday, you rejected it. You flat out said, no, you're not getting it, you're just the pilot, okay? That's it, you don't need to know. Which I find bizarre. It's not bizarre.

But that comment was... No, it's not bizarre. And the reason why it's not bizarre is what you've done well documenting here is you can take, you can pick and choose some part of data that you want and extrapolate misinformation, right? And that's what happens. Right? So that's why engineers don't share that really with the world. You get a report and some people will know, or certification, you don't see anything behind

certification whatsoever. Nobody sees data behind certification. And the reason is, for some of the items that you wrote in here, is you would package it differently and represent it in error. And I can go over that. Can you package it so that the people who aren't as intelligent as engineers can understand it? Yeah, that's what a cert paperwork or a report is for.

And do you have that? No, I don't have time to write that yet. Yeah, that would be this thing that you'd have. Oh, can we look at that? No, I haven't had time to write that one yet No, I mean and by the way, that's for anyone who can't click because sometimes I'm confusing them That was Tony Neeson if I got that correct That's Tony Neeson And that's him speaking up and Stockton Rush is sitting in the background letting his little people go after people. Yeah

Yeah, no, no, no, that's the distinction between Tony and and David for sure David's telling Stockton to his face and in writing, you're full of shit and I don't like what you're doing and he's saying it in a more respectful way. But I don't agree with you. And then you have Tony Neeson who's basically defending Stockton and backing him up. Leave Stockton alone.

But if you listen to these documentaries and you watch these clips, Tony Neeson is sitting in these chairs and doing these things and speaking as if he was on the same side with David Lockridge the entire time Uh-huh like how could I have done anything this doctor didn't give any you didn't really you didn't really push back that hard I don't care what people say I'm officially on the I don't like Tony. I don't like to be honest with you I don't I don't like him. I don't like him. I feel like he's fake

He's be he's fake and he's be he's being kind of a dick here, right? Because he's like this is the reason and then they're saying Boeing though Even the head pilot at Boeing doesn't even get to see that's not the point Boeing's classified There's external bodies making sure that this is a safe vessel for people to go into the pilot doesn't need that You're not doing this. This is experimental. That's what you keep telling everybody It's all highly experimental with a first first ones cutting edge with the cool kids The in the audacity the audacity to go on and do like a Netflix doc when you know that these recordings are out there You got balls, buddy You got balls because you if you would have backed up David Lockridge at the time when all of this was happening

And then Stockton Rush was the outlier and he was the dissenting opinion Maybe you would have had no choice but to make changes. But because he had people like you yes-manning him, he kept moving forward because he was emboldened by you backing him up. Yeah, because if the head of the engineering department and every single person there got together and they were like, okay, Stockton, sorry,

we're just not doing anything. Like you can't, you know, you can fire us all and then you won't have a company. You don't have nobody to build your submarine. But we are not doing it any further until these safety precautions are taken. But instead of doing that, instead of aligning with David Lockridge,

Tony Neeson backed up Stockton Rush, even though he's the head of the engineering department and he knew these issues were there, right? We're gonna hear that. Neeson ends up leaving the company because he realizes like, oh, this guy's out of control. Don't tell me you didn't realize it at this point. You didn't realize it at this point. You did. So that is Tony Neeson you hear towards the end, pushing back, basically telling David Lackridge he can't have access to certain documentation because he isn't

smart enough to understand it and he might repackage it in a way which was damaging and untrue. He said misinformation. You might use it to spread misinformation. You mean to save people's lives? Okay. And then Stockton Rush goes on some I'm a Trailblazer rant where he says all these other people are so afraid of doing cutting edge things and they have their heads up their asses, but not me. Not me. I'm not afraid. I'm doing this. You know, we're doing stuff. No one's ever done a carbon fiber halt for human pressure like this. I mean, there's a number of things that we're doing know we're doing stuff no one's ever done a carbon fiber fault for human pressure like this. I mean there's a number of things that

we're doing that you know no one's done a Lars the way we've done it. No one's done you know any of these operations. We're doing stuff that's way out there and the only way I'm going to be comfortable with it is lots of cycles lots of testing. And you know at that point the proper things to say look we've done 20 cycles to this depth. here you can go look at the viewport. For us to show you and say, hey, you know, Will says it's only good to 3000 meters and we're going to 4000 is not really relevant.

What's relevant is, is this a proven design and before we put people in there, particularly clients, it's going to be a proven design. And if I have to do 20 dives by myself before I can convince people in the company that it's safe, I'll do 20 dives. I'll do 50 dives. But at some point, you get to that. And this is how it used to be done before we came

up with computers and committees and risk assessments. You know, you used to go out and fly planes. Planes are different. In terms of you going in the submersible, I am so against it. We spoke about it. Everybody else in the company has spoken to you about it. Nobody said anything against it. I'm against you doingible. I am so against it. We spoke to everybody else in the company and spoke to you about it. Nobody said anything against it.

I'm against you doing it. I understand. We should be putting that sub on a wire with everything they expect. I understand. I understand that's your issue. And a wire is not without safety issues for one. And secondly, this is how we're doing it. It's just period.

I've looked at it. They don't test nuclear subs on a wire. They don't test airplanes on a wire. They could. What you do is you set a testing program where you do it incrementally. It's not going to just go to 3100 and be perfect and at 3200 it all goes away. That ain't going to happen and I will put my life on the line to say that ain't going to happen. No, it wouldn't. Okay?

And he hasn't heard pushback from me on that whatsoever. So you know, that can be your assessment. I've test flown planes I've built myself. I've test flown subs that I've built myself. And as long as I am comfortable with what the safety parameters are, when you first fly a plane, you take off and you land. And the next time you take off and you go to 200 knots and you land. And the next time you go to 210.

And then you do, you gradually build the envelope because they don't just fail. They tend to, you know, you gradually build the envelope because they don't just fail. They tend to, you know, you see the stresses are beyond the limits. We have this thing more instrumented than anything. I had this conversation with Will Coney yesterday. I said every other sub out there is unsafe. They should have strain gauges at every location

on a steel sub. How do you know it's still in a round and you get hit by a forklift? Costs almost nothing. No one has a strain gauge to do in real time monitoring. That's what they should be doing. So I take, you know, great umbrage of people saying this is unsafe.

It's a different approach. And I will do it incrementally and I will do it safely and we will analyze the data from every depth and if no one else is comfortable, that's fine by me as well. And that's all that's going to happen in the timeline that we've got between doing eventually when it does get dumped here to put new inside it, eight weeks later it's on a truck,

it takes what, two or three weeks to get there. And within how many dives do you want to be at 4,000 meters? Yeah, we'll do three to start with. We'll do one, two, and three and then we'll do, we'll see what the descent rate is and how long it takes and we'll do it by 100 meter increments from there on out. Okay. I disagree with that because the cycles are not sufficient.

I'm going to stop in the way, you know, along the way. Well, we have real-time monitoring so we'll see. You know, the same thing. Every time we get 1000 meters, it should be quieter than the last time. If it isn't, then we have serious concerns. We have a lot of mitigation plans in this that are already in place that have been tested and that are, nobody can deny.

It's just nobody's done it that way before. Computers fail. We know that's what cyclops want. So you call it eyeball. So to get that data. Right. Computers don't fail. Tony. Anyway, they don't get to get anything. Yes, but so the answer is yes, the computer fails, so we call it eyeball.

And how do you know you're getting accurate data? Because we have... The string, yeah, Jason. We test it with the same way Boeing does. Snap a three millimeter pencil lead on the outside and see what that waveform looks like. Yeah, it's just more of the same, right? It's just Stockton saying no matter what, I'm going to continue moving forward. My only problem, or well, I have a few problems, but the biggest problem I have's just Stockton saying no matter what I'm gonna continue moving forward. My only problem are well

I have a few problems, but the biggest problem I have here is Stockton is essentially with the the incident that happened where it killed Stockton and all the other passengers that essentially was a test You're testing this this device this submarine With clients and that's what David Lockridge is saying right here How many times you're gonna go down and test it before you're going down there with clients or going down there by yourself? And three or four times, not enough.

And there wasn't, from what I understand, there was never a successful dive to that depth, I don't think, with that particular submarine before these clients went down. I could be wrong on that. And I'm just reading it, looking looking online not everything's accurate there but they were still well within the testing range of this submarine to ensure that it would be safe for people to go on it and yet Stockton would needed the money so he

took their cash and attempted to take them down not because it was ready but because he knew he had to give them something for their purchase which was to see the Titanic. And he's also saying, Oh, you know, every time we go down, we should hear less cracks. And if we don't, then we have to, you know, figure that out. I think you would hear the opposite because now it's, you would, it's more vulnerable. It's not going to get, it's not going to, it's not self-healing carbon fiber. It's not Wolverine carbon fiber.

Right. Exactly. It's not going to get better. I mean, and that's what going to get better. I mean Yeah, we're saying in different ways, but it's like yeah every time there's a crack that crack is there for life And it's making it weaker and then every time you go down with those cracks that are already there those cracks are getting bigger They're widening there Well the bigger problem is so you have the five inches right and you could crack through the first two inches and be fine But to what David has been saying throughout this whole thing,

if there's delamination or a void somewhere between the three and four inch mark of the carbon fiber. So let's say the two top layers are perfectly fine, but as it starts to crack through eight finds a void, well, that void isn't going to split like the crack does over time. It's going to be a pocket that didn't laminate correctly and so it's gonna be a quick crack which is gonna give it more force to break through the next three or or To five inches which could result in a mass failure and listen. I'm not an engineer, but even I know that it's not gonna happen They rhino coated it. I mean, oh, that's true

The Rhino coat is gonna stop it the Rhino coat doesn't even stop the back of my truck I know dude when I put an Ikea shelf in it, but it's gonna protect you at 4,000 meters. Okay, cool. It's 6,000 PSI Yeah, and you can hear Tony Neeson, right? He's kind of grabbing on to Russia's coattails telling lacquerage Hey computers don't fail and it's funny because every time Tony Neeson talks David Lockeridge just like Tony He's like Tony. Just yeah, please go sit down little man, please and and you know, he's he's he's like Tony, just please go sit down little man, please. And he's piping up every now and then, he's trying to make David Lockridge feel and look stupid in my opinion.

And they go back and forth on every point Lockridge made in his report in much of the same way. This goes on for hours. But you can tell that Stockton Rush is growing impatient as this goes on, impatient with defending himself, impatient with having to explain these things in detail to someone he deems less intelligent than him and far less brave than him. It's very clear as someone listening to this audio, Stockton is building up to firing Lockridge. Even though there's someone else in the room now, you heard a woman's

voice before, that's Bonnie Carl. She's even saying like, well, you know, I'm also not feeling super great about this. So my point is, given that we've you stated you're not going to get comfortable with certainly the test project with me being in the sub. That's not something you will ever get comfortable with. These issues need to be closed. I understand. These are serious issues. I understand. I understand. And I believe I'm close enough. I understand. The risk is high here. I understand and I believe I close them out. I understand the risk is high here. I understand. Especially with this viewport now. I understand. It's now been made clear why I'm not being given the information Tony. Correct. Yeah. I've seen the information. Because it ain't good. Yeah. Because Will Conan doesn't know what the facts are. Period. And it's fine. You can, you can, it's fine to poke holes and ask questions.

The challenge is that you, I can give you the answer and you disagree and you stick with your approach. And that, and you have your, you have an opinion. You will not, I'm not going to get you off. If it's not PBHO certified, even though PBHO certification means absolutely nothing, you're not going to be comfortable with it. You're not going to be comfortable, you've said, with a carbon fiber hull and a human being going in on the first side.

The main thing I'm concerned about Stockton is you're throwing yourself down to 4,000 meters. I'm not throwing myself to 4,000 meters. I'm incrementally testing until I get down there. This is the thing. Scott and I have discussed this. I have sent Scott a proper test procedure that should be done properly, okay? In terms of that system going down on a wire. You judge it using your strain gauges, your test gauges, you get the data, analyze it, it's stair-casing.

Yes, it's the industry, I've been in it long enough to know the industry works. Nobody has had an accident for such a long time for that reason. Stringent testing. I understand. Okay. I get cyclops, it's not classed.

The hull may be classed, okay, fair enough. But in terms of this system, it's all new to everybody. I understand. So why are we not even trying to follow the guidelines from the industry in terms of doing the pressure testing? There's an industry hanging on a rope guideline? I've decided this is how I am going to do it.

You are not going to ever be comfortable with that. My main main concern here, Stockton, I get the gung-ho thing, wanting to go and do it. I get it. Okay, no thing. Stockton, I think you have to listen to me here. The main thing, which you are sweeping

under the carpet here is if something goes wrong with you being in that submersible, okay, your top side support, those are the ones that are left with the aftermath, those are the ones that are left to answer to the accident investigation team, Ocean Gate is done. Everybody says, oh, it'll just be Stockton's wife, that's the only person you could be liable for.

Nonsense. The accident investigation team will come down. I understand. It would shut the industry down. I understand and that's bullshit but that's fine. Okay. Yeah, the industry likes to say that all the time. I'll agree with him on, I'm uncomfortable with you doing the man test as well and I've told this to Neil that the thought of going down to the Bahamas and bringing back a dead body would mentally fuck everyone who is down there and that scares the shit out of me. Okay and if you were worked for Virgin Galactic you got three dead bodies.

I mean that's the nature of testing things in the extremes. Understood. I'm just saying it's not just you. By the way, you won't be bringing my body back. So it's okay. Well, me I know. I understand the concept. I understand the concept.

Yeah, and so this isn't for everyone. And that's where I'm getting to, which is this project is not for everyone. Okay? And the question is, what I'm getting down to, it's clearly not an approach that you're comfortable with. You don't want to be associated with it. You don't want me to die and have your name. I. You don't want to be associated with it. You don't want me to die. And have you said I don't want to be associated with it?

I am highlighting my safety concerns, which as an employee of the company, I've been here for nearly three years now, Stockton. I have seen the way it works. I am addressing what I view as safety concerns. And concerns I have mentioned verbally. Correct. Which have been dismissed by everybody.

I know I've listened to them, and I have given you my response to them and you think my response is inadequate. Correct. Okay, so that's the impacts we're in. People didn't understand what Sonar could do for you. I've been fighting this thing since I started this business and I don't want to fight it with you and I don't want to put you in a position that you are feeling like you've been badgered into signing off of

me going and killing myself. I have no desire to die. I got a nice granddaughter. I am going to be around. I understand this kind of risk. And I'm going into it with eyes open. And I think this is one of the safest things I will ever do. It's going to be a lot safer than flying a plane, the first

plane I ever built, made of carbon fiber with a 300 horsepower engine on. So I have no desire to die, and I'm not going to die. What may easily happen is we will fail. We will get down there, and we will find out the acoustic monitoring fails after 10 hours, or gives too many false positives, or the thing is noisy or the the dome is creeping well because we're gonna be measuring that or it starts to

craze I can come up with 50 reasons why we have to call it off and we fail as a company I am not dying no one's dying under my watch period you don't agree with that and and I don't want to put you in that position I mean is that much to say that video says it all. It's chilling. It's chilling to hear basically David Lockridge predict what's going to happen. And then you have multiple times you have Stockton saying things like, oh, by the way,

you won't be bringing me back. He was right. You wouldn't be. And everything he said was not going to happen, happened. Yeah, those are pretty powerful words, given the hindsight we have into what happened to this man, right? These are-

Yeah, in hindsight, getting to hear that. By the way, do we know who was Ocean Gate recording that to protect themselves against David Lockridge, or was David Lockridge secretly recording it? I believe Ocean Gate recorded this. Which would make sense, because if they're building up a case for termination, they would want it recorded so they could show that there was an impasse and it wasn't working.

So I agree. I think if it had been recorded secretly based on one-party consent laws, I don't know what would have... We might not have heard this, but I think it was Ocean Gate that was recording this because like you said, they were building a case to fire David. Yeah, and you can hear Stockton Rush and he keeps saying and he's doing this intentionally Well, this is what we're doing and you're telling me you're never gonna be okay with what we're doing He's trying to show we came to an impasse your record a reconcilable differences He wants him gone, but he can't just fire him without cause and David Lackridge. He was saying no I'm not saying I don't want to be part of this project

I'm saying I want to see this project go forward safely and Stockton Rush is like well You're saying that you're not okay with this You're not okay with and he's like you're looking fishing for a reason to justifiably fire this person or cause him to quit like he I don't think Stockton sitting here having a conversation debating the in and out of the submarine he's basically saying yeah listen I agree we're not going to agree and I think he's hoping that David's gonna go you know what I just I can't be part of this anymore So I'm gonna quit and he wants that recorded. He wants to have proof of it

So I think Stockton's not trying to fix the problem here. He's saying yeah, we're we're not gonna agree I don't like you. You don't like me. I don't want to have to answer to you by the way. He's always Reinstilling with all of his employees that there's a hierarchy right you? You're, you're a pilot, you're an engineer, but I'm the boss. This is my business. And what I say is what we're doing. And you could hear people talk about it in the investigations after the fact, you're getting to see it right here. That's the culture he was creating. There is a hierarchy here. I'm in charge. You may have reasoning or rationale behind your thoughts,

but ultimately what I say is what we're going to do. Yeah. And you can hear that culture reflected when Bonnie Carl speaks up. She speaks up during this clip. She's a, she's agreeing meekly though, with David Lockridge, cause she's kind of, she fell back. Yeah. She's, and she fell back, you know, she, he's, and he's like, uh, Stockton rush. Like, and by the way, you're not going to be bringing my dead body home. She's like, I know, I know. Even she's a virgin Atlantic. And she was like, yeah, yeah, you're right. Yeah's like, I know, I know. Even she's afraid. Well, he also brought a Virgin Atlantic. Yeah. She was like, yeah, yeah, you're right.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's not making any logical sense, but they know this conversation is hitting our heads against a wall. He is never going to meet us in the middle. He's never going to move an inch. It's his way or the highway. That's it. Either get on board or get out.

Yeah. And she's saying like, yes, you got the impact if even if it's just you in that sub. Yes, all your team around who helped you do this. We're gonna be devastated. This is going to be terrible, right? Oh, well, we could lose our jobs and also be held criminally liable. Yes That's what he's saying like it's gonna be an investigation and we're all gonna have to answer for all this negligence because You're gonna be dead and they're gonna be asking us. Why did you let this happen?

Like we're doing right now. Yep. And you can also hear Bonnie and she also continues. And by this time, Tony Nielsen's left the meeting. So she's like, I feel bad. He's not here to defend himself. But like, yeah, I've had issues with Tony Nielsen as well. She was frustrated when she tried to get additional knowledge and information from him. He puts up walls, he stops you at, I want to know this stuff and granted he's, you know, willing to teach me about strain gauges and that's great, but I feel like everything else it's,

trust me I'm an engineer and you don't need to see that. So do I. That's frustrating. This group should be the most open group. We should be talking with each other constantly. Pilots, engineers, operations, we should all be on the same page. And it's an us against them. And that's going to kill this company.

Yeah, no. And it's been there for a number of years. And it's what I brought up months ago. That is what will kill the project. And I mean, I hate to throw Tony under the bus, but he is... He will talk your ear off if you want, but he won't talk your ear off if he thinks you're going to criticize him or he needs to get something done and he just comes to your table. But you know, he loves to be...

But sometimes if he just asks a question, it's like, hey, can I see that? I mean, I don't fully understand why he's so unwilling to let us see that... Because they don't like each other. I mean, that's... I get that, but I mean, for him to just say no, you can't see it. Because, and I mean, for, he's not saying it in so many words, but he's saying you're too dumb to read the stuff. Right, but those are things you don't have confidence in. Well, we don't have confidence in them because we're not being told them. Yeah, we're not being told anything, we're not getting answers, we're not getting correct answers.

It's just, it's been a a problem and it has been a problem since day one and we have been trying to make it work, this relationship thing. And I know. They say both, it goes both ways. He says he's been trying. I get he said, she said from all of this. So, and the fact is I know.

I'm getting all the answers and I'm the guy who's listening to everything that Tony's saying, everything that Will Conan's saying, everything that Boeing's saying, everything that Brian Spencer's saying, ATK, GED, I'm the guy who's collecting all everything that Tony's saying, everything that Will Conan's saying, everything that Boeing's saying, everything that Brian Spencer's saying, ATK, JD, I'm the guy who's collecting all that data. Okay, it sits here. And if you don't have confidence in the CEO,

then that's the wrong place to be. And that's what it comes down to. AKA, you should quit. That's what he's saying. Yeah, and he's saying, like, you know, he's like, well, she's like, why is he not giving us the information? He's like, well, they don't like each other,

talking about Tony Nese and David Lackridge. But Bonnie Carl's asking for the information. She's not getting it either, right? Oh, I thought he said, you don't like each other. No, they don't like each other, he's saying, right? So, I mean, obviously Bonnie's even kind of, she's getting more, like, aggressive with it. She is, she's getting a little fire under her right now.

She's like, she's getting pissed off. And she says the exact right thing. We're working on this as a team We should be talking to each other and transparent about everything every single day there should never be an issue with communication and Stockton rush just doesn't want to hear it He's like listen at the end of the day if you don't trust me you don't belong here get the hell out and Long story short David Lockridge was fired after that meeting they gave him 10 minutes to clear out his desk and vacate the premises. So the following month in February, David Lockridge filed a whistleblower complaint with OSHA under the Seamans Protection Act.

For the following 10 months, he was placed under their whistleblower protection program, during which time he turned over all evidence he collected during his time with Ocean Gate. OSHA sent Ocean Gate a letter in February of 2018 informing them that they were starting a preliminary investigation and although they did not name David Lockridge, the company seemed to know where this investigation had come from. Ocean Gate responded with a five-page letter in which they explained their side along with the audio of the two-hour meeting with Lockridge and the letter written by Ocean Gate's lawyers claimed that Lockridge had been asked to inspect the submersible, but he went well beyond what he was asked

to do by preparing the report. So yeah, they wanted him to do an inspection, but then do nothing, not prepare a report, not cause any issues, just busy work. They said that Lockridge's insistence for another form of testing was not necessary due to the acoustic monitoring system that would provide data points to assess the safety of the hall at every point during the testing process. Remember, this acoustic monitoring system was created by Stockton Rush. Never used before. He created it, got a trademark, everything. So then the following month, Ocean Gate sent David Lockridge a letter threatening himself and his wife with legal action. The letter suggested that Lockridge tell OSHA that his claim was not well-founded and they attached a copy

of a potential lawsuit, as well as a potential settlement that if Lockridge agreed to take, he would have to withdraw his OSHA claim and pay for Ocean Gate's legal expenses, as well as sign an NDA agreeing to not disclose any information about Ocean Gate. Lockridge did not agree to these terms. And in June of 2018, Ocean Gate filed a lawsuit against Lockridge and his wife, which was followed by a countersuit a few months later in August. So there's a lot going on. Ocean Gate's suing David Lockridge. They're saying, hey, we won't sue you.

You've got to withdraw your complaint. You've got to pay for our legal expenses. And you have to promise inside a document you'll never speak about us ever again. I don't care in what terms. The word Ocean Gate and Stockton Rush, they should never leave your mouth again. What I'm hearing is that we're gonna go after you, your family, until you go away because if you don't, we're gonna ruin your life. Yeah. Well, I mean, not only that, David Lackridge's, his citizenship in the United States had been assisted by Ocean Gate. And so even before he was fired, they like tried,

cause they were supposed to also bring his wife and child over too and give them citizenship because the wife and child were with him. But then after he started, you know, after the whole Andrea Doria thing, Stockton Rush had a meeting with him and he was like, hey, we're actually not gonna be able to get your wife and child's citizenship.

So there was also some like, you know, there was threatening happening already at that point. So let's take our last break and then we'll come back and talk about what happened next. So can we talk about how brutally hot it's been lately? Like I step outside and instantly regret everything between work filming running errands trying to enjoy what's left of my summer which usually means like pool parties being outside having a few drinks just absolutely stretching my system to its its limits hydration has officially become my full-time side

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It makes drinking boring plain water so much easier so much more enjoyable And so you're gonna get the benefits of the hydration and like I said those vitamins really great eight essential vitamins Okay, Derek, you love liquid IV too. We know this love it drink it every day When what I was sick, it was like a game-changer. I told you my kids drink it as well Definitely a fan of liquid IV in my house. We think you will be as well So squeeze the most out of your summer with liquid IV just tear tear, pour and live more. Go to LiquidIV.com and get 20% off your first order with code crimeweekly at checkout. That's 20% off your first order with code crimeweekly at LiquidIV.com. There's a time and a place for a filet of fish, but breakfast is for sausage biscuits.

McDonald's breakfast comes first. November of 2018, Ocean Gate and David Lackridge had settled out of court, and OSHA didn't pursue the investigation any further with a source telling ABC News quote OSHA was overwhelmed and assumed it would get settled in or out of court end quote. OSHA failed not only my family financially and emotionally but stood by and did nothing to prevent further acts of retaliation from Ocean Gate. David Lockridge says he went to OSHA as a last resort after years of begging Ocean Gate founder Stockton Rush to make serious safety changes. He was a control freak. That

is it. It was his way or not at all. Lockridge says after officially becoming a whistleblower and entering witness protection, OSHA did nothing to address his concerns about submersible safety. I feel deeply let down and disappointed by the system that is meant to protect not only seafarers but the general public as well. Exhausted and worn down, he eventually took a settlement agreement. I felt like there was no urgency on their

behalf and getting this stopped and at this point the sub was already down at the harbor and going through trials in international waters. Okay, so basically, David Lackridge at this point, during the Coast Guard hearings, he's done. He's not protecting nobody. He's coming for OSHA too because he's like, listen, I went to OSHA trying to save people and they put me in the whistleblowers protection program. And then Stockton Rush and Ocean Gate sued him anyways.

Now, Osha did not reveal that it was David Lockridge who had filed the report, but of course, he'd just been fired. He was the one who had the inspection report. He had all this information. Ocean Gate knew it was him. So they start threatening him. They're threatening him with a lawsuit.

David Lockridge is going to Osha and he's like, hey, I'm in your protection program. They're threatening me with a lawsuit. Can Lockridge is going to OSHA and he's like, hey, I'm in your protection program, they're threatening me with a lawsuit, can you interfere, can you do something? OSHA did nothing. So, and then as the time goes on and David Lockridge won't take the settlement and he's like, keep going, I'm gonna keep fighting.

OSHA's not doing anything, they're not doing anything. So David Lockridge eventually feels like I have nothing to do but settle because if I don't, this company's going to come after me. They're gonna destroy me, they're gonna take all my money, they're gonna have me removed from the United States. There's a million things they're gonna do to put pressure on me and Osha's not protecting me,

they're not helping me even though they're supposed to. Yeah, he had no choice, and he's probably paying a lot of those legal fees out of his own pocket. He was. Yeah, he's in a really tough spot. And then when he has no choice but to settle, Osh is like, well, you know, you guys handled it, so we're not going to look into this any further, which that's crazy. That's absolutely crazy.

So by January of 2018, Titan was fully assembled and Ocean Gate transported the submersible to the Bahamas where they would conduct deep water testing. And they did conduct multiple uncrewed descent tests near the Abaco Islands using a monofilament line to safely lower Titan to its full intended depth of 4,000 meters. These tests measured the hull's strain and acoustic behavior, feeding data into the ship's real-time monitoring system. In mid-April, during these Bahamas tests, Titan was struck by lightning near the water's surface. And OceanGate announced that the strike damaged over 70% of Titan's internal systems, though

they said it avoided a direct hit to the carbon fiber hull. In March of 2018, the Marine Technology Society raised serious concerns about Titan's development. And this letter was addressed directly to Stockton Rush, and it was written by the MTS committee chair Will Conan alongside other leading experts. We've already talked about Will Conan, CEO of Hydrospace. He was the one who certified the viewport up to what 1,500 meters but said is I can't certify it to 4,000. He's already kind of privy to what's going on with Oceangate and he's not happy about it, nor are these other experts in the industry. And the letter

talked about OceanGate's misleading marketing with their materials claiming that Titan would meet or exceed the DNV GL safety standards when it was clear the company had no intention of certifying the vessel with DNV or any recognized classification body. The letter emphasized that OceanGate's unconventional and experimental development process, particularly without third-party validation or rigorous engineering reviews, could lead to negative outcomes ranging from minor issues to catastrophic failure that would have severe implications for the entire industry. The MTS urged OceanGate to initiate at least a prototype testing program, reviewed or witnessed

by the DNVGL, which is the world-leading Marine Classification Society. This letter reflected widespread unease among submersible engineers and highlighted a growing friction between Stockton Rush's marketing-driven approach and traditional safety standards. After receiving the letter, Will Conant and Stockton Rush had what was described as a frank conversation during which Rush defended Ocean Gate's methods as necessary innovation, and they agreed to disagree. So basically exactly what we heard in that meeting with David Lackridge, Will Conan,

all these other people that know what the hell they're talking about, they're like, hey, this is bad. Stockton Rush gets on the phone with Will Conan, and he's like, listen, let's agree to disagree because I'm not listening to you. I'm not going to do anything different. I'm pushing forward, exactly as I already planned to.

Yeah, it just seems like that was his MO, right? Even during that interview that we got to hear, he was trying to convince David Lockridge to quit, because that would make everything easier from a business perspective, right? When you terminate someone, you run into a lot of issues, especially if you can't justify it, and you can't say, well, he just wanted us to be safe. He was too concerned with safety

and making sure everyone was alive. So we had to fire him because he was just too cautious. So he wanted him to quit, would make things clean, but when David didn't quit, when he refused to do so, they fired him anyways. So that was just Stockton's approach, you could tell. That was the way he went about it. Yeah, Stockton, Rush, that was always his thing So that was just Stockton's approach, you could tell. That was the way he went about it.

Yeah, Stockton, Rush, that was always his thing. Even years and years, you know, every time he had an interview, he's like, these safety standards are just holding us back from innovation. You know, he was like, he reminds me of this like Mike, this Mark Zuckerberg type of figure who's like, yeah, if you come to Facebook headquarters, we have trampolines and ping-pong tables and nap pods. I love a nap pod right now. Yeah, we're doing real stuff here

that nobody else is doing. And it's like, you're an idiot. You're just an idiot. You're trying to pretend like you're this, I'm not like other CEOs. I don't wear a suit and tie. I don't run from innovation. I run towards it.

But it's just so lame and it's like, dude, you're a 50 something year old man, you got white hair, you're rich, your family's rich, you're not this edgy college student that's turning the industry on its ear. So remember I said in the Bahamas, the Titan was struck by lightning. And like I said in the Bahamas, the Titan was struck by lightning. And like I said, the company said,

oh yeah, the internal system, 70% of them were compromised, but the lightning didn't touch the hull. Everything, the hull's fine. In a now deleted interview with Teledyne Marine, Stockton Rush noted that if the hull had been hit directly, it probably would have taken them out completely,

but the components were replaced within a couple of days, thanks to what he called off-the-shelf parts. What actually happened is that some of the damaged equipment was replaced within a few days, but Titan was still without many components for a few weeks, and despite this, Stockton Rush, who was impatient, decided to still attempt a dive in shallow water. The day after he did this, Stockton Rush wrote about his experience, saying, quote, I was merely spam in the can with no coms for nine plus hours inside the sub. I could see parts of the sub floating away on my cameras but could not communicate to

the tow team. A remarkably surreal and frustrating experience. End quote. So he gets hit frustrating experience, end of quote. So he gets hit by lightning, some of the stuff's replaced. It would take a few weeks to get everything replaced. He claims the haul was not hit, and then he goes down in just shallow water, and he's got no communications for nine hours,

and he sees pieces of the submersible floating away from him in the water. And he's like, this was really surreal and frustrating. I will give him this, just one positive thing. I mean, it's stupidity for sure, but he's also, he's ballsy, I'll give him that. He's mentally ill, that's mental, that's your mental ill. Yeah, that's a mental illness.

To be like, I'm watching parts of the submarine float away from me, but I'm still going to try to take this thing that has been told to me by everybody who knows that it's a mess and now has been struck by lightning and I have to replace components with off the shelf parts meaning just stuff he could buy quick at a store at Amazon from a wholesaler. And I'm still going to act like everything's fine

and take people down in it, okay? And because at that point, Ocean Gate had already announced that they were going to be planning six missions to the Titanic, with nine paying passengers each dive. But the lightning strike and poor performance forced Ocean Gate to delay the Titanic missions to the following year. Additionally, Tony Nisa would later testify that the lightning strike had in fact compromised the haul. There was a large crack in the hall that he didn't believe was salvageable. And that's kind of like when he said enough,

I've had enough, you know. I think at one point Stockton Rush told Tony Nisen, I want you to go in the sub with me. And when Tony Nisen was faced with his own mortality, with his own body going in that sub, he was like, no, I'm not getting in that sub and then the company parted ways. But when he's arguing with David Lockridge Tony Neeson is defending it to the ends of the earth but when he's asked to get in the sub

he's like I'm all set with that I'm not going to do it. To everyone else though Titan was coming along perfectly right from what Ocean Gate was seeing in their social media on their blog it was coming along perfectly. They'd already what Ocean Gate was saying in their social media on their blog. It was coming along perfectly. They'd already started selling spots on their Titanic voyages and one of the people who'd signed up was a guy named Chris Brown. He's an explorer and businessman from England. Not the rapper. Not Chris Brown the rapper. Or the R&B singer I should say. Or apparently there's also a football player called Chris Brown because it was hard to find this guy, but I did. He's a businessman. He likes to explore things. He likes to go places where no one else has gone. He'd already gone on multiple expeditions to places

like Antarctica and Africa. He was eager to be on the tight end when it journeyed to the bottom of the Atlantic. So he signed the contract in November of 2017 with a scheduled dive date of June 2018. He said, quote, Ocean Gate promised to let us know by the end of October 2017 if the dive wasn't going to take place. However, by the end of October, Ocean Gate were hailing major milestones as being the arrival of the vessel at their facilities. Yet they did not formally cancel or postpone the 2018 dive. They were now sticking to a new schedule, which had a dive to 3,000 meters in February of 2018, followed by 4,000 meters in April out in the Bahamas to validate the pressure haul and the operational dive in

June. This unachievable schedule would eventually lead to me missing the opportunity to summit Mount Everest. In January 2018, we received an updated agreement in which OceanGate said, we are requesting final payment on February 1, 2018, but that it is fully refundable in the unlikely event that Cyclops 2, aka Titan, is not certified this year to reach the Titanic. Furthermore, Ocean Gate stated, quote, we mobilize to the Bahamas for deep sea testing where we will certify the sub for a depth of 4,000 meters. The deep dive tests will be observed by a representative of DNVGL who will independently

certify the sub performance end quote as we know that never happened Chris Brown said that he saw what he called the slipshot approach to getting the Titan ready to dive during video calls and updates that Ocean Gate was sending from the Bahamas he said they were using pipes for ballasts the main controller was a video game controller which he said Ocean Gate seemed to think was cool and a bragging point but Chris Brown Brown was like, it wasn't even the best controller made by that company. He said the system ran on Bluetooth and internal Wi-Fi, not hard wiring, which would be an issue if you dropped communications.

The three external thrusters had external wiring that looked to be all over the place. And Brown was like, listen, I'm not, I'm no expert on these things, but I feel like internal wiring would have been better if you're diving to a wreck so you don't get snagged on things that are protruding from the wreck. That could be a problem, yeah. Yeah, he said the satellite beacon was attached to Titan by zip ties, and the crew was made to sit

on the floor so they could fit more people into the small craft. And Brown said when the vessel was hit by lightning, he was surprised to find that Titan didn't have a backup system, there wasn't have a backup system. There wasn't even a backup system on the support vessel. And he said it was blatantly obvious to him that corners were being cut to keep costs at a minimum.

Now, Chris Brown ended up withdrawing himself from the program when Stockton Rush sent out an email in November of 2018 saying he was no longer attempting to have Titan classed by a marine certification agency. Rush said that he had no interest in using an external evaluator who would quote, first need to be educated before being qualified to validate any innovations, end quote. So Stockton Rush is saying all of these people who are experts, who are responsible for certifying and classing vehicles or vessels that go to deep ocean depths.

He's like, well, I don't have time to educate them on these innovations before they're even qualified to tell me whether or not it's going to work. So then Chris Brown replied to Ocean Gate and Stockton Rush via email writing, quote, yep, being crushed by 5800 psi isn't my idea of fun." End quote. So even this guy, who's not like a submersible expert or a pilot of submersibles, has no real experience with this stuff. Even he's like, no, that sounds like a bad idea. I'm out.

And this guy's like going to Mount Everest, spending time in like these completely unoccupied areas in Africa and Antarctica. And he's like, no, I'm not doing this. He's like, no, I'm good. Yeah. I'll pass. Oh, it's crazy. So on December 10, 2018, Stockton Rush completed the first manned dive to 4,000 meters in the Bahamas, becoming the second person after James Cameron to reach that depth solo. He reported handling unexpected positive buoyancy during descent, which forced him to rely on vertical thrusters. And he also explained that he was not going to be able to reach that depth solo. He reported handling unexpected positive buoyancy during descent, which forced him to rely on vertical thrusters, and he also experienced a temporary loss of surface communications for about an hour. And I'm sure you're wondering what the data from these test dives ended up showing. And I'm gonna tell you, during the early unmanned test dives, engineers found the

hull of the Titan was warping more under compression than it was meant to. They reported it was warping as much as 37 percent. During one of the test dives, the RTM, which is the acoustic monitoring system, recorded suspicious spikes and excessive hull flexing, which indicated stress and or potential micro-fractures. Later, pilots observed audible crack sounds mid-dive, and this is where Tony Neeson pops back up, because although he had been placating Stockton Rush and acting as his wingman up until that point, even he'd had enough, and Neeson putting his foot down would lead to arguments and eventually him leaving the company in 2019, proving even further that Stockton Rush wanted nothing but yes-men around him.

That and young, unexperienced people who didn't know better and were too afraid to push back or make waves. In August of 2020, once again, an interview that's been deleted, but we have our ways. In August of 2020, Stockton Rush told the Teledyne Marine, quote, when I started the business, one of the things you'll find, there are other sub-operators out there, but they typically have gentlemen who are ex-military submariners, and you'll see a whole bunch of 50-year-old white guys. I wanted our team to be younger, to be inspirational. And I'm not going to inspire a 16-year-old to go pursue marine technology, but a 25-year-old, you know, who's a sub-pilot or platform operator or one of our techs can be inspirational. So we've really tried to get very intelligent,

motivated younger individuals involved because we're doing things that are completely new, end quote, AKA we wanted young people who didn't know better to not say anything. He's like, who wants these old dudes who have experience and know what they're talking about? Like, nah, nah, I want it to be fresh. I want nap pods, nap pods and ping pong tables. Oh my god

It's a long episode we covered a lot and I don't you're not gonna regurgitate everything we said for the closing statements But do you have any clothes? I mean you did a great job at the research and obviously told the story very eloquently with some good stuff in between there Any final words before I just give my final thoughts on it? I think it's interesting that Stockton Rush goes down in the Bahamas, and he's experiencing issues even then, right? And you heard David Lagrange say, every time they did a test or a dive, they experienced issues.

Every single time. And that's something I don't think people understand. There were never any, hey, this went off without a hitch, test or dives. Every every time something went wrong. And you'll hear this also from people who went to companies stocked in Russia or who were on the support vessel. There was always something going on,

and this dude still went full steam ahead. I mean, he didn't have any reason to be so confident in this submersible, which is why I think there was something wrong with him, because humans have a built-in impulse for self-preservation to not kill themselves. And he did not seem to have that at all, at all. And not just for himself, but for others,

which makes me feel like he was a psychopath, honestly. That's definitely one way to look at it. Okay, so I'm gonna start with the positive. I think even you, to a degree, we're nerds, That's definitely one way to look at it. Okay, so I'm gonna start with the positive I Am I think even you to a degree we're nerds, you know, I we like smart people I'm fascinated by them and from that perspective I respect stockton and his willingness to push the boundaries and try to do things that have never been done before But there was an interesting question posed in our comments from last week's episode where somebody said, but it, you know, is this a crime?

Because we're crime weekly, right? And I think it's a valid question. And there is a little law out there where if someone acts with criminal negligence or recklessness, which results in the death of another, you can be charged with a crime and that crime would be manslaughter. So I think if Stockton Rush wasn't on that submarine, he would have been charged with a crime. Now we could get into the details of how that would work because I don't know jurisdictionally

how that would fall based on where they were. They were off the coast of Canada and things are a little, it'd be a little different, but I'm sure they would find a way to arrest this guy for something. If he wasn't on that submarine There were five other people that had gone down if it was David Lockridge who was down there and all this information came out Which if he was alive, maybe it wouldn't have but because it all came out If we would had access to this information and Stockton was still amongst us He would be he'd be at least at going to trial for something. So I think the amount of negligence that you have shown us throughout these last

two episodes would rise to the level of criminal negligence. There's no way a reasonable person, just you and I who don't have the education wouldn't come to the same conclusion that David Lockridge came to and Stockton Rush with his background also knew that as well. And yet he ignored it and he not only risked his own life, he risked the life of others. He commercialized something that wasn't ready for a commercial application and he did it for the sake of profit or if at minimum just to keep the company going.

So either way, yes. I think he did it for profit and also for accolades. Yeah. Accolades for sure So yeah This is this is this whole incident with the amount of negligence you have where they have the results showing them It's not gonna work and him still going forward with it I do think it rises to the level of a crime and I know for a fact that Ocean Gate is They're getting sued left and right and they're gonna go under and they're not gonna be a company anymore

It's exactly they're done. Yeah, they're they're getting sued left and right, and they're gonna go under, and they're not gonna be a company anymore. And it's exactly- I mean, I'm pretty sure they're done, yeah, they're being sued, yeah. They're done, it's exactly what David Lockridge said, because not only does all these people who had invested in the company, who were making their life, basing their lives off this company,

they're all done, but also, there's a stigma now with anybody associated with Ocean Gate. When you go to find another job, don't think for a second that these legitimate companies aren't gonna say, what involvement did you have in OceanGate, because clearly, either you don't know what you're doing, or you don't have the spine to speak up about it.

You don't have the balls to, yeah. So, either way, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta scarlet letter on you for sure, because it's not, it's not good. And you know what else he did, his stock in rush pushed against safety standards and how it prevented innovation. Well now you've you've brought it back more decades So anybody who's going to try to do something like this and do it the right way is going to be facing even more challenges even more insurmountable pressure and just you know

These these governing bodies who give classification and make sure, now the standards are gonna be even higher. So what he did, if pushing innovation ahead was what he wanted to do, he did the exact opposite. That is his legacy now. His legacy is stopping innovation of submersibles because it's gonna be 100 times harder for anybody else who wants to do something similar to do that now. I mean, as it should be, in my opinion. Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. It's a great series. I'm glad we covered it. The response has been incredible to it. I was curious. We were both curious.

We know it was getting a lot of people watching it and looking at it, but we didn't know how it was gonna do on Crime Weekly. But I do think it's important just like with the murders and the missing persons that we cover. These are also cases that we can learn from. And there's a lot of information to be learned here. Derek, especially where we are now with all this space tourism and all this stuff, it is very important and timely to talk about this stuff now

because so many times, common sense will be tossed to the side in the name of innovation. And back in the day when it was you know Henry Ford and those kinds Of people the stakes were just not as high the state's are high car accident the wheel falls off Yeah, yeah, your freaking wheel falls off and you're like damn, you know, my model t is out of commission But even the right but the Wright brothers, right? Like when the Wright brothers started putting airplanes up there they were flying the planes themselves They weren't bringing passengers up there with them to see how they would like it, right? There's a difference. And they crashed a few times,

but they did it at their own risk. They didn't put people in jeopardy because of what they were trying to accomplish. That's the difference here. This was before safety and standards were established for these things. They didn't have all the tools to say, hey, this isn't gonna work or whatever.

We have those things now. And he still said, screw it and went ahead. That to me is criminal negligence All right, two hours and 20 minutes for this episode now, that's unedited So it may be shorter, but I think we covered all of our bases. Let us know down in the comments What do you think about this case? What do you feel about? I'm interested to hear what you guys think about Stockton Rush. Is he a serial killer? Yeah, I'm also interested to hear what you think about

Tony Nisen, are we completely wrong on this guy? I know he's out there doing the Netflix specials, I know he's out there giving interviews, and I know he's coming from the I told you so perspective right now. Well yeah, who writes history, right? The people that are around to talk about it. Yeah, but I honestly, from what I've seen and heard,

I don't like it, I know he didn't stay with the company, I know he left at some Yeah, but I honestly, from what I've seen and heard, I don't like it. I know he didn't stay with the company. I know he left at some point, but almost too little too late. The train was already on the tracks. That's my opinion, but we want to hear from you guys. We're going to be back next week. Again, congratulations to Jackie. We want to hear from you.

We will have another announcement for two more tickets. So make sure you head over to Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Subscribe, turn your notifications on, leave a comment with CrimeCon, and whatever else you wanna leave, because clearly, it works. Leave us a little story we like to read them. Guys, until next time, everyone stay safe out there.

We'll see you soon. Bye. Thanks for watching!