- An ex-OceanGate employee was worried the company's CEO would get himself and others killed.
- The ex-worker feared Stockton Rush would die in "the quest to boost his ego," the New Yorker reported.
A former chief submersible pilot for OceanGate wrote in an email years before the Titanic sub disaster that he was worried CEO Stockton Rush would get himself and others killed in a "quest to boost his ego," according to the New Yorker.
David Lochridge, OceanGate's former director of marine operations and its chief submersible pilot, alleged he was fired for raising safety concerns about the doomed sub and later told consultant Rob McCallum about his worries.
"I would consider myself pretty ballsy when it comes to doing things that are dangerous, but that sub is an accident waiting to happen," Lochridge wrote in a 2018 email to McCallum, according to the New Yorker.
Lochridge added, "There's no way on earth you could have paid me to dive the thing."
Referring to Rush, Lochridge wrote, "I don't want to be seen as a Tattle tale but I'm so worried he kills himself and others in the quest to boost his ego," the New Yorker reported.
OceanGate's deep-sea Titan sub imploded on June 18 while on a dive to the wreckage of the sunken wreck of the Titanic in the depths of the North Atlantic, killing Rush and the four others on board the vessel.
McCallum, a deep-sea exploration specialist, had another email exchange with Lochridge in 2018 after learning that Lochridge had parted ways with OceanGate.
"Stockton must be gutted," McCallum wrote to Lochridge, according to the New Yorker. "You were the star player … and the only one that gave me a hint of confidence."
Lochridge replied that he would share his assessment of the Titan sub in private but was worried about retaliation from Rush because of his "influence and money," the New Yorker reported.
"That sub is Not safe to dive," Lochridge wrote, calling the Titan sub "a lemon."
Lochridge alleged in a 2018 lawsuit that he was wrongfully terminated after raising concerns about OceanGate's "refusal to conduct critical, non-destructive testing of the experimental design" of the Titan sub.
In an interview two years ago, Rush acknowledged that knew he had "broken some rules" by making the Titan submersible out of carbon fiber.
"I think I've broken them with logic and good engineering behind me. Carbon fiber and titanium? There's a rule you don't do that," Rush said in a 2021 interview with Mexican YouTuber Alan Estrada. "Well, I did."
An expert previously told Insider that photos of the Titan sub wreckage suggest that the most likely explanation for the vessel's implosion was that the carbon-fiber hull collapsed under the immense pressure of the ocean.