The accident that cost the five passages of the submersible titan was “avoidable” and Oceangate, the company that operates the submarine, is the “first” responsible. These are the conclusions of the report presented on Tuesday, August 5 by the US Coast Guard at the end of a long investigation.
This concluded that “the breach of the engineering protocols established in terms of safety, evidence and maintenance of its submersible was the main cause (of the accident).”
In June 2023, research operations were carried out for several days to find the aircraft trail, destroyed after implosion. Five people were on board, descended to the depths to admire the remains of Titanic: Stockton Rush, the founder of Oceangate, the Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a great specialist at the Titanic, the British businessman Hamish Harding, the Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, only 19 years.
“A toxic work environment”
According to the Coast Guard, the security protocols followed by Oceangate were “seriously defective” and most of the failures observed in society were the fruit of “shameless disparities” between these real protocols and practices.
The list of problems recorded in the report of more than 300 pages and notes, does not Associated Press, does not stop there. The researchers also concluded that all processes related to the design, certification and maintenance of the submarine and its carbon fiber shell were not adequate.
And when employees reported these problems, Oceangate Management was content to ignore them or preferred to attack the messengers. The company, where a “toxic work environment” reigned according to the Coast Guard, had the use of shooting or threatening the dismissal of those who expressed their concerns about the security of the submersible.
Stockton Rush “has shown negligence”
This corporate culture has even led Oceangate to minimize or even falsify certain information to avoid being too much attention to the regulatory authorities, it can also be read in the report.
“For several years before the accident, Oceangate used intimidation tactics, defeats granted for scientific operations and took advantage of its good reputation to escape the surveillance of the regulatory authorities,” summarizes the Coast Guard.
The researchers also insist on the responsibility of Stockton Rush in this tragedy, both in their capacity as CEO of Oceangate and the submarine pilot. The American businessman “showed negligence that contributed to the death of four people” and, if he had survived, Stockton Rush “could have been criminally prosecuted.”
Source: BFM TV
