OceanGate co-founder insists they have ‘longer than we think”
DailyMail.com written by By Martin Robinson, Chief Reporter and Rory Tingle and Darren Boyle
The US Coast Guard today insisted they still hope to find the five adventurers trapped inside a missing Titanic submersible alive despite predicting oxygen had run out – as the co-founder of the firm that organised the trip insisted rescuers ‘have longer than we think’.
The world is now praying for a ‘miracle’ after rescuers estimated the vital oxygen supply would end at 12.08pm GMT (7.08am EST and 9.08pm Sydney). Banging has been heard at 30 minute intervals from the depths of the Atlantic – possibly from the men striking the side of the sub – but it has not yet been located.
Rear Admiral John Mauger, of the US Coast Guard, said the operation ‘remains an active search’ and he ‘remains hopeful’ thanks to ‘favourable’ weather conditions. Asked about the banging noises, he said initial analysis suggested they were ‘background ocean noise’ but this was still being examined.
A deep water robot sub has reached the Atlantic floor – and another is descending the 12,500ft of ocean fast. ‘The Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic has deployed an ROV that has reached the sea floor and began its search for the missing sub’, a spokesman said.
And a French ship viewed as the best and final hope of finding the missing Titanic submersible has also dropped its remote-controlled sub to find five missing adventurers. L’Atalante arrived on the scene at 11.48am GMT (7.48ET) and has deployed Victor 6000, which can reach depths of 20,000ft and will arrive at the Titanic’s wreck in the next two hours.
Victor 6000 has arms that can cut cables – or dislodge a trapped or stranded vessel – and may be able to fix a cable onto the sub before it is hauled several miles to the surface by a giant winch with more than three miles of cable called a Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System on Horizon Arctic.
Despite fears their oxygen supplies have run out, there is still hope in the most desperate of situations. Experts believe that the 96-hour oxygen supply number is an imprecise estimate and could be extended if those on board have taken measures to conserve breathable air including lying still and even sleeping.
‘I’ve broken some rules to make this’: How OceanGate boss revealed the 7in acrylic window on lost Titan sub would get ‘squeezed in’ under water pressure and admitted he ignored guidance to create deep sea vessel
He explains that the window gets ‘squeezed’ by the water pressure as it descends, and that it gives a ‘warning’ if its going to ‘fail’.
Experts have said a structural failure is one of the possible fates suffered by the Titan, which set off on Sunday morning and lost contact with its mother ship after just 105 minutes into the two-hour descent to the Titanic wreckage.
Some fear this is likely amid reports that the deep-sea vessel did not meet the necessary safety standards to dive that deep, with Rush admitting in the clip himself that he has ‘broken some rules to make this’.
‘I’d like to be remembered as an innovator,’ Rush is then seen telling the actor. ‘I think it was General (Douglas) MacArthur who said: “You’re remembered for the rules you break.” And you know, I’ve broken some rules to make this.
‘I think I broke them with logic and good engineering behind me. The carbon fibre and titanium, there’s a rule you don’t do that – well I did,’ the CEO says.
‘There’s picking the rules that you break that are the rules that will add value to others and add value to society, and that really to me is about innovation.’
He goes on to say he doesn’t consider his work ‘invention’ but ‘innovation’.
‘Innovation is when you take an invention and you make it accepted broadly. And it made me think of ocean exploration in the way everyone thinks of space exploration, because this is where we will find the strange new lifeforms – and the future of mankind is underwater, it’s not on Mars,’ he says.
Rush added: ‘I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed. Don’t get in your car. Don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question.
‘I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules.’
Since the Titan vanished, Estrada has shared his experience, recalling how the vehicle’s batteries suddenly drained during the expedition, forcing it to end early.
He said the Titan’s energy source quickly drained to 40 percent power during a July 2022 mission to see the ill-fated ocean liner.
The year before, OceanGate executives had fired their director of marine operations, David Lochridge, after disagreeing with his demand for more rigorous safety checks on the submersible, including ‘testing to prove its integrity’.
He also wanted the company to carry out a scan of Titan’s hull to ‘detect potential flaws’ rather than ‘relying on acoustic monitoring’ – which would only detect an issue ‘milliseconds before an implosion’.
In a court document filed in 2018, lawyers for the company said Lochridge’s employment was terminated because he ‘could not accept’ their research and plans, including safety protocols.
OceanGate also claimed Lochridge ‘desired to be fired’ and had shared confidential information with others and wiped a company hard drive. The firm said he ‘refused to accept the voracity of information’ about safety from Titan’s lead engineer.
Lochridge had relocated from the UK to Washington to work on the development of the Titan – which was previously called Cyclops 2.
A former Royal Navy marine engineer and ship’s diver, he was described by OceanGate as an ‘expert in the field of submarine operations and rescue’.
Legal filings obtained by DailyMail.com show that he wrote a report in 2018 which was critical of the company’s research and development process for the vessel.
Lochridge also ‘strongly encouraged that OceanGate utilize a classification agency, such as the American Bureau of Shipping, to inspect and certify the Titan’.
The suit states that ‘OceanGate refused both requests, and stated it was unwilling to pay for a classification agency to inspect its experimental design’.