OceanGates ex-finance director quit after CEO asked her to control Titan sub

The unnamed woman said she was unable to trust the company’s CEO Stockton Rush (Picture: Reuters)

The former finance director of OceanGate has claimed she quit her job after CEO Stockton Rush asked her to take over the controls of the Titan submersible.

The unnamed woman said she was unable to trust Mr Rush, after the former chief pilot David Lochridge was fired for raining safety concerns in 2018.

OceanGate’s Titan submersible imploded last month while on a voyage to the undersea wreckage of the Titanic off the coast of Canada.

All five people on board were killed, including Mr Rush.

She told the New Yorker: ‘It freaked me out that he would want me to be head pilot, since my background is in accounting.

‘I could not work for Stockton. I did not trust him.’

She said as soon as she was able to secure a new job she quit the company, which sends sends submersibles down to the wreckage of the Titanic for paying passengers to look at.

She also claimed several of the engineers were in their late teens and early 20s – and at one point were only being paid $15 an hour.

The woman, who has a background in accounting, claims she was asked to take over the controls of the doomed submersible (Picture: PA)

Lochridge, who is a former Royal Navy marine engineer an ship’s diver, was fired after he demanded more safety checks, including ‘testing to improve its integrity’.

But the company argued it would take years and be ‘anathema to rapid innovation’.

In 2019, OceanGate said seeking classification for the Titan submersible would not ‘ensure that operators adhere to proper operating procedures and decision-making processes – two areas that are much more important for mitigating risks at sea’.

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush was one of five men killed when the Titan sub imploded (Picture: OceanGate)

Classification involved an independent organisation being called in to ensure vessels meet industry-wide technical standards.

OceanGate also claimed Lochridge ‘desired to be fired’ and had shared out confidential information and wiped a company hard drive.

He had moved from the UK to Washington to work on the development of the doomed Titan submersible.

Debris from the Titan submersible was recovered after the fatal implosion (Picture: AP)

OceanGate has since said it has ‘suspended all exploration and commercial operations’.

All five people on board were killed, including UK citizens Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood.

CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, Stockton Rush, and the submersible’s pilot, French national Paul-Henri Nargeolet also died in the incident.

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