Titan tragedy: Ex-OceanGate employee dismisses shocking allegations, says ‘I never at any point felt…’

Two former OceanGate employees are testifying at the US Coast Guard’s hearing into the journey to the Titanic wreckage that led to the implosion of the Titan submersible, which resulted in the deaths for all four on board – OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, French diver Paul Henry Nargeolet, and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman. One of the people testifying is Renata Rojas, the mission specialist from the US submersible company that operated the expedition.

‘I never at any point felt unsafe by the operation’

Addressing the Titan Marine Board of Investigations panel, Rojas disagreed with former OceanGate employee David Lochridge’s account of one of the dives in 2016. Lochridge’s comments echoed many others’ – he, too, spoke out about safety concerns about the sub.

Earlier this week, Lochridge testified that Rush threw the vessel’s controller at him during a voyage after a passenger started to cry because the CEO was driving recklessly. “He hit me on the side of my head,” Lochridge said.

However, Rojas said she was part of the voyage too but never witnessed anything like that. “He must have gone on a different dive,” she said. “Nobody was panicking. Nobody was crying. There was definitely no swearing or yelling.”

Rojas also said she never felt “unsafe” on the OceanGate vessel. “I knew what I was doing was very risky,” she said. “I never at any point felt unsafe by the operation.”

Lochridge, OceanGate's former director of marine operations, previously said that the company "wanted to be able to qualify a pilot in a day, somebody that had never sat in a submersible.” He alleged that the sub was operated using a PlayStation controller, and accused Rush of being unprofessional in the journey. He also revealed that he told "every director within the organisation" about his safety concerns.

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