A major search and rescue operation continues to find the submarine-like vessel that went missing in the Atlantic Ocean with five people on board.
The OceanGate Expeditions vessel was supposed to reach the bottom of the sea to view the Titanic shipwreck on Sunday, but it lost contact around one hour and 45 minutes after being submerged.
Two British-based Pakistanis, a British billionaire, a Frenchman and an American are trapped on the vessel called Titan after they paid close to £200k (€232k) each for the experience.
If the precious amounts of oxygen on the vessel have been running down at a steady level, there may only be around 24 hours of breathable air left.
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As the clock ticks, previous concerns about the vessel have been circulating and some are horrified the mission went ahead as OceanGate had faced several warnings, Mirror UK reports.
Sign your life away
Travellers were reportedly warned before boarding the vessel that it had not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and the trip could result in death.
Journalist David Pogue joined OceanGate on an expedition to the North Atlantic and says that he kept the forms he had to sign before taking the expedition.
He read them aloud to CBS: "It has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, motion trauma, or death", before jokingly adding, "Where do I sign?"
David said he was horrified to find the inside of the sub was similar to the size of a minivan. He claimed they use "off-the-shelf components" and lights from Camping World.
Simpsons writer Mike Reiss who also went on the trip has since expressed past safety fears. He said it was "remarkable how basic and simple the whole operation" was.
Mike said: "To get on the boat that takes you to the Titanic, you sign a massive waiver that you could die on the trip. On the list, they mention death three times on page one and it's never far from your mind. As I was getting on the submarine, [I thought] this could be the end."
Other guests on previous trips claimed there were continual failures including radio outages and flickering lights.
Five-year-old 'extreme' danger warning
Back in 2018, OceanGate fired and sued David Lochridge, their director of marine operations, after they claimed he breached his non-disclosure agreement for saying passengers might be endangered in the craft when it reached "extreme depths."
According to a lawsuit, David's assessment to senior leadership said there were "visible flaws" in the ship’s carbon fibre hull, "prevalent flaws" in a scale model, flammable materials onboard and key safety documents that were not shared with him.
Lochridge's legal filing stated: "The paying passengers would not be aware, and would not be informed, of this experimental design, the lack of non-destructive testing of the hull, or that hazardous flammable materials were being used within the submersible."
The document added that he believed the company could "subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible."
David alleged in the court filing that he had been wrongfully terminated and that his actions were aimed at ensuring the safety of passengers on the Titan.
'Catastrophic issues' warning from submarine leaders
Almost 40 top leaders from across the industry wrote to the Marine Technology Society in 2018 about the "catastrophic" concerns they had with the vessel.
The letter has been unearthed by the New York Times, in which executives, oceanographers and explorers all signed to say they expressed "unanimous concern" with its development.
The letter said that OceanGate’s marketing of the Titan had been "at minimum, misleading" because it claimed that the submersible would meet or exceed the safety standards of a risk assessment, even though the company had no plans to have the craft formally certified by the agency.
OceanGate purposefully avoided US regulations
One signatory of the aforementioned letter, Bart Kemper, claimed in an interview that OceanGate had "sneakily and purposefully" avoided having to abide by certain US regulations by deploying the vessel in international waters.
Salvatore Mercogliano, an associate professor of maritime history at Campbell University in North Carolina also said this was true to the New York Times.
The Titan, owned by a US company, gets loaded onto a Canadian ship and then dropped into the North Atlantic.
Salvatore says this means it does not need to register with a country, fly a flag or follow rules that apply to many other vessels.
He told the paper: "It’s kind of like a boat on the back of a trailer. The police will ensure the trailer meets the requirements to be on the road, but they really won’t do a boat inspection."
Previous technical issues
OceanGate successfully carried out the same trip multiple times in 2021 and while there were no deaths, numerous safety issues were listed in a lawsuit.
David Concannon, a lawyer and explorer who pulled out of this year's trip at the last minute, wrote the lawsuit document which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
He wrote: "On the first dive to the Titanic, the submersible encountered a battery issue and had to be manually attached to its lifting platform."
He also claimed the submersible sustained modest damage to its exterior and OceanGate had to cancel one of its mission so it could make repairs.
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