A new investigative report has revealed troubling insights into the factors behind the Titan submersible tragedy.
A report revealed that the implosion of the Titan submersible, which happened 2 years ago, while it was travelling to see the Titanic, was partly caused by a "toxic workplace culture."
Five people were tragically lost their lives in the Titan submersible including Stockton Rush, who founded OceanGate, two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, British adventurer Hamish Harding and Titanic expert and the sub's pilot, Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
On Tuesday, August 5, a detailed report of 335 pages about the disaster was revealed which said that the Titan submersible was not properly designed, not officially certified and that its maintenance and safety checks were not done properly.
The report also pointed out that the company did not investigate and fix the problem with sub's hull, even though those problems had happened before.
It said that some of the reasons for the disaster were serious issues in how OceanGate handled safety and ran its operation.
The report also mentioned that the system meant to protect employees who report safety concerns, called the whistleblower process, under US law known as the Seaman’s Protection Act, did not work properly.
It further noted that OceanGate either fired senior staff or made people feel they could be fired in order to stop them from talking about safety issues and this fear of losing their jobs made employees and contractors stay quiet instead of reporting dangers.
It alleges, "For several years preceding the incident, OceanGate leveraged intimidation tactics, allowances for scientific operations, and the company's favourable reputation to evade regulatory scrutiny."
The report also included 17 suggestions to improve safety. The head of the investigation team, Jason Neubauer said these suggestions could help stop such tragedies from happening again.
