“The Titan submersible had gone through a rigorous safety testing program and 14 years of development”

The co-founder of Ocean Gatewhich developed the Titan submersible, defended the company from criticism received in recent hours regarding the safety of the ship that imploded in the Atlantic with 5 people on board.

William Sohnleinan Argentine by birth and US citizen, told the BBC that those who have criticized the safety of the Titan, including the film director James CameronThey were not fully informed.

LOOK: Who was Stockton Rush, the pilot who owned the Titan submersible: “If you want to be safe, don’t get out of bed”

“People continue to equate certification with safety and ignore 14 years of development on the Titan submersible,” he said.

OceanGate was questioned for not having subjected the submersible to a security certification granted by an external company.

“Any expert assessing this, including Cameron, will also concede that they were not there for the design of the submersible, for the engineering of the submersible, for the construction of the submersible and certainly not for the rigorous testing program that the submersible went through,” he added.

Guillermo Söhnlein spoke to the BBC from Barcelona.

“Solid program”

Söhnlein created in 2009 Ocean Gate With Stockton Rush, executive director of the company who was traveling on Sunday in the Titan submersible and died. The Argentine left the company 10 years ago but still retains a minority stake.

The businessman expressed that it had been a “tragic loss for the ocean exploration community”, but that “anyone who operates in that depth of the ocean, whether they are submersibles suitable for humans or robotic submersibles, knows the risk of operating under such pressure and that At any given time, on any mission, with any vessel, you risk this kind of implosion.”

He added that he thought that technology and innovation can overcome regulation and that developers are in a better position to understand the risks in order to better minimize them.

“This was a 14-year technology development program and it was very robust. And it certainly led to successful scientific expeditions to the Titanic in the last three years.” he said she.

Filmmaker James Cameron, director of the film titanic who descended 33 times to the depths of the ocean to see the remains of the liner, recalled on Thursday in dialogue with the BBC that OceanGate had been warned.

The Titan submersible began its last trip to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday the 18th and lost communication with the surface an hour and 45 minutes later. (REUTERS).

A letter sent to OceanGate by the Society for Marine Technology in March 2018 and released by The New York Times stated that “the current ‘experimental’ approach taken by OceanGate could have negative results (Minor to Catastrophic)”.

Separately, US court documents show that a former OceanGate employee warned of potential safety issues with the ship as early as 2018.

The then director of maritime operations of the company, David Lochridge, presented a harsh report that year in which he assured that the submersible needed more tests to guarantee that it was capable of descending to a depth of 4,000 meters safely for its occupants.

These criticisms cost Lochridge his job and incidentally a lawsuit, thanks to which his report ended up in the hands of a court in the state of Virginia (USA).

Drafting

BBC News World

Source: Elcomercio