Former OceanGate Engineering Director Phil Brooks explains why he left the company

[@dogewisdom9921]

Whenever your company can’t pay you on time, head for the door asap

[@EmeraldEdge72]

This comment is correct! Had a friend who was a journalist, and their paychecks were secretly being used to pay off the company's debt.

[@Romulan2469]

Always know where the door is whenever you join a new company.

[@DesertPackrat]

Can’t make payroll, asking for more work time, dangerous work time, and placing clients at risk. Will, explain why you left?

[@Realist1775]

Lol

[@julijakeit]

they need to record these statements in court for the lawsuits against Oceangate.

[@WWZenaDo]

​@@julijakeit I'm certain that this hearing is legally required to record all testimonies.

[@SloverOfTeuth]

​@@julijakeit You just watched the recording of it.

[@rogerknueven7468]

​@@julijakeitwhy sue there's nothing there. Bankrupt .

[@glamdolly30]

Wow it just gets worse - so Stockton Rush was asking his professional employees to forgo their salaries, and be paid at some unspecified future date? The arrogance and unprofessionalism of that is staggering. I'm amazed he had anyone still working for him! It suggests the company was on its last legs and would soon have been dissolved - if Stockton and his four crew weren't literally dissolved, before he hit bankruptcy. No wonder he had offered half price tickets on the final doomed Titanic dive, to a father and son who declined due to safety fears, and dodged a bullet. He was clearly desperate for money, to prop up his failing joke of a company. To call OceanGate a cowboy outfit is an insult to cowboys.

[@palbi]

Imagine this guy living his life in his new job safe from the madness then suddenly learning about Oceangate Titan going missing. Holy shit.

[@FullFrontalExposure]

Dude left because he saw the bs

[@ddespair]

Yeah but did he report the bs to anyone at the time it happend?

[@FullFrontalExposure]

@@ddespair I believe he did along with a lot of others.

[@Romulan2469]

Sounds like a familiar pattern when it comes to OceanGate.

[@davidv2700]

​@Romulan2469 good old confidentiality agreements.

[@robg521]

A lot of my friends are old retired Commercial deep sea divers, and what this guy is saying smacks of the types of working practices that were banned many years ago. When they 1st started there were over 100 people being killed every year in the ocean going diving industry, so much so that at Diving school their instructors were drumming the mentality into them of……. “You need to decide now exactly what you will and won’t do and stick to it, so to be ready for when you get out into the industry….. because that way you will live longer” After 50 years of reckless risks and ridiculous amounts of deaths the diving industry has evolved into a reasonably safe work place. Until someone like Stockton Rush comes along apparently.

[@meridacavediver]

I’m so tired of people choosing “proper words”. That’s why people die. Get to the point, call it what it is.

[@MattUngaBunga]

amen dude, I want to kill myself just listening to him talk. Imagine having to ask this guy questions for the whole day.

[@prussiaaero1802]

Why did you leave Oceangate? “Madam Chair, the whole operation was just a shit show.”

[@lilacscentedfushias1852]

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[@JamaicaWhiteMan]

OceanGate, Heaven's Gate.

[@livingonhighvibe]

😂🤣☠️☠️

[@clubsamwichzilla]

Knockin' on heaven's ocean floor.

[@hudson_826]

Eden's Gate, the cult group in Far Cry 5.

[@hakube34]

Baldur's Gate

[@spaceskipster4412]

🙄😬🌊🫡😇

[@wazzazone]

So it wasn't "just" being towed to the dive site.

[@PSMITHjl]

Sounds like the ownership made some risky & fateful decisions even before the submersible went on its fateful dive.

[@Pohonesty]

😂 Gee, ya don't say. You mean like using a carbon fiber hull??

[@rosesweetcharlotte]

Who was the insurance company? I cannot believe this was insured at all. This is insane. You would be laughed out any transportation company if you tried to sell them on something like this.

[@NeilRamsay-q4z]

He must have felt crushed to leave ocean gate…

[@cobeeble]

Bom tsssssss

[@Ettrick8]

Such bad taste

[@DeepDeepSpace]

@@Ettrick8 you saying that was a rush to judgement?

[@righteousisthelord180]

He couldn’t handle the pressure.

[@Ettrick8]

@@NeilRamsay-q4z You such a wit. Are you taking bookings for funerals.

[@bobwhite3895]

I am not surprised to hear about the financial problems, it is always the money that drives these decisions that are questionable.

[@kerrysgold1]

How was this thing able to get into the water without certification?

[@glassjawdp]

take it to international waters and then you dont gotta worry about pesky certifications

[@777SI-gsw]

As stated above if it is launched in international waters it is allowed to skirt most regulations. Also by using the term “mission specialist “ they are avoiding the regulations for carrying paying passengers. Everything about ocean gate was shady, piss poor engineering and using legal loopholes should have been a crimson red flag to any potential customers.

[@Pohonesty]

Anyone can build anything and hop in without certification. Since they bypassed having paying customers it was basically a bunch of friends hanging out together from a legal standpoint.

[@nataliescott2261]

So it was about money ,cut corners , used rubbish material , get marks in the sub close eyes to the problems .

[@Samuraistar92]

I don't blame him for leaving.

[@MrShanester117]

Dang hot take there Captain Obvious

[@Fee212]

I'm wondering if towing it did some damage. Although I don't blame that fact for the implosion. Stockton Rush's ego was so cavalier with the lives of those poor passengers. May they rest in peace now. 🙏

[@kevgt8269]

100% it will have, the distance covered towing will have stressed the sub for sure.

[@Nivola1953]

I have 1 questions for the lawmakers, is freedom of enterprise more important than the life of the passengers and crew aboard any vessel? Because if your answer is no, then you have to ask yourself “why wasn’t there a law and regulations, able to stop Stockton from taking paying passengers, aboard this hi tech coffin?”

[@wjatube]

Regulations are generally pushed by law makers and because over-regulation can have a devastating impact on a company/industry they have to weigh such stifling effects versus the human cost. Had this sub imploded with 30 school kids and teachers on board they'd have media attention and new guidelines drawn up the next day. But in this case we are looking at a super subset of the American population (less than .1%) that could afford such an adventure.

[@lynnkayee1015]

Well, there are...kind of. 1) It was international waters. That makes regulation trickier. 2) He couldn't have "passengers" on board. They skirted around this by making them "mission specialists" meaning they were paying but it was more like donation to a scientific endeavor. They were given actual tasks and there were, technically, scientific observations. This is just summing it up simply.

[@BeazleyStudios]

There are regulations, but those regulations can only be enforced in territorial waters. In international waters, a person can pretty much do whatever they want. If you wanted to build yourself a homemade submersible, who is going to stop you from building it, sailing it out into the Atlantic (past US territorial waters) and diving down to the ocean floor? No one. The thing is, there were plenty of scientists, engineers, organizations, etc. within the submersible community telling Rush and others at OceanGate that there were problems and he chose to ignore/fire them. It's not like Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute can go out into the Atlantic and force OceanGate from operating because they know his sub will fail. You can make all the laws and regulations that you want, but unless you have a way of enforcing that in international waters and punish those who break those regulations, there is nothing a government can do.

[@MichaelBrown-ig1mq]

I have read, and or viewed a few of the Coast Guards inquiry panel. Also interviews with Robert Ballard, and James Cameron. Many knew of this company and the obsessed CEO from its conception. This show is a masquerade for those responsible who should have been involved through the engineering, and construction of this submersible.

[@panagea2007]

You've heard people say, "I'll bet my life on it." Maybe that was what Rush did.

[@Coolman1985]

Basically he could not be paid, that's all he had to say

[@glamdolly30]

It was far worse even, than OceanGate ducking out of paying his and other staff salaries. The company was cutting so many corners on crucial safety measures to save cash, they'd started towing the Titan behind a far smaller/cheaper mother ship (far too small to carry the sub on its deck), for many miles, in rough waters. That alone was reckless, and put the vessel at risk of damage. But it also meant staff having to work on the Titan doing essential safety checks/repairs etc, not on the safe environment of the deck of the mother ship, but aboard that small floating platform, out on the open sea. The North Atlantic is not the calmest of waters. That saving obviously disrespected workers' safety and put them at risk (as the guy himself pointed out, he isn't young). And all to save the cost of a proper mother ship big enough to do the job properly, house the Titan safely, and put it into the sea from the safety of the ship, using a professional crane designed for the purpose. Watch videos of James Cameron and other professionals who took submersibles down to Titanic, and you'll see a huge mother ship, housing an impressive, powerful, custom-built crane which places the sub into the ocean in a smooth, controlled way. Compare that set-up with the tiny floating platform the 'Titan' sat on as it was launched into the sea, and it only confirms what a joke of a company OceanGate was.

[@Mitsoxfan]

He left because there was no engineering to be found.

[@niteowlification]

The playstation controller was engineered.

[@clemnewton9007]

Safety has a price at every company lots companies disregard safety and people can get hurt or die Boeing etc profits before safety happens everday at every company

[@captaintoyota3171]

Yeah if u wanted 2 push material science u dont book paying customers

[@manjsher3094]

All trades Men, we know why our tool boxes have wheels on them.

[@johnwright291]

And now it appears that stockton loved his dope. That can make capital vanish toot sweet.

[@WWZenaDo]

Interesting, if accurate. I've suspected that his drinking and alcoholic behaviors when he was in college were what prevented him from qualifying for anything at NASA.

[@vmarsfiles]

What kind of job says they can't pay their employees so can you wait for a few months And we will get you caught up ...bro you left because they weren't paying you. It's that simple. For 250k per person that ceo was squandering the money away

[@charlesharmon4926]

He was under capitalized. There aren’t many people in the world that can cough up $250k for entertainment expenses like that. When you do anything maritime oriented the overhead involved starts compounding quickly. Boat means Break Out Another Thousand. Leasing a ship like the Polar Prince probably costs $30k a day

[@BillO964]

Ok, why are we still talking about this?

[@EbenBransome]

Because the message keeps being forgotten and needs to be hammered in repeatedly. Even if you are a billionaire, safety regulations are written in other people's blood, and if you ignore them, a new one will be written in yours.

[@todd3563]

Should have answered the question in half the time.

[@scruffy4647]

What's unclear is had the submersible made previous dives to the Titanic or just other "dives"? This testimony is not very in depth. "unsafe work conditions & no pay check".

[@infrasleep]

I read it made 13 dives but I dont think they all made it to the Titanic, but what was jaw dropping was that in those 13 dives 118 serious faults/failures were recorded,which basically sums up Rush,Ocean Gate and Titan. Any serious company would analyse/correct any faults for such a high risk venture. But I doubt if Ocean Gate could do this as the bottom line was the mass of faults indicated the whole sub/design etc needed to be scrapped and restarted from square one-something Rush would never do or admit.

[@rael5469]

EVERYONE at Oceangate is GUILTY. Right down to the common composites technician.....they ALL knew that carbon fiber was never meant to work in that way. They're all guilty.

[@jasonmcintosh2632]

People…. “I had another job offer and the company asked that we forgo being paid, but i left for safety reasons concerning my team.” The crazy thing about the human brain is that he actually believes this.

[@EbenBransome]

Actually most engineers leave their jobs because they lose confidence in the management. We tend to love our projects, we don't like to leave them, but if we think the management is a guaranteed screw up it's find a new project time.

[@jasonmcintosh2632]

@@EbenBransome My comment was about one specific engineer. The guy almost for sure left because he was losing confidence that the company could pay him and he had another job offer. But he utterly rationalizes it to be he quite for his team... it's astounding what intelligent people can rationalize.

[@troymash8109]

​@@jasonmcintosh2632It's obvious he left because they were towing the sub that season and working on that platform scared the poop out of him, rightfully so. You are not very bright. 😂 It's amusing AF.

[@psolyga]

How to make a 20 seconds answer 3.5 minutes long:

[@panagea2007]

How to speak while considering every word you're saying so that it doesn't sound like you did something wrong or didn't do something that you were supposed to do.

[@gawebm]

Umm, ummm, ummmm, so hard to listen to.

[@stephenbutler552]

Sounds like a contrived excuse to avoid having to admit he knew it was going to implode.

[@timetraveller6643]

Left as soon as HIS life was at risk.

[@2nd_of_3]

What is this supposed to accomplish? The Coast Guard has NO jurisdiction in International waters

[@EbenBransome]

However, people have to go to and from them, during which period they are still in a jurisdiction. The law on what counts as a paying passenger could be tightened up, as could laws on transporting uncertified passenger carrying submarines and submersibles. So a future Rush might be arrested for taking money fraudulently, or for taking an uncertified craft out to sea. James Cameron only risked his own life in a much, much better designed vehicle. I wouldn't want to stop that, though ROVs have made it pointless. But Rush needed stopping.

[@BeazleyStudios]

No...but the US government has jurisdiction over the OceanGate company which is an American company located in Washington State. This inquiry is meant to collect data, testimony, and other evidence which could then used to bring charges to OceanGate and those working for the company.