OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush crashed a submersible into a shipwreck and then threw the vessel’s rudimentary controls at a more experienced employee years before he piloted the doomed Titan voyage last summer.

A former OceanGate worker gave a warning to the CEO of the company before the Titan submersible disaster. It’s been just over a year since the Titan sub suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ on its mission to visit the wreck of the Titanic.

OceanGate’s former chief engineer says he didn’t trust co-founder Stockton Rush, and told him he wouldn’t get in the Titan himself. Tony Nissen is testifying on day one of the U.S. Coast Guard hearings into the loss of the sub and its five crew last year, which is taking place in Charleston, South Carolina and being streamed live on YouTube.

David Lochridge, OceanGate’s former operations director testifies to Coast Guard investigators about wreck during mission to Andrea Doria site in 2016.

OceanGate’s former director of operations testified that Stockton Rush crashed a submersible in 2016 and only gave up control when a tearful passenger screamed at him.

OceanGate’s former director of marine operations detailed the “appalling” faults with the original model of the doomed Titan submersible that he refused to sign off on — and detailed how its CEO liked to “do things on the cheap.