MADRID The co-founder of OceanGate Expeditions, which owned the submersible that imploded during a dive to the Titanic wreck, defended on Friday the chief executive's commitment to safety and risk management after he died with four others on the craft.

Guillermo Söhnlein, who co-founded OceanGate with Stockton Rush in 2009, left the company in 2013, retaining a minority stake. Rush was piloting the Titan submersible on the trip that began on Sunday. Debris from the vessel was found on Thursday.

"Stockton was one of the most astute risk managers I'd ever met. He was very risk-averse. He was very keenly aware of the risks of operating in the deep ocean environment, and he was very committed to safety," Söhnlein told Reuters.

"I believe that every innovation that he took ... was geared toward two goals: One, expanding humanity's ability to explore the deep ocean. And secondly, to do it as safely as possible," he said in video interview from his home in Barcelona.

Söhnlein said the public should refrain from speculating about the cause of the disaster and wait for the release of any official report after data had been collected and analyzed.

Questions about Titan's safety were raised in 2018 during a symposium of submersible industry experts and in a lawsuit by OceanGate's former head of marine operations, which was settled later that year. This incident has prompted further debate.

"There's going to be a time for (making assessments), and I don't think right now is the right time to do that," he said.

(Reporting by David Latona; Editing by Aislinn Laing and Edmund Blair)