‘You’re dead anyway’: Titan sub CEO’s doomed prediction

Stockton Rush gave a chilling outlook on the chances of survival on-board his Titanic tourist sub in a shocking new claim about the ‘bizarre’ attitude of the OceanGate boss.

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush shrugged off safety concerns over his doomed Titan submersible by saying “well, you’re dead anyway”.

In a shocking new allegation of Rush’s cavalier attitude, a documentary film cameraman revealed the “bizarre” and “very strange” comments made during a test dive of the Titanic tourist vessel.

“It seemed to almost be a nihilistic attitude toward life or death out in the middle of the ocean,” said Brian Weed, a camera operator for the Discovery Channel’s “Expedition Unknown” documentary series.

Five people were killed on the Titan, British adventurer Hamish Harding, CEO Stockton Rush, French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, and son Suleman. Picture: Supplied

Weed and colleague Josh Gates joined a test voyage of the Titan submersible in Puget Sound, Washington, in 2021 as a pre-curser to joining the debut voyage to the Titanic just months later.

After being locked in the sub, which could only be opened from the outside, Weed asked what would happen if they needed to abort the dive and suddenly surface far from its mothership with only four or five days of oxygen on board.

“What if they don’t find you,” Weed asked Rush, who replied: “Well, you’re dead anyway.”

“It felt like a very strange thing to think,” Weed told Insider, adding that Rush’s point was that, “If you’re out there, and they don’t find you in that many days, you’re just going to die anyway -- it’s over for you, so what does it matter if you can’t get out of the sub on your own”.

The test dive was aborted after a series of mechanical issues, communications problems, and Rush’s apparent “cavalier attitude” to “basic safety”, Weed told the outlet.

“That whole dive made me very uncomfortable with the idea of going down to Titanic depths in that submersible,” he said, adding his safety concerns led him to pull out of the “Expedition Unknown” production, which was eventually cancelled.

OCEANGATE ENDS OPERATIONS

OceanGate announced an end to deep-sea expeditions to the wreckage of the Titanic after five explorers were killed in a “catastrophic implosion”.

Almost three weeks after the experimental Titan submersible crushed all on board, the organisation said that it has “suspended all exploration and commercial operations”.

No further details were given beyond the small red text at the top of the company’s website.

The end of operations comes a day after a bombshell New Yorker investigation that revealed new details about the company and the final moments of the Titan five, British adventurer Hamish Harding, 58; French veteran Titanic explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77; British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son Suleman.

Stockton Rush compared the glue holding together the Titan to ‘peanut butter’, and said there wasn’t a lot of room for recovery if they didn’t get it right. Picture: Supplied

In the latest shocking detail to emerge of the carbon-fibre hull, video revealed CEO Stockton Rush comparing the glue holding the submersible together to “peanut butter”.

In a 2018 clip on the company’s YouTube channel, titled “Bonding the Titanium Ring and Carbon Fibre Hull”, Rush admitted the design was “pretty simple, but if we mess it up, there’s not a lot of recovery”.

“The glue’s very thick, so it’s not like Elmer’s Glue, it’s like peanut butter,” he said.

“That will be the pressure vessel,” Rush continued in the video. “It’ll go to 4,000 metres. Be the deepest, diving, carbon fibre sub ever built … I’m going to be the first one in the sub, so, we will see.”

After the first successful dive, however, Rush reportedly asked other OceanGate staffers to captain the Titan submersible, according to the company’s former finance director.

Speaking to The New Yorker on condition of anonymity, the ex-employee said she quit after Rush wanted her to replace the original pilot, David Lochridge, who had been fired.

“It freaked me out that he would want me to be head pilot, since my background is in accounting, I could not work for Stockton. I did not trust him.”

In an email to an ex-associate, Mr Lochridge warned years earlier about the dangers of the sub and its creator.

“I don’t want to be seen as a Tattle tale but I’m so worried he kills himself and others in the quest to boost his ego,” he wrote, according to The New Yorker.

Originally published as ‘You’re dead anyway’: Titan sub CEO’s doomed prediction