OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush ‘knew’ his doomed Titan submersible would eventually kill him, close friend testifies
By Alex Oliveira,
23 days ago
Titan submersible mastermind Stockton Rush knew his risky venture would end in disaster — but carried on anyway because that meant he’d never have to face accountability, according to one of his closest friends.
“He knew that eventually it was going to end like this and he wasn’t going to be held accountable,” Rush’s longtime friend Karl Stanley testified Tuesday during the US Coast Guard’s inquiry into the catastrophe .
“But he was going to be the most famous of all his famous relatives,” Stanley said, offering a morbid and twisted take on the mindset of Rush, who was a descendant of a pair of Declaration of Independence signers.
Stanley, himself an expert in the commercial submersible field, was friends with Rush for more than 10 years and eventually joined him on one of the Titan’s test dives in 2019 — during which he recalled hearing loud cracking noises, but had his concerns brushed off by Rush.
“The definition of an accident is something that happened unexpectedly and by sheer chance,” he said. “There was nothing unexpected about this. This was expected by everybody that had access to a little bit of information.”
“And I think that if it wasn’t an accident, it then has to be some degree of crime. And if it’s a crime, I think to truly understand it, you need to understand the criminal’s motive. The entire reason this whole operation started was Stockton had a desire to leave his mark on history,” Stanley said.
Four years after that dive, Rush and four passengers were killed while diving to the wreck of the Titanic when his submersible’s carbon fiber hull imploded.
Newly released photos from the Coast Guard’s hearing into the disaster showed the mangled pieces of the Titan’s hull discovered about 1,500 feet from the Titanic’s wreck where it lies about 12,500 feet (2.3 miles) underwater in the Atlantic Ocean.
Earlier testimony from the hearings presented a chaotic picture of Rush’s company OceanGate, which was constantly strapped for cash and routinely ignored glaring problems with the submersible in the name of paying the bills.
“The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” OceanGate’s former operations director, David Lochridge, testified Monday. “There was very little in the way of science.”
Lochridge testified that he tried to point out “appalling” faults with the submersible’s design — and was later fired for doing so.
He and others have testified how the Titan was constantly facing technical problems, and even experienced a dangerous ballast malfunction that tossed passengers about its cabin during a dive just days before the disaster.
Despite such problems, Rush insisted on going ahead with dives to accommodate his paying customers.
The Coast Guard’s hearing continues through Friday.
For top headlines, breaking news and more, visit nypost.com.
Comments / 21
Add a Comment
I-M-E-Z-R-U
21d ago
It did!!
exotic 4-16 mrs Henderson
21d ago
He knew more then just that he knew he and his other patnas were gonna die u couldn’t pay me to go down there to see no titanic 🚢 what’s to see there no humans down there….. they been fish food yrs ago but everything happens for a reason then the titan was controlled with a controller x box type of sort the husband that died with his son wife is very lucky because it was gonna be her but she decided she will let her son go instead I really dont understand why so many folks bother with with that ship 🛳 I wouldn’t have got in that shid if it was free + it had issues and Stockton big headed ass didn’t wanna listen because he though being rich he can control everything
Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.