OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush had an idiosyncratic approach to undersea exploration that drew comparisons to visionaries like Elon Musk.
He idolized Star Trek protagonist Captain Kirk and boasted of “breaking the rules” to build the Titan ship that disappeared with Rush and four others on board during a mission to the wreckage of the Titanic 12,500 feet under the Atlantic Ocean.
But his methods — which are feared to have contributed to the tragedy — were a major red flag for deep-sea exploration experts, including two who parted ways with OceanGate over their concerns.
Dozens of industry leaders and explorers also warned Rush in 2018 that the company’s “experimental” approach could be “catastrophic.” That year, he fought back, saying he was “tired of industry players trying to use a security argument to stop innovation.” He seemed outraged by the “obscenely safe” rules he saw as an obstacle to development.
Tragically, it now appears that ignoring those concerns – including warnings about Titan’s “flawed” carbon fiber hull – has proved fatal.
Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, was one of five men who died on Titan’s ill-fated journey to the wreckage of the Titanic. His idiosyncratic approach to innovation earned him comparisons to visionaries like Elon Musk, but caused concern among industry peers
Stockton Rush has been compared to visionaries like Elon Musk, who pioneered space travel with his company SpaceX. Rush also idolized Captain Kirk, the Star Trek character whose vision was to “boldly go where no man has gone before”
Further questions are also being raised about Rush and OceanGate’s willingness to charge tourists $250,000 per ticket for a ship that has not been independently inspected, previously malfunctioned and repeatedly warned.
Ofer Ketter, a submarine pilot and co-founder of Sub-Merge, told DailyMail.com, “It’s one thing to be a professional explorer and take the risks of your exploration. And it’s another thing to take non-professionals and say, ‘Believe me.’
Rush, a father of two whose wife is a descendant of two Titanic victims, is the son of a wealthy businessman. His grandfather was an oil and gas magnate.
No one doubted Rush’s talent as an explorer and engineer, and he showed his passion for both fields at an early age.
As a child in San Francisco, he dreamed of becoming an astronaut, but those hopes were dashed because his imperfect eyesight prevented him from taking the first step toward becoming a military pilot.
He continued to forge a successful career in aviation and at the age of 19 became the youngest jet transport pilot in the world. In 1984, he worked as a flight test engineer on the F-15 fighter jet program.
Five people were aboard Titan, including British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding and Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who was just 19
French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet (left) was also in the submarine, along with Rush (right), CEO of OceanGate
Rush has reiterated in several interviews that he “wanted to be Captain Kirk,” the Star Trek character whose vision was to “boldly go where no one’s gone before.” After accepting that he was not destined for space, Rush turned his attention to the oceans.
“Eventually I realized I wasn’t going to Jupiter or Mars,” he said Bloomberg in 2017. “I realized that all the cool stuff I thought was out there is actually underwater.”
The Bloomberg profile described Rush as a “cheerful, charismatic man whose boyish zest for adventure draws easy comparisons to adventurous bon vivants like Richard Branson and Elon Musk.”
In the 2000s, Rush built a 10-foot mini-sub with a small Plexiglas window. The pilot was forced to lie on his stomach in the small craft and used a series of levers to control it.
OceanGate was founded in 2009 by Rush and his former business partner, Guillermo Söhnlein. Söhnlein, who left the company several years ago, was one of Rush’s staunchest defenders in the aftermath of the Titan incident.
Before producing Titan, the company developed Cyclops 1, a 20,000-pound submarine that can dive to 1,640 feet with a crew of five. It became a successful research and expedition vessel.
It seems that OceanGate’s work – and Rush’s push for innovation – became controversial when the company launched its Titan project, which aims to take tourists 12,500 feet under the Atlantic Ocean to visit the Titanic’s wreckage.
Typically, trips to such unforgiving depths — where the water pressure is more powerful than a bite from a great white shark — are conducted in expensive research vessels ill-equipped for tourist travel. Rush wanted to make a ship that was cheaper and easier to launch.
The Titan was built with a carbon fiber hull, the first of its kind, that raised eyebrows in the industry. It also used a porthole that was reportedly unapproved for the depths Titan intended to dive.
The designs include “ready-made” parts that can be purchased from Amazon – including a $30 PlayStation-style custom controller to maneuver the ship.
Titan’s carbon fiber hull and its acrylic viewing window were subject to several warnings and Titanic director James Cameron called them “potential points of failure” on the ship
In 2018, dozens of marine technology professionals wrote to OceanGate to express “unanimous concern” about Titan’s development. They said the “experimental approach” could have catastrophic consequences.
That year, court documents also revealed that a former OceanGate employee had left the company after his concerns about Titan were reportedly ignored.
David Lochridge, who was Director of Marine Operations, demanded stricter safety checks on the submarine, including “testing to prove its integrity.”
Lochridge questioned the effectiveness of Titan’s ‘Real Time Hull Health Monitoring’ system, which was designed to detect flaws in the hull when exposed to extremely high pressures. He said it wouldn’t kick in until “milliseconds before an implosion.”
The former Royal Navy marine engineer also urged OceanGate to have the ship ‘graded’, with an independent organization ensuring it meets industry-wide technical standards. The company decided against it, suggesting the process would take too long and was “a horror of rapid innovation.”
OceanGate has not commented on concerns over Titan’s safety since the ship’s disappearance on Sunday.
Lochridge wasn’t the only expert to leave OceanGate because of his methods.
Rob McCallum, who was an advisor to the company when it was founded, left, according to Bloomberg, in part because of “concerns about the way Rush was doing things.”
“I know Stockton well and I think the world needs more Stocktons willing to take a chance,” McCallum said. “But he’s a man who goes full steam ahead, damn-the-torpedoes, and the submarine industry is all about precision and control. Nothing should be left to chance.’
OceanGate bosses fired David Lochridge, who was director of marine operations for the Titan project, in 2018 after he disagreed with his demand for stricter safety checks on the submarine, including “testing to prove its integrity”
Rob McCullum, a world-renowned deep-sea submarine expert, advised OceanGate when the company was founded, but left over concerns about Rush’s methods
Speculation that Titan’s carbon fiber hull contributed to the disaster was echoed by Titanic director James Cameron after the discovery of the ship’s debris. Cameron, a respected explorer who has traveled to the ocean’s deepest known point, said the design was “fundamentally flawed.”
He criticized the design for straying from tried and tested techniques in favor of experimental methods, adding, “If I had to put money down on what the finding will be, the Achilles’ heel of the submarine was the composite cylinder that was the main hull that made the people inside.’
Rush said in a video posted online in 2021 that he “broken some rules” to make the barrel, adding: “The carbon fiber and titanium, there’s a rule that you don’t do that – well I did.” ‘
He also said in 2020 that the hull had “showed signs of cyclic fatigue.”
Ofer Ketter, the underwater expert, said the tragedy did not impose post-disaster changes on the industry, but rather emphasized the need to adhere to the strict regulations that have developed over years of research and development.
“Being innovative is spectacular, it’s amazing and it’s necessary,” he said. “But there are ways to be innovative, the laws of physics don’t change, even if you are innovating.”