OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush DISMISSED fears about doomed Titanic sub
‘You are going to kill someone’: Titanic submarine CEO Stockton Rush DISMISSED expert fears about his vessel as ‘using safety to stop innovation’ – years before perishing in ‘catastrophic implosion’
- Oceangate CEO Stockton Rush ‘ignored safety warnings over Titan’, emails show
- Rush perished with four others in the Atlantic on board the doomed submersible
The CEO of OceanGate’s Titan submersible repeatedly shrugged off safety concerns over the doomed vessel, according to newly unearthed email exchanges.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush is said to have dismissed warnings from leading deep sea exploration specialist Rob McCallum that he was potentially putting his clients at risk.
Mr McCallum urged Rush – who perished on the Titan along with four others – to stop using the sub until an independent body assessed it, The BBC reports.
He told Rush he was mirroring the famous cry of the Titanic’s builders: ‘She is unsinkable’.
Rush, a self-proclaimed innovator, explained he was ‘tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation’.
The email exchange reportedly only ended when Oceangate’s lawyers threatened legal action.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush (pictured) is said to have ignored warnings from leading deep sea exploration specialist Rob McCallum that he was potentially putting his clients at risk
The fitness of the Titan to go on deep sea missions was discussed in a fraught email exchange between Oceangate CEO Stockton Rush and maritime expert Rob McCallum , which only ended when Oceangate threatened legal action
Shahzada Dawood, 48, (right) one of Pakistan’s richest men, who along with his teenage son Sulaiman Dawood, 19, (left) died on the Titan
In March 2018, McCallum wrote to Rush: ‘I think you are potentially placing yourself and your clients in a dangerous dynamic.
‘In your race to [the] Titanic you are mirroring that famous catch cry: “She is unsinkable”.’
Rush responds to the criticism of Titan’s safety measures with frustration, writing to Mr McCallum: ‘We have heard the baseless cries of “you are going to kill someone” way too often. I take this as a serious personal insult.’
In a BBC interview, Mr McCallum described how he repeatedly urged Oceangate to seek classification for the sub before it was used commercially. The Titan was certified or classed.
‘Until a sub is classed, tested and proven it should not be used for commercial deep dive operations,’ he wrote in one email.
‘I implore you to take every care in your testing and sea trials and to be very, very conservative. As much as I appreciate entrepreneurship and innovation, you are potentially putting an entire industry at risk.’
Rush responded some days later: ‘I am well qualified to understand the risks and issues associated with subsea exploration in a new vehicle.’
Fatefully, Mr McCallum warned him: ‘It will be sea trials that determine whether the vehicle can handle what you intend to do with it so again; take care and keep safe.’
‘There is a lot more riding on this than Titan and the Titanic.’
Billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, was among the five people on board The OceanGate Titan
73-year-old French mariner Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who was on expert on the Titanic, also died in the Titan disaster
Earlier today, it was reported a Las Vegas financier turned down cut-price seats on the Titan’s doomed trip after raising safety concerns – but was told by the company boss that it ‘was safer than crossing the street’.
Jay Bloom has shared texts between himself and OceanGate chief executive Stockton Rush showing he and his son were offered a ‘last minute price’ of $150,000 a head (£120,000) – a discount on the usual $250,000 (£195,000) fee.
Mr Bloom, a Democrat supporter who has been photographed with Joe Biden, has described his sadness at Mr Rush’s death and his grief that Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who was just 19, had taken their spots and perished as well as French Navy veteran Paul-Henri Nargeolet and British billionaire Hamish Harding.
In a Facebook post he said: ‘I expressed safety concerns and Stockton told me: “While there’s obviously risk – it’s way safer than flying in a helicopter or even scuba diving”.
‘He was absolutely convinced that it was safer than crossing the street. I am sure he really believed what he was saying. But he was very wrong’.
Jay Bloom and his son Sean (pictured together) were close to going on the doomed Titan voyage to the Titanic – and were even offered a last-minute discount
Jay Bloom, pictured with Joe Biden, revealed he was first offered the seats on the Titan but had safety concerns
Mr Rush speaks to Mr Bloom about taking part in one of his firm’s trips to the Titanic wreck
Mr Bloom’s Facebook post showing his grief that Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who was just 19, had taken his and his own son’s places
Stockton Rush shows the controller used to steer the Titan – which has been compared to something from a XBox or PS5
In February this year Stockton Rush asked Mr Bloom and his son Sean to go on the dive to Titanic in May. Both May dives were postponed due to weather and the dive got delayed until June 18, the date of the ill-fated trip.
Mr Bloom said: ‘I told him that due to scheduling we couldn’t go until next year. Our seats went to Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood, two of the other three who lost their lives on this excursion, the fifth being Hamish Harding.
‘RIP Stockton and crew. As for Sean and I… we are going to take a minute to stop and smell the roses. Tomorrow is never promised. Make the most of today’.
Texts between Mr Rush had repeatedly tried to reassure Mr Bloom about the safety of the Titan and heading to the Titanic’s wreck.
He said his son was very worried about the risks after speaking with a friend. Mr Rush said: ‘I’m happy to have a video call with him. Curious what the uninformed would say the danger is and whether it’s real or imagined’.
They discussed how the hull would deal with pressure, or even if it came into contact with a whale or squid.
Mr Rush said: ‘While there’s obviously risk it’s way safer than flying in a helicopter or even scuba diving, There hasn’t even been an injury in 35 years in non-military subs’.
A satellite image shows ships taking part in the search and rescue operations associated with the missing Titan submersible near the wreck of the Titanic
OceanGate Expeditions were allegedly repeatedly warned about safety concerns
Five people were onboard, including British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding and Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who was just 19
French Navy veteran Paul-Henri Nargeolet (left) and Mr Rush (right), CEO of OceanGate Expeditions
Titanic director and submersible expert James Cameron said he predicted Titan’s implosion days before the debris from the missing submersible was found, calling the search a ‘prolonged nightmarish charade’.
Mr Cameron, who has visited the world’s most famous seawreck 30 times, said the tragedy this week has parallels with the 1912 disaster, where the captain repeatedly ignored warnings about an incoming iceberg but carried on at top speed.
The five inside Titan were killed instantly when the submersible suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ just 1,600ft from the bow of the wrecked ocean liner, the US Coast Guard announced yesterday. A remotely operated submarine from a Canadian ship found debris on the ocean floor.
But officials say the men were likely to have died on Sunday – before military planes using sonar buoys detected what they thought could have been SOS ‘banging’ sounds in the water. The US Navy said they heard a sound consistent with an implosion when communications were lost around two hours after they dived. The Navy passed on that information to the Coast Guard, an insider said.
Mr Cameron told BBC News that the Coast Guard search ‘felt like a prolonged and nightmarish charade where people are running around talking about banging noises and talking about oxygen and all this other stuff’.
Titanic director and submersible expert James Cameron said he predicted Titan’s implosion before the debris from the missing submersible was found, calling the search a ‘prolonged nightmarish charade’
‘I knew that sub was sitting exactly underneath its last known depth and position. That’s exactly where they found it,’ he said.
According to court documents, safety concerns had previously been raised about the Titan submersible by a former employee of OceanGate. David Lochridge, OceanGate’s former director of marine operations, claimed wrongful dismissal after flagging worries about the company’s alleged ‘refusal to conduct critical, non-destructive testing of the experimental design’.
Mr Cameron said last night: ‘A number of the top players in the deep-submergence engineering community even wrote letters to the company saying that what they were doing was too experimental to carry passengers and that needed to be certified and so on.
‘I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship and yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night, and many people died as a result.
‘It’s a very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded — to take place at the same exact site with all the diving that’s going around all around the world. I think it’s just astonishing, it’s really quite surreal’.
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