OceanGate CEO dismissed warnings about sub’s safety as ‘baseless cries’ – report
Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate who was killed on board the Titan submersible, repeatedly dismissed warnings over the safety of the sub, emails between Rush and a deep sea exploration expert show.
In messages seen by the BBC, Rush described criticism of Titan’s safety measures as “baseless lies” from “industry players” who were trying to stop “new entrants from entering their small existing market”.
The emails between Rush and Rob McCallum, a leading deep sea exploration specialist, ended after OceanGate’s lawyers threatened legal action, McCallum said. In one email in March 2018, McCallum writes 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’.
He told the BBC that he repeatedly urged OceanGate to seek certification for the Titan before using it for commercial tours. The vessel was not registered with international agencies, nor was it classified by a maritime industry group that sets basic engineering standards.
McCallum was among more than three dozen industry leaders in the submersible vessel field who signed a 2018 letter warning Rush of possible “catastrophic” problems with Titan’s development.
In one email, McCallum writes to Rush:
I implore you to take every care in your testing and sea trials and to be very, very conservative.
But Rush expressed frustration, writing in one email:
We have heard the baseless cries of ‘you are going to kill someone’ way too often. I take this as a serious personal insult.
The OceanGate co-founder defended his company’s ‘“engineering focused, innovative approach” which “flies in the face of the submersible orthodoxy”, and said he himself was “well qualified to understand the risks and issues associated with subsea exploration in a new vehicle”.
Key events
US transport safety watchdog to try to find potential cause of sub implosion
The US Coast Guard has asked the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to assist in the investigation into the Titan’s implosion, NBC News is reporting, citing a source.
The NTSB’s office of Marine Safety, in conjunction with the Coast Guard, will attempt to find the potential cause of the deep-sea catastrophe, the source said.
OceanGate, the company behind the Titan submersible, exaggerated details of the industry partnerships behind the development and engineering of its sub.
On its website, the company said its “state-of-the-art vessel” was “designed and engineered by OceanGate Inc. in collaboration experts from NASA, Boeing and the University of Washington”.
But Boeing and the University of Washington have denied OceanGate’s claim that they helped design the sub. A Boeing spokesperson told ABC News:
Boeing was not a partner on the Titan and did not design or build it.
The University of Washington also released a statement saying that it was not involved in creating OceanGate’s Titan submersible.
Nasa has confirmed it “consulted on materials and manufacturing processes for the submersible”. But a statement to Insider added:
NASA did not conduct testing and manufacturing via its workforce or facilities, which was done elsewhere by OceanGate.
OceanGate CEO dismissed warnings about sub’s safety as ‘baseless cries’ – report
Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate who was killed on board the Titan submersible, repeatedly dismissed warnings over the safety of the sub, emails between Rush and a deep sea exploration expert show.
In messages seen by the BBC, Rush described criticism of Titan’s safety measures as “baseless lies” from “industry players” who were trying to stop “new entrants from entering their small existing market”.
The emails between Rush and Rob McCallum, a leading deep sea exploration specialist, ended after OceanGate’s lawyers threatened legal action, McCallum said. In one email in March 2018, McCallum writes 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’.
He told the BBC that he repeatedly urged OceanGate to seek certification for the Titan before using it for commercial tours. The vessel was not registered with international agencies, nor was it classified by a maritime industry group that sets basic engineering standards.
McCallum was among more than three dozen industry leaders in the submersible vessel field who signed a 2018 letter warning Rush of possible “catastrophic” problems with Titan’s development.
In one email, McCallum writes to Rush:
I implore you to take every care in your testing and sea trials and to be very, very conservative.
But Rush expressed frustration, writing in one email:
We have heard the baseless cries of ‘you are going to kill someone’ way too often. I take this as a serious personal insult.
The OceanGate co-founder defended his company’s ‘“engineering focused, innovative approach” which “flies in the face of the submersible orthodoxy”, and said he himself was “well qualified to understand the risks and issues associated with subsea exploration in a new vehicle”.
The cousin of Hamish Harding has said the British billionaire was a “great adventurer” who “died doing something that he loved”.
In an interview with Sky News, Harding’s cousin Kathleen said she wasn’t surprised that he wanted to visit the Titanic wreck.
There he is down by the Titanic, which is, I suppose, one of the most famous ships in the world. It was a great adventure.
Hopefully he might have completed, well yes he did complete what he did, if you think about it. This was just a sad disaster, perhaps waiting to happen.
An implosion of a submersible would have been “like crushing a can of Coca-Cola”, a former US Coast Guard Reserve commander has said.
NBC News reports Armin Cate, who is also a retired senior special agent with the US department of homeland security, as saying:
From my understanding, the submersible imploded. In other words, the force of the water was so strong that it blew the back and the front of the submersible off.
When you crush that tube in the middle it’s like crushing a can of Coca-Cola you might say.
A scientist who had a near-death experience when his submersible got caught in the wreckage of the Titanic has said he believes ocean tourism needs to be paused.
Dr Michael Guillen was the first TV correspondent to report from the Titanic wreck site in 2000, when the sub he was in got caught up in a “very strong underwater current” and became lodged in the Titanic ship’s massive propeller.
TITANIC ACCIDENT. When I was at ABC News, I became the first TV correspondent in history to report from the wreck of the Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, 2-1/2 miles below the surface. An accident happened that almost claimed my life. Here’s what happened. #Titanic… pic.twitter.com/b4t3WtaRdc
— Dr. Michael Guillen (@DrMGuillen) June 19, 2023
Guillen, speaking to CNN today, said:
The sea is dangerous. This is not a playground. The ocean is restless and I think of it when I was looking at the North Atlantic waters. They’re dark, they’re cold; they just want to swallow you up if you make the tiniest little mistake.
Will there be a formal investigation?
Kevin Rawlinson
Investigation of the wreckage will certainly follow – starting with the salvage operation. R Adm John Mauger of the US First Coast Guard District said investigators would first attempt to find out why the vessel imploded.
“I know there are also a lot of questions about how, why and when did this happen. Those are questions we will collect as much information as we can about now,” Mauger said, adding it was a “complex case” that happened in a remote part of the ocean and involved people from several different countries.
Ryan Ramsey, a former submarine captain in Britain’s Royal Navy, told the BBC the investigation would not be dissimilar to that into an airplane crash, aside from the absence of a flight recorder. The broadcaster also reported that there is little precedent for this type of investigation, so it is unclear who will do what.
Why was the implosion not announced sooner?
Kevin Rawlinson
The US Navy detected sounds “consistent with an implosion” shortly after OceanGate’s Titan submersible lost contact on Sunday, according to a navy official.
Yet it was decided to continue the search and rescue operation to “make every effort to save the lives on board”, the US navy said.
The key to the decision-making is probably in the details. First, the rescue operation: analysts could not be 100% sure that what they detected was Titan’s implosion. If there was a chance lives could be saved, it was important to try everything possible.
Second, the delay in revealing the information. The US navy, according to the WSJ, wanted to keep its sub-detection capabilities secret. This possibly explains why nothing was initially said publicly – and why there were few details about exactly what was detected and how.
How was the sub allowed to operate if it hadn’t been certified?
Kevin Rawlinson
According to experts, Titan’s operators got around what regulations there are partly by operating in international waters.
The vessel was not registered with international agencies, nor was it classified by a maritime industry group that sets basic engineering standards. Its operators OceanGate have said this is because they believed Titan’s design was so innovative it would take years for inspectors to understand it.
Bart Kemper, a forensic engineer who works on submarine designs – and who signed a 2018 letter imploring OceanGate to operate within established norms, said it avoided having to abide by US regulations by deploying in international waters – beyond the reach of national agencies such as the US Coast Guard.
Salvatore Mercogliano, a history professor who focuses on maritime history and policy, said companies running deepwater operations are perhaps underscrutinised because of where they operate.
Regulations on deep sea submersibles are “sparse”, but the OceanGate submersible was not for “joyrides”, one of the company’s founders, Guillermo Söhnlein, has said.
