The stories to emerge in the wake of the tragic implosion that claimed the lives of the five people onboard the Titan submersible last month have been many.
Virtually all aspects of the vessel’s doomed voyage have been covered, as well as its controversial history and the questions regarding its suitability for purpose in the first place.
Among the voices to have been heard during the weeks following the accident – which captured the world’s attention after a high-profile, though ultimately futile search and rescue operation – are those who had previously been on the Titan, including a few who had been part of trips similar to the ill-fated one that recently ended in heartbreak.
In a new interview with Insider, a documentary cameraman who took part in a test dive on the Titan has claimed that Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate and creator of the Titan, made one particularly chilling comment that is all the more macabre given the events that played out on June 18.
The disappearance of the Titan vessel, built and operated by OceanGate, whilst on its way to explore the wreck of the Titanic last month became worldwide news.
A multi-country rescue operation was launched in an effort to save the passengers onboard, only for worst fears to be realized when the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed they had found a debris field they believed to be made up of the remnants of the submersible.
Much and more has been written about the causation of vessel’s implosion, as well as the lives of the passengers onboard Titan when it met its horrific end.
An inquiry is now sure to be undertaken to get to the bottom of what caused the incident, but according to CNN, experts believe the design of the craft, the building materials involved, and CEO Stockton Rush and his company could all be to blame.
“This was a company that was already defying much of what we already know about submersible design,” Rachel Lance, a Duke University biomedical engineer who has studied physiological requirements of survival underwater, told CNN.
She also noted that some of the vessel’s design materials “were already large red flags to people who have worked in this field.”
Yesterday, we reported on how eerie video footage had resurfaced from a previous Titan trip to the wreck of the Titanic, showing the vessel experiencing serious problems.
During said expedition, the crew were said to be around 300 meters from the wreck when the pilot told them they had encountered “a problem”. It transpired that the Titan had started to spin and had only 360 motion, with the controls having to be reprogrammed before it could return to the surface.
In the same, concerning vein, veteran camera operator Brian Weed was working for a TV show called Expedition Unknown in May 2021 when he and a colleague were involved in a test dive onboard the Titan.
Weed explained that the dive was supposed to be a “precursor” to a dive later that summer that would see the vessel voyage to the wreck of the Titanic.
After Weed and Expedition Unknown host Josh Gates were locked inside the submersible, Weed told Insider that he asked OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush what would happen if the Titan had to make an ascent in an emergency situation and had lost contact with its mothership.
Rush reportedly answered: “‘Well, there’s four or five days of oxygen on board, and I said, ‘What if they don’t find you?’ And he said, ‘Well, you’re dead anyway.'”
The cameraman continued: “It felt like a very strange thing to think, and it seemed to almost be a nihilistic attitude toward life or death out in the middle of the ocean.”
According to Weed, Rush’s point was: “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.”
With that in mind, it’s hardly a surprise that Weed claims to have felt “uneasy” from the start of the test dive, marking Rush’s comment as a “red flag.”
Moreover, according to Insider, the Titan experienced numerous mechanical faults and communications issues whilst on the dive.
“That whole dive made me very uncomfortable with the idea of going down to Titanic depths in that submersible,” Weed concluded.
Rest in peace to the five souls who lost their lives onboard the Titan.
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- Haunting footage shows Titan sub spinning after pilot loses control before doomed mission
- OceanGate worker sent desperate mail before doomed Titan sub voyage – and his words are so eerie
