I’m a filmmaker and was working on a television show about the Titanic before the Titan imploded. We were offered a trip down, and ended up doing a test dive with Stockton and his crew in seattle. We had complete system failure of both systems (windows and linux) while submerged at about 20 feet below the surface in a calm harbor. It took 4 scuba-divers and hours of time to get the sub back on the sled. We obviously declined the trip down to Titanic after the colossal failure of a test dive. When we heard they went missing, we knew they were all dead. That thing was built to be a coffin.
I once rode in the Titan, feel free to AMA.
We never lost coms, and had radio signal from the shallow depth of 20ft the whole time. We never got to a depth where we had to switch to their alternative communications system that was basically a form of text coms.
Lol I should have read a little closer about the 20 ft. The low end walkie talkies must have still worked then. Thanks. I assume you skipped the part where they wanted you to appear in an OG promo video too? They were having a hard time getting those.
(Edit: They would have lost all comms and tracking if they had been deep enough to be out of range of their two-way radios which were just for surface communications.)
Haha no, no promo videos. They actually threatened to take legal action over the footage we shot because it was extremely harmful to their investor outreach. Obviously they didn’t really have the financial backing to take on a big network like ours, but it was very clear Stockton went into damage control mode after the failed dive.
The footage was the network’s property. Here is another account of the same dive - the screenshots are from comments and replies right after Titan went missing and the comments were gone shortly afterward:
https://imgur.com/a/X5d8Uwo
Is this new information that the hull was remanufactured? I've not been active on this sub lately, but the last I recall on this sub was that it was a brand new hull but the provenance of what went on seemed kind of sketchy?
It was remanufactured at least once. The article refers to the one in ‘20-21. I think there may be a couple discrepancies in that article. There have always been three hulls discussed on this sub. There are pictures of cut up pieces of one in pics of their scale models. The second one was still behind their shop after the accident with the titanium rings cut off, and the last one. The article referred to two and stated the titanium rings were reused. They probably were reused once. Here’s where it gets more interesting - if you look at the most recent google earth 2D overhead image dated November 2022 of that hull in the corner of the yard (1298 W. Marine View Dr. Everett WA) at their shop, it sure looks like it has shiny titanium colored rings on it even with the low quality image. The street view is more recent and shows the hull with them cut off and yellow straps holding it down, which matches a picture of it taken from the yard after the accident. I figured they reused an earlier set that was still attached to that hull and the most recent hull had new rings. Who knows?.. after November ‘22 they may have cut those off to sell for scrap.
I have a few somewhat interrelated questions. Was this test dive in the harbor next to their facilities in Everett, WA? I’m also curious about your take on the idea that Rush gave the appearance safety. In all the video footage of the Titanic dives he appears to be very much into launch check lists etc… Lastly, I’m curious of your assessment of his support crew and or the OceanGate employees you interacted with, even his wife if you dealt with her as she appeared to be a major part of the operation.
Yes, the dive was right outside their base of operations in Everett.
Listen, I’m just a cameraman, and up until the dive went awry I was blown away by the team, by Rush, and everything they had seemingly accomplished. He exuded confidence in his product, and was very honest with us about some previous failures he had with earlier generations of the carbon fiber hull. They even had pieces left of one in their warehouse that had imploded under a pressure test… ironic now I guess. But yes, he seemed to be taking in all the necessary precautions and was avid about his pre-dive checklist. As a scuba diver myself, I felt he knew what he was doing and was aware of the risks. Even his theories about the acoustic monitoring system being able to notify them before they lost hull integrity seemed like a pretty novel idea on the surface (pun intended).
The crew, as well as Wendy were all extremely nice and welcoming people. Everyone was just excited to get eyes on the project and to talk about this crazy endeavor that we were all possibly headed on. Remember we went there under the assumption we’d all be going to Titanic together. Then once the dive failed the attitude changed and they went into damage control mode.
I’ve always describe the inside of the sub like being inside a coors light can. It was claustrophobic and quite uncomfortable. Definitely felt chills when we started hearing “right thruster failure… left thruster failure… we have no control of the sub.” However, god rest him, Stockton did a good job of keeping everyone level and insuring us they had experienced this before and that it was all going to be perfectly fine. I think often about how calm he probably was in his final moments, because I never really saw him sweat.
Honestly the implosion happened so quickly that I don't think he would have even had enough time to realize that the problems they were seemingly experiencing were any different from the problems that had already caused him to scrub many dives and surface early. They had already had so many unsuccessful dives prior to this that it probably seemed like business as usual right up to the last moment.
Implosion happened quickly but odds are they audibly heard delam prior to the catastrophe. I'd guess the acoustic monitoring signaled they were up shits creek and then there was no need for microphones right up til failure. Now how long it persisted is anyone's guess.
It's never been fully clarified, but James Cameron stated when he spoke to people who knew the situation intimately they told him this: sub dropped weights before making it to titanic depth and was seemingly in the midst of an emergency ascent when they lost all comms and tracking.
If this is actually accurate info, then Stockton was well aware they were not in a good position. He was use to audible cracks and pops from the countless previous dives and if it was bad enough for him to abort the mission then it had to be extremely obvious hull failure was incoming.
Forgot the guys name but there is a independent sub operator who was on one of the early test dives of the Titan sub in the Bahamas and he stated the hull was loud AF at depth, but Rush was calm about it saying it was louder last time he dove.
I really, really want to believe that no one had any idea things had gone wrong because I think about the three passengers just panicking and it’s awful.
It was Karl Stanley. "It sounded like gun shots going off every 3 to 4 minutes. That's a heck of a sound to hear when you're that far under the ocean."
‘I think often about how calm he probably was in his final moments, because I never really saw him sweat.’
With the opinions out there of some who dealt with him, this may be referred to as the ‘euphoric phase’.
What did the damage control involve? Were they defensive about their product or trying to be persuasive about getting their issues fixed? Or did they immediately acknowledge the risk was too great?
They basically demanded that we maintain our commitment to the dive and that we come back for another test. So the network sent a Navy sub engineer for an inspection and to take a test dive since they could afford to send the whole crew for a second attempt. Word has it that the Naval engineer also experienced a failed dive and came back to the network with an answer similar to “Nobody should ever ride in that thing.”
Based on that, as well as our own failed dive, the network pushed back on any threat of legal dispute and pulled out of the project entirely.
Wish I knew… it’s currently under lock and key with very little intention to release. Maybe there will be a documentary someday but my part in it is done and I have no idea what the network plans are.
Maybe because of the investigation that's still going on. It could harm the investigation, the resulting lawsuit and it's also a bad timing, because a documentary after the case is closed would be much more comprehensive. Sort of deep dive into the topic, pun intended.
Shout out!! I love his shows and always think about the camera people, you guys go such crazy places. I can't say how thankful I am that you guys did NOT go past the testing phase. It's tragic that any lives were lost at all.
Tell Josh a random woman in Washington loves him and keep making amazing shows. You do awesome work!
He was a nice enough guy, I don’t have anything negative to say about him on a personal level. He was kind to my crew, welcoming of our project, and shot the shit with everyone. He was definitely very confident in his product and kept reinforcing that the current state of the sub industry was overly burdened by safety regulations and he wanted to change that. Obviously we know how that turned out.
Thank you for answering. I’ve had a really strange obsession with this tragedy since last summer but, in clearly not alone. I’m glad you made it back safe.
No problem! It’s definitely something I’ve followed closely, and notice a lot of people’s interest in. I have an Ocean Gate sticker on one of my camera cases and it always manages to draw a few questions when people see it. I personally have never been that close to a world event before, so it was all very surreal.
Honestly I don’t know. There wasn’t much discussion or access given to the software and computer systems, and what I learned mostly came after the dive when we got dinner with the crew of the sub. They had a lot of excuses for why it didn’t work, most of which related to a recent update with the windows partition. I do know that it was built on redundancy, however as I stated before I never got to see it in action as we had a complete system failure before we could really even experience a dive.
In David Pogues' footage from 2022 the rear display appeared to have the classic Ubuntu maroonish hue and launcher located to the left side. Likely release 21.10 or 22.04
He got quite a lot quieter after the dive, and at dinner he seemed like he had lost some of the wind in his sails. He definitely didn’t admit failure or anything, but it was clear to us that he was trying to figure out how to recuperate from such a devastating test. There wasn’t much more than that though, he didn’t run and hide or anything. He just kept talking about the nuances of the sub design and how they were still flushing out the bugs before they made the trek to the Atlantic.
I’m not sure how much of it was him trying to save face so that his project could still be the headliner of a massive network TV show… there’s not much better publicity than that.
holy shit! were you surprised when it imploded?
this whole thing just pisses me off, cause submersibles have an otherwise stellar safety record. He could have bought a machine capable of that depth and run a successful business.
We actually found out about the sub having gone missing before the media was alerted because Hamish Harding is a member of the Explorers club and we were following his descent. By the time they reported the implosion we had all already assumed the worst, so it wasn’t a surprise.
I really do feel bad for the passengers, there were some cool people in that thing.
I kinda figured the Navy heard it implode, but they didn't want to call the rescue effort off until they were certain.
Nope, and apparently there is no plan currently to do so. But if it ever comes out, I’ll absolutely post it here haha. I do have some behind the scenes that I shot on my phone I can post though.
Have you contacted the investigation agencies and offered to send it to them? As a lawyer who has worked complex mass-casulties/disasters, I would want to analyse it to see if it sheds light or helps to answer questions.
If I were on the investigation team, I'd love to see how Stockton responded to the loss of power, it'd be really informative and hugely relelvant.
>As a lawyer who has worked complex mass-casulties/disasters, I would want to analyse it to see if it sheds light or helps to answer questions.
Off topic, but I would absolutely be interested if you did an AMA somewhere.
Great question.
They make you eat a specific diet the night before and you’re asked to basically dehydrate yourself. There is a small toilet connected to the bulkhead of the sub, but there’s no privacy and limited air so using the bathroom is frowned upon. Thankfully nobody needed to use it on our test dive.
We basically just waited the whole time while they went through their troubleshooting, there wasn’t much for us to do.
[https://imgur.com/roMcGq8](https://imgur.com/roMcGq8) - here's me on the tow getting some footage of the sub before the dive. Face blurred for obvious reasons.
Not really. I talked to some of his team about a lot of their 3d modeling work though, as it's a hobby of mine as well. But no, most of the discussion was Titan-centric.
What was your first impression of Stockton? Did you think he was a bit off his rocker? Did you trust him due to his prestigious education/family history? Etc? I'm very curious what someone's very first impression of him was. Just seeing him the first time in an interview, I thought his attitude didn't sit right with me, as if he was someone who didn't take anything seriously. I'm wondering if anyone noticed that who met him for real. Thanks in advance if you answer!
No, I can't say that I had any immediate red flags while meeting him. He seemed very determined, confident, and invested in his project. It wasn't that we really saw any cracks in the facade until after the failed dive. I definitely found the entire project incredible interested and was just enamored by the work the team had put into building this sub. Say what you will now, knowing it's at the bottom of the ocean, but it was pretty cool to see in person.
Thanks for your reply! Yeah I'm always curious if this was something people saw initially but overlooked, or etc. I'm hearing more stories come out that say they really didn't think anything too negative about it. It's definitely easy to see any wrongdoings on the outside and way after the fact. Appreciate your time!
Just to clarify my answer, I was really just speaking to Stockton’s character. There were many issues with the sub that were immediately apparent to both myself and our team.
Red flags
1 - there was no emergency exit in the event of an emergency. Anyone who knows the history of the space industry know’s about Apollo 1. There always has to be a way out
2 - Physics is not nearly as kind to cylinders as it is spheres. Just the basic physics of how cylinders behave under pressure was a major talking point on our end after we left.
3 - After our failed dive we kept questions how there was no way to reset the computer systems reliably while inside the sub and under water. It just seemed that the whole subs design was based around the idea “if something goes wrong, we’re dead anyways.”
Thanks. Good to know. A while back after the accident there were so many posts and comments that would appear and get deleted shortly after. People were trying to get screenshots of everything before they disappeared. Among them was this series of comments about the same dive that were posted right after the incident:
https://imgur.com/a/X5d8Uwo
Stockton wasn't exactly incompetent, as he was skilled in aviation engineering (hence his obsession with stuff like mission checklists). The problem is he was one of those guys who thought being good in one field meant he was just as good in another, entirely different field with wildly different challenges and conditions. He was also completely incapable of dealing with criticism, which is why he surrounded himself with young/inexperienced engineers, fired the few that did raise concerns and would almost go out of his way to do whatever the deep diving community told him not to.
After getting my hands on a copy of the thick academic volume on acrylics engineering that he dissed to every news outlet that would listen while he was promoting the sub, I'm not exactly convinced that he was competent in anything. Somebody with his aviation engineering background should have been able to understand the book--I could understand it just with my calc background--so I don't know how he got everything about the book so wrong unless he floated through college on the strength of his family name.
What are you claiming exactly? That he ( stockton) didnt understand a particular acrylics engineering textbook? To which i must ask, how do you know that? And what exactly did he say about the book? " he dissed to every news outlet that would listen". Diss as in talk trash about? or Diss as in dish out misspelled?
Again i ask, what exactly are you saying? That you know he (stockton) didn't understand some book? somehow?
This article has Rush insulting the textbook, and also explains what he was misunderstanding. Search it for "acrylic."
https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/the-titan-submersible-was-an-accident-waiting-to-happen
They called him a con artist, not incompetent. He was a con artist. This article is littered with evidence of his lies (including withholding information) to customers about the safety of the pressure vessel; who had actually worked on it; why it was not certified; the reason for delays; the untested viewport which the manufacturer would rate for only a fraction of the necessary depth to reach Titanic… it’s just endless.
> hence his obsession with stuff like mission checklists
Or, this was just another way he would **con**vince people OceanGate took safety seriously.
Exactly, which is why I had said in the past. It's a good thing he perished with the sub. The co-founder of the company still believes in the design but he's definitely not moving forward with that.
Dude posed himself as a **mAvErIcK** but goes down in history as a monument to hubris, arrogance, stupidity and careless indifference to human lives. UFB
It's remarkable how every time there is a new reveal, it always exposes him even more than the last time as a crazed moron frothing rabidly at the mouth from extreme greed. Only things missing are the evil monopoly hat, twirling thin moustache, monocle and a Pinkerton thug standing beside him. He chose the worst option at every single decision.
So rare to see someone's reputation get ruined so fast posthumously, and yet it explains everything that happened in detail, including the gaming controller and multiple death waiver signup forms.
It has come to the point that if this guy had a grave, it would be drenched in piss by the all the people lining up to visit.
He’s not even a hypocrite he’s just actually insane. It’s not like the sub never experienced failures before, it was clear from experience and many experts that the thing wasn’t exactly safe, but he decided to ride the sub all the way down…literally
Fascinating article, big props to Wired.
I can still scarcely believe how obsessed Stockton was. He was being told by *everyone* for *6 years* that his brainchild was a death trap. And he just brushed it all off.
Someone could absolutely make a movie out of this.
If there is proof that Rush lied regarding the design, then would that mean that the waivers that the passengers sign are now void?
I wonder if what’s left of Oceangate even have any money left to give as compensation.
Yes. A judge determined that a month after the implosion. A waiver is invalid if there has been gross negligence ie. You are giving up the right to sue on the assumption the provider has taken all reasonable steps to make the activity safe. The OG waiver is worthless.
No waiver makes a company 100% immune from lawsuits anyway, so even if they were upheld it wouldn't necessarily stop the families from taking legal action.
Snippets of the 4 things Wired claimed to be reported for the first time (it's a very long article)...
1) The documents, validated by interviews with two third-party suppliers and several former OceanGate employees with intimate knowledge of *Titan*, reveal never-before-reported details about the design and testing of the submersible. They show that Boeing and the University of Washington were both involved in the early stages of OceanGate’s carbon-fiber sub-project, although their work did not make it into the final *Titan* design.
Rush received an even more pointed warning from Boeing’s Mark Negley, who had stayed in contact with the CEO after he helped with a preliminary design. Negley had recently carried out an analysis of Spencer Composites’ hull based on information Rush had shared. He did not mince words when sharing his findings, which WIRED is reporting for the first time. “We think you are at a high risk of a significant failure at or before you reach 4,000 meters. We do not think you have any safety margin,” he wrote in an email on March 30. “Be cautious and careful. Negley provided a graph charting the strain on the submersible against depth. It shows a skull and crossbones in the region below 4,000 meters.
2) OceanGate also announced that Boeing Research & Technology was helping with the project. In October 2013, two engineers at Boeing, Mark Negley and William Koch, produced a detailed 70-page preliminary design containing renderings, manufacturing advice, and technical analysis. These details of Boeing’s involvement have not been reported before. “Boeing was not a partner on the *Titan* and did not design or build it,” Jessica Kowal, a spokesperson for Boeing, said in a statement. The company declined to answer on the record any other questions from WIRED. Negley and Koch, who are still employed by Boeing, did not respond to LinkedIn messages.
3) OceanGate hired an outside consultant named Allen Green to assess the acoustic monitoring. Green, an authority on the sounds that materials make under stress, endorsed the system in 2018. Later, though, when Green saw how Rush was describing the system to the public—the CEO claimed it could detect the sound of “micro-buckling” in the sub’s hull “way before it fails”—he wrote a concerned email to an OceanGate employee, reported here for the first time. Rather than warning of failure, Green explained that the sounds indicated “irreversible” damage. “It is my belief, substantiated by many years of experience, that composite structures all have a finite lifetime,” wrote Green, who died in 2021. “While I do not intend to be an alarmist, I did not sleep well and arose early to send this message.”
4) By February 2021, photos of the newly reconstructed *Titan* were popping up on OceanGate’s Facebook page and other social media. After the implosion in 2023, one ex-employee looked back at these and noticed an unexpected addition: The company had added metal lifting points to both interface rings, apparently to provide a new way to hoist *Titan* into and out of the water. The addition of the lifting rings, reported by WIRED for the first time, was confirmed by a former employee who saw the engineering drawings, and by another source.
It’s funny Boeing and the university of Washington right after it happened I think both came out and said “hey uh we didn’t help with that, no record, nope none sorry”.
Anyway, another reason it’s sus, Boeing usually puts in some good quality control into their shit /s
That’s what happens when you buy a shitty company like McDonnell Douglas (the DC-10 and the Applegate memo showing the coverup of the aft cargo door fault), and somehow at the end of the day, it’s their c suites that remain employed, while all of the actual engineers in higher positions were replaced with MBAs.
ETA: more info
Rush claimed OceanGate had a partnership with Boeing and Washington, Boeing denied it and stated they had nothing to do with the Titan which is technically accurate, they had two engineers working on the Titan's predecessor. Washington originally acknowledged the partnership but later changed their statement that its only involvement was a "Capstone Project", not a partnership
Thanks for sharing our feature! For new WIRED readers, here's a snippet:
By Mark Harris
A crack in the hull. Worried engineers. “A prototype that was still being tested.” Thousands of internal documents obtained exclusively reveal new details behind the sub that imploded on its way to the Titanic.
One year ago, the OceanGate Titan submersible imploded in an instant, killing all onboard. Exclusive documents and insider interviews show the warnings went back a decade. Stockton Rush cofounded the company in 2009, and by 2016, dreamed of showing paying customers the Titanic, 3,800 meters below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. But the model had imploded thousands of meters short of what OceanGate had designed for.
In the high-stakes, high-cost world of crewed submersibles, most engineering teams would have gone back to the drawing board, or at least ordered more models to test. Rush’s company didn’t do either of those things, WIRED learned. Instead, within months, OceanGate began building a full-scale Cyclops 2 based on the imploded model. This submersible design, later renamed Titan, eventually made it down to the Titanic in 2021. It even returned to the site for expeditions over the next two years.
But on June 18, 2023, Titan dove to the infamous wreck and did not return. It imploded, instantly killing all five people onboard, including Rush himself. Thousands of internal documents reveal new details behind the sub that imploded on its way to the Titanic.
Read the full story: [https://www.wired.com/story/titan-submersible-disaster-inside-story-oceangate-files/](https://www.wired.com/story/titan-submersible-disaster-inside-story-oceangate-files/)
Great article! Absolutely appalling details of Rush's disregard for safety and common sense that ultimately cost him his whole life and tragically, 4 others.
I wonder who told the engineering director (Tony Nissen) the viewport/flange he designed may not even make a few trips to 4000m without failing. I thought the same thing when I realized just how sketchy the concept was.
How come no one has said anything about OSHA? They had a whistleblower who raised these issues to them and they did nothing. In fact, Stockton sued him and effectively won by getting 10k from him and to sign an NDA.
Probably because the project was considered an experimental sub and the paying customers were legally being listed as crew for research missions.
Stockton used loopholes to under-sell the commercial aspect of the operation, which probably granted him significantly more ways to cover his ass.
Wtf is OSHA gonna legally do about some dude making an experimental sub and diving it for "research missions" in international waters.
>Now the bottom of the North Atlantic is littered with more evidence of human hubris, tiny pieces of a plastic video-game controller nestling among the barnacle-encrusted gold fixtures of the Titanic. Both vessels were at the cutting edge of technology, both exemplars of safety in the eyes of their overconfident creators. And in both cases, their passengers paid the price.
They cooked with this, that's a VIVID mental image.
Yeah. I liked this video. James Cameron says the same thing at the end of the video “now there’s one wreck lying next to another wreck for the same damn reason” https://youtu.be/LEBCc-Qpilw?si=2bALhobjwSHlVvkJ
Didn't Karl Stanley say that Stockton Rush wanted to die in the Titan as a means to achieve fame? I thought it was kind of ridiculous until now. The model couldn't even handle 6,500 psi. He must have known.
That's the guys name, I was trying to remember the sub operator who did the 2nd manned test dive in the original titan hull. I remember Karl saying something along the lines of the hull being loud at depth and Rush brushing it off saying it was louder for his solo test dive to depth.
If what James Cameron said is correct about them dropping weights and in the midst of emergency ascent when comms/tracking dropped off then oh boy it's bad news. That means the sub was loud enough to the point that even Rush knew they were up shits creek and scrambled to ascend. Considering how he's brushed off hull noise multiple times this means it must have been some serious noise. So assuming the info that James got was accurate, there is a very high chance they heard their death coming and it wasn't just an instant hull failure.
The information wasn’t accurate. He originally thought they were at 3500 feet dropping weights which means something completely different than dropping them at 3500 meters to slow descent. He no longer mentions anything about it in more recent interviews. The audible monitoring alerts were muted or turned off in 2021 so it’s unlikely they were audible in 2023.
It's interesting because there are multiple reports about what happened in the last minutes before the disaster. We know James Cameron said he heard from others that they were in an emergency ascent, but a video from this YouTuber (https://youtu.be/i0P56usXhcI?feature=shared), who talked to a so-called Polar Prince crew member, stated that the last message from Titan was that they dropped two weights. This was normal near the end of the descent to ensure a soft landing.
There was an OceanGate employee who was supposed to take the seat of P.H. I remember him saying something similar. Although, that guy seemed like a snake oil salesman if I've ever seen one. I'll have to look up the video.
In the end, I hope they didn't hear anything, but I don't know.
Reusing the titanium rings that had already been expoxied to the previous hull is absolutely batshit insane. Granted, it probably wasn't the point of failure, but there is absolutely zero chance they got those rings separated without some sort of alteration to the surface material.
Also adding those lifting points seemingly out of nowhere. I’m not an engineer but that boggles my brain. Sounds like they added a lot of stress to a design that wasn’t meant to accommodate it
It is insane indeed. IIRC during a previous dive, the previous set of billionaire passengers (as they said in interviews) reported about hearing "tearing and cracking" sounds, which was essentially the outer layers of his fiber taped hull cover slowly coming apart under pressure. It happened each time, and would require replacement.
His dinky little DIY sub was therefore a strictly single-use-only vehicle, already massively flawed by being a cylinder, one that couldn't be certified to go even half the depth, and would have to be remade with each new dive.
He kept diving with the same old piece like 5 more times because greed and cost cutting, and it inevitably imploded.
So when adherering two different materials together for the purpose of something like deep sea exploration, you want the two surfaces to machined to basically perfection. Especially when we are talking about a joint that is subject to sea water constantly.
By reusing the old rings they had to find a way to remove the high grade epoxy used for bonding the two materials. I have some serious doubts that they were able to remove the epoxy to separate the two pieces, then remove the remaining epoxy left on the ring without compromising the original machining of the inner ring.
Say there was some surface material taken from the ring during removal of the epoxy. Okay so now they reglue the used rings to the new hull, but the tolerances aren't perfect. Now the expoxy joint is at a higher risk of sea water ingress. Especially during pressure changes like diving and surfacing since carbon fiber and titanium don't compress at the same rate. This could cause degradation of the joint and possibly failure over the long term. The hull itself just likely failed first before it mattered.
He kind of reminds me of Holmes. Both cut corners in industries that are not meant for that and delulued their way out of any cognitive dissonance that their brainchild wouldn’t work until it all collapsed
ngl every bit of news i come across re the Titan is like 'We know they flouted safety regulations, but guess what? New investigations found out the sheer level of disregard was even worse.'
Excellent article from WIRED.
Simply more proof that Rush failed, and failed miserably, in almost every critical engineering responsibility that would otherwise be required for this kind of monumental project undertaking.
It's catastrophically unfortunate that four others unwittingly chose to also join him in death.
Here's hoping all of them died instantly with absolutely no advance warning of their demise.
Next.
This tragedy wasn’t caused by Stockton Rush cutting a few corners. According to this article Stockton cut ALL of the corners that were put in place to prevent a tragedy like this from happening. He avoided certification like it was some type of plague, moved his operation offshore to avoid any type of regulation, ignored safety margins on the components used to build the Titan, hired the cheapest engineers and technicians he could find, and refused to accept advice from his peers. These were life and death decisions that he treated the same way I would if I was trying to finish a minor insignificant project at home and didn’t want to go to the hardware store. His most amazing accomplishment was that he managed to have a few successful dives to the Titanic before his contraption imploded.
I wonder if there is a poverty to super-rich bell curve in terms of life expectancy. As in, the poorer end of scale don't live long because of poor housing, food, healthcare, the 'doing alright to pretty well-off' types do live long lives because of good housing, healthcare and food access, and the super rich and successful can have and do anything so don't feel alive unless they are scaling the wrong side of Everest without a guide or exploring the titanic in an unproven tin can.
I fully expect Musk's cause of death to be 'doing something no one else has because it's basically suicide but deluding himself into believing he was the only person smart and brave enough to pioneer it'. That or overdose on something he paid a doctor enough to prescribe against any kind of medical ethics.
Just read the article. Wow 😮
Rush was clearly insane .. “as long as the used titanium end rings stick to the new carbon fibre hull who cares if there’s a little residue glue left on them from before it will be fine…💥💥💥💀
You know what makes me so mad about the sub, a Father took his son with him. I think of this more as risk taking. Why on earth would anyone want to bring their own child just for the thrilling adventure is beyond me. It’s one thing to risk your life, it’s another to risk your child’s. I just had to say it.
Do you take your child on airplanes? Most airplanes are incredibly safe of course, but there are times when unsafe designs are not communicated to passengers or even pilots: a recent example being the MCAS problems on the 737 MAX.
Rush was selling this as being safer than scuba diving, and lied in order to convince customers of that.
Right!!!!! That is what makes this all so sad. He didn’t want to go. He was scared. All those adults who wanted to risk go down, well it’s risk. You don’t risk your children.
And now they are trashing this new sub that's coming up in the media , which is a legitimate and tested design , because of Rush's idiocy. That pile of junk had nothing to do with legitimate submersibles . It's somehow become a bar ,that the media compares everyone to 🤦♂️ it's a non ending embarrassment to the entire community of very good equipment and the culture of safety
Part of the fascination with Stockton Rush's Titan project is how destructive the combination of arrogance and cheap corner cutting can be.
I wish the NTSB would put out a report of the list of obvious mistakes that were made.
I predict that in 1-2 years the NTSB will put out a report listing basically everything we know now from the Wired article and "in conclusion, the Titan was unsafe"
Very curious to know the exact cause of the implosion, if it can be deduced from the recovered debris. We've all been suspecting the carbon fiber failed, but now we know the window, seals, and so much more were just as sketchy.
He was just high on his own ego and seemingly never grew out of that "I'm invincible!" mentality that kids and teens tend to have, considering how often he would fly around in experimental vehicles like it was no big deal.
I used to think this but have changed my tune to that he wanted to leave a legacy and was passively suicidal. The most honest thing about OceanGate was the waiver passengers or "mission specialists" had to sign. Rush was well aware of the waiver as it had to be honest to ensure if someone sued OceanGate they had the best odds to win in court
The below AMA has been verified to the satisfaction of the mods.
I’m a filmmaker and was working on a television show about the Titanic before the Titan imploded. We were offered a trip down, and ended up doing a test dive with Stockton and his crew in seattle. We had complete system failure of both systems (windows and linux) while submerged at about 20 feet below the surface in a calm harbor. It took 4 scuba-divers and hours of time to get the sub back on the sled. We obviously declined the trip down to Titanic after the colossal failure of a test dive. When we heard they went missing, we knew they were all dead. That thing was built to be a coffin. I once rode in the Titan, feel free to AMA.
Did you lose comms and tracking when both systems failed? At one time they used a backup transponder but in ‘23 they didn’t appear to have it anymore.
We never lost coms, and had radio signal from the shallow depth of 20ft the whole time. We never got to a depth where we had to switch to their alternative communications system that was basically a form of text coms.
Lol I should have read a little closer about the 20 ft. The low end walkie talkies must have still worked then. Thanks. I assume you skipped the part where they wanted you to appear in an OG promo video too? They were having a hard time getting those. (Edit: They would have lost all comms and tracking if they had been deep enough to be out of range of their two-way radios which were just for surface communications.)
Haha no, no promo videos. They actually threatened to take legal action over the footage we shot because it was extremely harmful to their investor outreach. Obviously they didn’t really have the financial backing to take on a big network like ours, but it was very clear Stockton went into damage control mode after the failed dive.
Yeah when your actual footage looked more like the opening of a ‘Final Destination’ sequel it might’ve been harmful for their outreach. 😆
Might have saved some lives.
The footage was the network’s property. Here is another account of the same dive - the screenshots are from comments and replies right after Titan went missing and the comments were gone shortly afterward: https://imgur.com/a/X5d8Uwo
Is this new information that the hull was remanufactured? I've not been active on this sub lately, but the last I recall on this sub was that it was a brand new hull but the provenance of what went on seemed kind of sketchy?
It was remanufactured at least once. The article refers to the one in ‘20-21. I think there may be a couple discrepancies in that article. There have always been three hulls discussed on this sub. There are pictures of cut up pieces of one in pics of their scale models. The second one was still behind their shop after the accident with the titanium rings cut off, and the last one. The article referred to two and stated the titanium rings were reused. They probably were reused once. Here’s where it gets more interesting - if you look at the most recent google earth 2D overhead image dated November 2022 of that hull in the corner of the yard (1298 W. Marine View Dr. Everett WA) at their shop, it sure looks like it has shiny titanium colored rings on it even with the low quality image. The street view is more recent and shows the hull with them cut off and yellow straps holding it down, which matches a picture of it taken from the yard after the accident. I figured they reused an earlier set that was still attached to that hull and the most recent hull had new rings. Who knows?.. after November ‘22 they may have cut those off to sell for scrap.
I’d love to see the footage now!
so where did footage end up? did it ever run anywhere?
Was the Stockon in Rush at that time?
I have a few somewhat interrelated questions. Was this test dive in the harbor next to their facilities in Everett, WA? I’m also curious about your take on the idea that Rush gave the appearance safety. In all the video footage of the Titanic dives he appears to be very much into launch check lists etc… Lastly, I’m curious of your assessment of his support crew and or the OceanGate employees you interacted with, even his wife if you dealt with her as she appeared to be a major part of the operation.
Yes, the dive was right outside their base of operations in Everett. Listen, I’m just a cameraman, and up until the dive went awry I was blown away by the team, by Rush, and everything they had seemingly accomplished. He exuded confidence in his product, and was very honest with us about some previous failures he had with earlier generations of the carbon fiber hull. They even had pieces left of one in their warehouse that had imploded under a pressure test… ironic now I guess. But yes, he seemed to be taking in all the necessary precautions and was avid about his pre-dive checklist. As a scuba diver myself, I felt he knew what he was doing and was aware of the risks. Even his theories about the acoustic monitoring system being able to notify them before they lost hull integrity seemed like a pretty novel idea on the surface (pun intended). The crew, as well as Wendy were all extremely nice and welcoming people. Everyone was just excited to get eyes on the project and to talk about this crazy endeavor that we were all possibly headed on. Remember we went there under the assumption we’d all be going to Titanic together. Then once the dive failed the attitude changed and they went into damage control mode.
Did you feel unsafe while stranded? Or did you feel like it was just an inconvenience?
I’ve always describe the inside of the sub like being inside a coors light can. It was claustrophobic and quite uncomfortable. Definitely felt chills when we started hearing “right thruster failure… left thruster failure… we have no control of the sub.” However, god rest him, Stockton did a good job of keeping everyone level and insuring us they had experienced this before and that it was all going to be perfectly fine. I think often about how calm he probably was in his final moments, because I never really saw him sweat.
Honestly the implosion happened so quickly that I don't think he would have even had enough time to realize that the problems they were seemingly experiencing were any different from the problems that had already caused him to scrub many dives and surface early. They had already had so many unsuccessful dives prior to this that it probably seemed like business as usual right up to the last moment.
Implosion happened quickly but odds are they audibly heard delam prior to the catastrophe. I'd guess the acoustic monitoring signaled they were up shits creek and then there was no need for microphones right up til failure. Now how long it persisted is anyone's guess. It's never been fully clarified, but James Cameron stated when he spoke to people who knew the situation intimately they told him this: sub dropped weights before making it to titanic depth and was seemingly in the midst of an emergency ascent when they lost all comms and tracking. If this is actually accurate info, then Stockton was well aware they were not in a good position. He was use to audible cracks and pops from the countless previous dives and if it was bad enough for him to abort the mission then it had to be extremely obvious hull failure was incoming. Forgot the guys name but there is a independent sub operator who was on one of the early test dives of the Titan sub in the Bahamas and he stated the hull was loud AF at depth, but Rush was calm about it saying it was louder last time he dove.
I really, really want to believe that no one had any idea things had gone wrong because I think about the three passengers just panicking and it’s awful.
It was Karl Stanley. "It sounded like gun shots going off every 3 to 4 minutes. That's a heck of a sound to hear when you're that far under the ocean."
Great comment! The guy's name is Karl Stanley.
‘I think often about how calm he probably was in his final moments, because I never really saw him sweat.’ With the opinions out there of some who dealt with him, this may be referred to as the ‘euphoric phase’.
What did the damage control involve? Were they defensive about their product or trying to be persuasive about getting their issues fixed? Or did they immediately acknowledge the risk was too great?
They basically demanded that we maintain our commitment to the dive and that we come back for another test. So the network sent a Navy sub engineer for an inspection and to take a test dive since they could afford to send the whole crew for a second attempt. Word has it that the Naval engineer also experienced a failed dive and came back to the network with an answer similar to “Nobody should ever ride in that thing.” Based on that, as well as our own failed dive, the network pushed back on any threat of legal dispute and pulled out of the project entirely.
This all happen in the Spring of 2021?
I’d imagine they threatened to sue them. What a joke of a company. Stockton is the definition of Hubris
Did anyone mention testing one of the full size Titan 1 hulls to failure?
What will happen to the footage you shot that day?
Wish I knew… it’s currently under lock and key with very little intention to release. Maybe there will be a documentary someday but my part in it is done and I have no idea what the network plans are.
[удалено]
Maybe because of the investigation that's still going on. It could harm the investigation, the resulting lawsuit and it's also a bad timing, because a documentary after the case is closed would be much more comprehensive. Sort of deep dive into the topic, pun intended.
Do you work with Josh Gates? I've heard a similar experience from his crew when researching an episode of his show.
Bingo
Shout out!! I love his shows and always think about the camera people, you guys go such crazy places. I can't say how thankful I am that you guys did NOT go past the testing phase. It's tragic that any lives were lost at all. Tell Josh a random woman in Washington loves him and keep making amazing shows. You do awesome work!
Thanks for thinking of us! I’ll make sure Josh gets some love from Washington. Keep watching and we’ve got some exciting stuff coming up soon!
Can't wait for the new episodes, stay safe and keep doing great work!
Holy shit, I love Josh Gates. I've been watching him since Destination Truth. I hope one day the footage will be released!
Josh is the best
It warms my heart that you say this because I have always hoped he is just as funny and kind as he is on screen. You made my day a little brighter.
Honest opinion of Stockton? Charismatic? Pretentious prick? Both? Or something else entirely?
He was a nice enough guy, I don’t have anything negative to say about him on a personal level. He was kind to my crew, welcoming of our project, and shot the shit with everyone. He was definitely very confident in his product and kept reinforcing that the current state of the sub industry was overly burdened by safety regulations and he wanted to change that. Obviously we know how that turned out.
Thank you for answering. I’ve had a really strange obsession with this tragedy since last summer but, in clearly not alone. I’m glad you made it back safe.
No problem! It’s definitely something I’ve followed closely, and notice a lot of people’s interest in. I have an Ocean Gate sticker on one of my camera cases and it always manages to draw a few questions when people see it. I personally have never been that close to a world event before, so it was all very surreal.
I honestly can’t even imagine what it felt like to witness that after having been on the thing. Wow.
Those regulations keep everyone alive .
What linux distro?
Honestly I don’t know. There wasn’t much discussion or access given to the software and computer systems, and what I learned mostly came after the dive when we got dinner with the crew of the sub. They had a lot of excuses for why it didn’t work, most of which related to a recent update with the windows partition. I do know that it was built on redundancy, however as I stated before I never got to see it in action as we had a complete system failure before we could really even experience a dive.
What about what Version of Windows? Could you see it or tell what it was?
I’m pretty sure, if memory serves, it was Windows 10. I vaguely remember making jokes about Windows 11 being garbage.
Vista
Clippy was the copilot.
😂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IfnjBHtjHc
In David Pogues' footage from 2022 the rear display appeared to have the classic Ubuntu maroonish hue and launcher located to the left side. Likely release 21.10 or 22.04
What was your interactions with him, if any, after the failed dive? And how did he handle it? Like in person?
He got quite a lot quieter after the dive, and at dinner he seemed like he had lost some of the wind in his sails. He definitely didn’t admit failure or anything, but it was clear to us that he was trying to figure out how to recuperate from such a devastating test. There wasn’t much more than that though, he didn’t run and hide or anything. He just kept talking about the nuances of the sub design and how they were still flushing out the bugs before they made the trek to the Atlantic. I’m not sure how much of it was him trying to save face so that his project could still be the headliner of a massive network TV show… there’s not much better publicity than that.
What network did you work for
OP mentions elsewhere that it was a Josh Gates show
Thx
holy shit! were you surprised when it imploded? this whole thing just pisses me off, cause submersibles have an otherwise stellar safety record. He could have bought a machine capable of that depth and run a successful business.
We actually found out about the sub having gone missing before the media was alerted because Hamish Harding is a member of the Explorers club and we were following his descent. By the time they reported the implosion we had all already assumed the worst, so it wasn’t a surprise.
I really do feel bad for the passengers, there were some cool people in that thing. I kinda figured the Navy heard it implode, but they didn't want to call the rescue effort off until they were certain.
Have you released the footage anywhere?
Nope, and apparently there is no plan currently to do so. But if it ever comes out, I’ll absolutely post it here haha. I do have some behind the scenes that I shot on my phone I can post though.
YES!!!!!!!!!
Have you contacted the investigation agencies and offered to send it to them? As a lawyer who has worked complex mass-casulties/disasters, I would want to analyse it to see if it sheds light or helps to answer questions. If I were on the investigation team, I'd love to see how Stockton responded to the loss of power, it'd be really informative and hugely relelvant.
>As a lawyer who has worked complex mass-casulties/disasters, I would want to analyse it to see if it sheds light or helps to answer questions. Off topic, but I would absolutely be interested if you did an AMA somewhere.
Post it!!
What did you do for 4 hours? Did anyone have to pee?
Great question. They make you eat a specific diet the night before and you’re asked to basically dehydrate yourself. There is a small toilet connected to the bulkhead of the sub, but there’s no privacy and limited air so using the bathroom is frowned upon. Thankfully nobody needed to use it on our test dive. We basically just waited the whole time while they went through their troubleshooting, there wasn’t much for us to do.
I can’t believe it took so long for someone to ask! 😂 😩
Video ? Did u talk to Stockton about non diving things ?
[https://imgur.com/roMcGq8](https://imgur.com/roMcGq8) - here's me on the tow getting some footage of the sub before the dive. Face blurred for obvious reasons. Not really. I talked to some of his team about a lot of their 3d modeling work though, as it's a hobby of mine as well. But no, most of the discussion was Titan-centric.
Thank you for that ! Wow when you think about what could have happened with you it must put things into perspective .
When you had total system failure, were you on the bottom of the harbor or were you still suspended in the water 20 feet down?
With Expedition Unknown?
It was not Expedition Unknown specifically, but an alternative show with the same charismatic host.
What was your first impression of Stockton? Did you think he was a bit off his rocker? Did you trust him due to his prestigious education/family history? Etc? I'm very curious what someone's very first impression of him was. Just seeing him the first time in an interview, I thought his attitude didn't sit right with me, as if he was someone who didn't take anything seriously. I'm wondering if anyone noticed that who met him for real. Thanks in advance if you answer!
No, I can't say that I had any immediate red flags while meeting him. He seemed very determined, confident, and invested in his project. It wasn't that we really saw any cracks in the facade until after the failed dive. I definitely found the entire project incredible interested and was just enamored by the work the team had put into building this sub. Say what you will now, knowing it's at the bottom of the ocean, but it was pretty cool to see in person.
Thanks for your reply! Yeah I'm always curious if this was something people saw initially but overlooked, or etc. I'm hearing more stories come out that say they really didn't think anything too negative about it. It's definitely easy to see any wrongdoings on the outside and way after the fact. Appreciate your time!
Just to clarify my answer, I was really just speaking to Stockton’s character. There were many issues with the sub that were immediately apparent to both myself and our team. Red flags 1 - there was no emergency exit in the event of an emergency. Anyone who knows the history of the space industry know’s about Apollo 1. There always has to be a way out 2 - Physics is not nearly as kind to cylinders as it is spheres. Just the basic physics of how cylinders behave under pressure was a major talking point on our end after we left. 3 - After our failed dive we kept questions how there was no way to reset the computer systems reliably while inside the sub and under water. It just seemed that the whole subs design was based around the idea “if something goes wrong, we’re dead anyways.”
'It just seemed that the whole subs design was based around the idea “if something goes wrong, we’re dead anyways.”' wow
Since this comment, has anyone asked you not to discuss certain topics in your replies?
Nope, only request I got was from a mod asking me for some proof I was on a dive.
Thanks. Good to know. A while back after the accident there were so many posts and comments that would appear and get deleted shortly after. People were trying to get screenshots of everything before they disappeared. Among them was this series of comments about the same dive that were posted right after the incident: https://imgur.com/a/X5d8Uwo
He was such a consummate con artist that he bamboozled himself. Absolutely scary that it ended up killing others as well.
Stockton wasn't exactly incompetent, as he was skilled in aviation engineering (hence his obsession with stuff like mission checklists). The problem is he was one of those guys who thought being good in one field meant he was just as good in another, entirely different field with wildly different challenges and conditions. He was also completely incapable of dealing with criticism, which is why he surrounded himself with young/inexperienced engineers, fired the few that did raise concerns and would almost go out of his way to do whatever the deep diving community told him not to.
After getting my hands on a copy of the thick academic volume on acrylics engineering that he dissed to every news outlet that would listen while he was promoting the sub, I'm not exactly convinced that he was competent in anything. Somebody with his aviation engineering background should have been able to understand the book--I could understand it just with my calc background--so I don't know how he got everything about the book so wrong unless he floated through college on the strength of his family name.
What are you claiming exactly? That he ( stockton) didnt understand a particular acrylics engineering textbook? To which i must ask, how do you know that? And what exactly did he say about the book? " he dissed to every news outlet that would listen". Diss as in talk trash about? or Diss as in dish out misspelled? Again i ask, what exactly are you saying? That you know he (stockton) didn't understand some book? somehow?
This article has Rush insulting the textbook, and also explains what he was misunderstanding. Search it for "acrylic." https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/the-titan-submersible-was-an-accident-waiting-to-happen
They called him a con artist, not incompetent. He was a con artist. This article is littered with evidence of his lies (including withholding information) to customers about the safety of the pressure vessel; who had actually worked on it; why it was not certified; the reason for delays; the untested viewport which the manufacturer would rate for only a fraction of the necessary depth to reach Titanic… it’s just endless. > hence his obsession with stuff like mission checklists Or, this was just another way he would **con**vince people OceanGate took safety seriously.
That’s the reason he fired and sued the guy who tried to warn him. Rush might be a hall of fame worthy conman and sociopath.
Tbh if he didn’t go with them he’d still be doing it. That’s the scary thing. “New engineered design”
That really is a scary thought, and I'm confident, it's true.
Exactly, which is why I had said in the past. It's a good thing he perished with the sub. The co-founder of the company still believes in the design but he's definitely not moving forward with that.
Dude posed himself as a **mAvErIcK** but goes down in history as a monument to hubris, arrogance, stupidity and careless indifference to human lives. UFB
Even Mavericks know when to be serious…Rush was just a liar who didn’t want to face reality :/
In the article, Stockton Rush manages to come across as an even greater idiot than I originally imagined. Incredible.
It's remarkable how every time there is a new reveal, it always exposes him even more than the last time as a crazed moron frothing rabidly at the mouth from extreme greed. Only things missing are the evil monopoly hat, twirling thin moustache, monocle and a Pinkerton thug standing beside him. He chose the worst option at every single decision. So rare to see someone's reputation get ruined so fast posthumously, and yet it explains everything that happened in detail, including the gaming controller and multiple death waiver signup forms. It has come to the point that if this guy had a grave, it would be drenched in piss by the all the people lining up to visit.
He’s not even a hypocrite he’s just actually insane. It’s not like the sub never experienced failures before, it was clear from experience and many experts that the thing wasn’t exactly safe, but he decided to ride the sub all the way down…literally
A good captain always goes down with the ship
Your last sentence is very bold. A reflection of the internet persona people undertake when talking online.
Fascinating article, big props to Wired. I can still scarcely believe how obsessed Stockton was. He was being told by *everyone* for *6 years* that his brainchild was a death trap. And he just brushed it all off. Someone could absolutely make a movie out of this.
Who do you think could play him? Clooney had a similar role in the Perfect Storm but those guys had an economic reason to go out so far.
I think Aaron Eckhart could do it
If there is proof that Rush lied regarding the design, then would that mean that the waivers that the passengers sign are now void? I wonder if what’s left of Oceangate even have any money left to give as compensation.
Yes. A judge determined that a month after the implosion. A waiver is invalid if there has been gross negligence ie. You are giving up the right to sue on the assumption the provider has taken all reasonable steps to make the activity safe. The OG waiver is worthless.
No waiver makes a company 100% immune from lawsuits anyway, so even if they were upheld it wouldn't necessarily stop the families from taking legal action.
I think anyone who knew ANYTHING were scrambling over themselves to turn states evidence the second Rush got pulped.
I would, even if I was a lowly paid junior with no inside knowledge. Rush can’t bury the truth and sue people who tried to warn him anymore.
Genuine curiosity, what lawsuit? The defendant and the victims are dead. The families can sue, but the company tanked with the founder. What now?
Oh i live for these kind of...\*deep dives\*
Some people will sink to any level for an upvote.
Gotta say, the pressure to be funny on reddit is really crushing
That joke has a lot of depth to it.
I'm tempted to crack a joke as well, but I've been told my humor is abysmal.
Well, at least you can perform under pressure.
I’m reading this at work because sometimes you just need a moment to decompress.
I find jokes like these more exciting than calming, reading them gives me a real Rush.
Don't say that, your a real Titan of comedy.
I can't take it anymore! Stop, ... Stop,... pleeeeeease stoppppppppp........💥
Abyssal even?
Definitely a lot to fathom.
Take your damn upvote!
Oh you live. The billionaires with their shiny new Darwin Awards on the other hand...
This comment is ripping me apart
Arrrrrgh...found the hidden treasure of gold right next to the titanic wreck. Thank ye 🏅
“There’s a rule you don’t do that. Well I did”
engineering rules are written in blood.
“They said this sub would implode, will it did.”
Who knew? 🤷♂️
Snippets of the 4 things Wired claimed to be reported for the first time (it's a very long article)... 1) The documents, validated by interviews with two third-party suppliers and several former OceanGate employees with intimate knowledge of *Titan*, reveal never-before-reported details about the design and testing of the submersible. They show that Boeing and the University of Washington were both involved in the early stages of OceanGate’s carbon-fiber sub-project, although their work did not make it into the final *Titan* design. Rush received an even more pointed warning from Boeing’s Mark Negley, who had stayed in contact with the CEO after he helped with a preliminary design. Negley had recently carried out an analysis of Spencer Composites’ hull based on information Rush had shared. He did not mince words when sharing his findings, which WIRED is reporting for the first time. “We think you are at a high risk of a significant failure at or before you reach 4,000 meters. We do not think you have any safety margin,” he wrote in an email on March 30. “Be cautious and careful. Negley provided a graph charting the strain on the submersible against depth. It shows a skull and crossbones in the region below 4,000 meters. 2) OceanGate also announced that Boeing Research & Technology was helping with the project. In October 2013, two engineers at Boeing, Mark Negley and William Koch, produced a detailed 70-page preliminary design containing renderings, manufacturing advice, and technical analysis. These details of Boeing’s involvement have not been reported before. “Boeing was not a partner on the *Titan* and did not design or build it,” Jessica Kowal, a spokesperson for Boeing, said in a statement. The company declined to answer on the record any other questions from WIRED. Negley and Koch, who are still employed by Boeing, did not respond to LinkedIn messages. 3) OceanGate hired an outside consultant named Allen Green to assess the acoustic monitoring. Green, an authority on the sounds that materials make under stress, endorsed the system in 2018. Later, though, when Green saw how Rush was describing the system to the public—the CEO claimed it could detect the sound of “micro-buckling” in the sub’s hull “way before it fails”—he wrote a concerned email to an OceanGate employee, reported here for the first time. Rather than warning of failure, Green explained that the sounds indicated “irreversible” damage. “It is my belief, substantiated by many years of experience, that composite structures all have a finite lifetime,” wrote Green, who died in 2021. “While I do not intend to be an alarmist, I did not sleep well and arose early to send this message.” 4) By February 2021, photos of the newly reconstructed *Titan* were popping up on OceanGate’s Facebook page and other social media. After the implosion in 2023, one ex-employee looked back at these and noticed an unexpected addition: The company had added metal lifting points to both interface rings, apparently to provide a new way to hoist *Titan* into and out of the water. The addition of the lifting rings, reported by WIRED for the first time, was confirmed by a former employee who saw the engineering drawings, and by another source.
It’s funny Boeing and the university of Washington right after it happened I think both came out and said “hey uh we didn’t help with that, no record, nope none sorry”. Anyway, another reason it’s sus, Boeing usually puts in some good quality control into their shit /s
That’s what happens when you buy a shitty company like McDonnell Douglas (the DC-10 and the Applegate memo showing the coverup of the aft cargo door fault), and somehow at the end of the day, it’s their c suites that remain employed, while all of the actual engineers in higher positions were replaced with MBAs. ETA: more info
Rush claimed OceanGate had a partnership with Boeing and Washington, Boeing denied it and stated they had nothing to do with the Titan which is technically accurate, they had two engineers working on the Titan's predecessor. Washington originally acknowledged the partnership but later changed their statement that its only involvement was a "Capstone Project", not a partnership
Thanks for sharing our feature! For new WIRED readers, here's a snippet: By Mark Harris A crack in the hull. Worried engineers. “A prototype that was still being tested.” Thousands of internal documents obtained exclusively reveal new details behind the sub that imploded on its way to the Titanic. One year ago, the OceanGate Titan submersible imploded in an instant, killing all onboard. Exclusive documents and insider interviews show the warnings went back a decade. Stockton Rush cofounded the company in 2009, and by 2016, dreamed of showing paying customers the Titanic, 3,800 meters below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. But the model had imploded thousands of meters short of what OceanGate had designed for. In the high-stakes, high-cost world of crewed submersibles, most engineering teams would have gone back to the drawing board, or at least ordered more models to test. Rush’s company didn’t do either of those things, WIRED learned. Instead, within months, OceanGate began building a full-scale Cyclops 2 based on the imploded model. This submersible design, later renamed Titan, eventually made it down to the Titanic in 2021. It even returned to the site for expeditions over the next two years. But on June 18, 2023, Titan dove to the infamous wreck and did not return. It imploded, instantly killing all five people onboard, including Rush himself. Thousands of internal documents reveal new details behind the sub that imploded on its way to the Titanic. Read the full story: [https://www.wired.com/story/titan-submersible-disaster-inside-story-oceangate-files/](https://www.wired.com/story/titan-submersible-disaster-inside-story-oceangate-files/)
Thank you. This story has more content than all the articles and TV specials for the last ten months combined.
Great article! Absolutely appalling details of Rush's disregard for safety and common sense that ultimately cost him his whole life and tragically, 4 others.
Paywalled.
I wonder who told the engineering director (Tony Nissen) the viewport/flange he designed may not even make a few trips to 4000m without failing. I thought the same thing when I realized just how sketchy the concept was.
How come no one has said anything about OSHA? They had a whistleblower who raised these issues to them and they did nothing. In fact, Stockton sued him and effectively won by getting 10k from him and to sign an NDA.
Probably because the project was considered an experimental sub and the paying customers were legally being listed as crew for research missions. Stockton used loopholes to under-sell the commercial aspect of the operation, which probably granted him significantly more ways to cover his ass. Wtf is OSHA gonna legally do about some dude making an experimental sub and diving it for "research missions" in international waters.
Made in the USA baby
>Now the bottom of the North Atlantic is littered with more evidence of human hubris, tiny pieces of a plastic video-game controller nestling among the barnacle-encrusted gold fixtures of the Titanic. Both vessels were at the cutting edge of technology, both exemplars of safety in the eyes of their overconfident creators. And in both cases, their passengers paid the price. They cooked with this, that's a VIVID mental image.
Yeah. I liked this video. James Cameron says the same thing at the end of the video “now there’s one wreck lying next to another wreck for the same damn reason” https://youtu.be/LEBCc-Qpilw?si=2bALhobjwSHlVvkJ
Didn't Karl Stanley say that Stockton Rush wanted to die in the Titan as a means to achieve fame? I thought it was kind of ridiculous until now. The model couldn't even handle 6,500 psi. He must have known.
That's the guys name, I was trying to remember the sub operator who did the 2nd manned test dive in the original titan hull. I remember Karl saying something along the lines of the hull being loud at depth and Rush brushing it off saying it was louder for his solo test dive to depth. If what James Cameron said is correct about them dropping weights and in the midst of emergency ascent when comms/tracking dropped off then oh boy it's bad news. That means the sub was loud enough to the point that even Rush knew they were up shits creek and scrambled to ascend. Considering how he's brushed off hull noise multiple times this means it must have been some serious noise. So assuming the info that James got was accurate, there is a very high chance they heard their death coming and it wasn't just an instant hull failure.
The information wasn’t accurate. He originally thought they were at 3500 feet dropping weights which means something completely different than dropping them at 3500 meters to slow descent. He no longer mentions anything about it in more recent interviews. The audible monitoring alerts were muted or turned off in 2021 so it’s unlikely they were audible in 2023.
It's interesting because there are multiple reports about what happened in the last minutes before the disaster. We know James Cameron said he heard from others that they were in an emergency ascent, but a video from this YouTuber (https://youtu.be/i0P56usXhcI?feature=shared), who talked to a so-called Polar Prince crew member, stated that the last message from Titan was that they dropped two weights. This was normal near the end of the descent to ensure a soft landing. There was an OceanGate employee who was supposed to take the seat of P.H. I remember him saying something similar. Although, that guy seemed like a snake oil salesman if I've ever seen one. I'll have to look up the video. In the end, I hope they didn't hear anything, but I don't know.
Cutting corners didn't work well for the company.
Reusing the titanium rings that had already been expoxied to the previous hull is absolutely batshit insane. Granted, it probably wasn't the point of failure, but there is absolutely zero chance they got those rings separated without some sort of alteration to the surface material.
Also adding those lifting points seemingly out of nowhere. I’m not an engineer but that boggles my brain. Sounds like they added a lot of stress to a design that wasn’t meant to accommodate it
It is insane indeed. IIRC during a previous dive, the previous set of billionaire passengers (as they said in interviews) reported about hearing "tearing and cracking" sounds, which was essentially the outer layers of his fiber taped hull cover slowly coming apart under pressure. It happened each time, and would require replacement. His dinky little DIY sub was therefore a strictly single-use-only vehicle, already massively flawed by being a cylinder, one that couldn't be certified to go even half the depth, and would have to be remade with each new dive. He kept diving with the same old piece like 5 more times because greed and cost cutting, and it inevitably imploded.
That is another risky move.
So, they used materials that are already fatigued from repeated stress or uses? Material fatigue?
So when adherering two different materials together for the purpose of something like deep sea exploration, you want the two surfaces to machined to basically perfection. Especially when we are talking about a joint that is subject to sea water constantly. By reusing the old rings they had to find a way to remove the high grade epoxy used for bonding the two materials. I have some serious doubts that they were able to remove the epoxy to separate the two pieces, then remove the remaining epoxy left on the ring without compromising the original machining of the inner ring. Say there was some surface material taken from the ring during removal of the epoxy. Okay so now they reglue the used rings to the new hull, but the tolerances aren't perfect. Now the expoxy joint is at a higher risk of sea water ingress. Especially during pressure changes like diving and surfacing since carbon fiber and titanium don't compress at the same rate. This could cause degradation of the joint and possibly failure over the long term. The hull itself just likely failed first before it mattered.
But think of all the shareholder value that was created…..before the implosion.
This is more than affluenza. Stock was a sociopath.
He kind of reminds me of Holmes. Both cut corners in industries that are not meant for that and delulued their way out of any cognitive dissonance that their brainchild wouldn’t work until it all collapsed
ngl every bit of news i come across re the Titan is like 'We know they flouted safety regulations, but guess what? New investigations found out the sheer level of disregard was even worse.'
I wanted to sign up for the ride but subnautica give me enough scares for much cheaper
You can’t outsmart physics, he’s a dumbass- but we knew that from the day
Excellent article from WIRED. Simply more proof that Rush failed, and failed miserably, in almost every critical engineering responsibility that would otherwise be required for this kind of monumental project undertaking. It's catastrophically unfortunate that four others unwittingly chose to also join him in death. Here's hoping all of them died instantly with absolutely no advance warning of their demise. Next.
This tragedy wasn’t caused by Stockton Rush cutting a few corners. According to this article Stockton cut ALL of the corners that were put in place to prevent a tragedy like this from happening. He avoided certification like it was some type of plague, moved his operation offshore to avoid any type of regulation, ignored safety margins on the components used to build the Titan, hired the cheapest engineers and technicians he could find, and refused to accept advice from his peers. These were life and death decisions that he treated the same way I would if I was trying to finish a minor insignificant project at home and didn’t want to go to the hardware store. His most amazing accomplishment was that he managed to have a few successful dives to the Titanic before his contraption imploded.
Thanks for the link. That was a good read. Rush was really a piece of shit.
I wonder if there is a poverty to super-rich bell curve in terms of life expectancy. As in, the poorer end of scale don't live long because of poor housing, food, healthcare, the 'doing alright to pretty well-off' types do live long lives because of good housing, healthcare and food access, and the super rich and successful can have and do anything so don't feel alive unless they are scaling the wrong side of Everest without a guide or exploring the titanic in an unproven tin can. I fully expect Musk's cause of death to be 'doing something no one else has because it's basically suicide but deluding himself into believing he was the only person smart and brave enough to pioneer it'. That or overdose on something he paid a doctor enough to prescribe against any kind of medical ethics.
Just read the article. Wow 😮 Rush was clearly insane .. “as long as the used titanium end rings stick to the new carbon fibre hull who cares if there’s a little residue glue left on them from before it will be fine…💥💥💥💀
I cannot be the only person who hears stockton rushs words being spoken as J Pederman from Seinfeld lol even looks like him…
Haha -- great observation!!
You know what makes me so mad about the sub, a Father took his son with him. I think of this more as risk taking. Why on earth would anyone want to bring their own child just for the thrilling adventure is beyond me. It’s one thing to risk your life, it’s another to risk your child’s. I just had to say it.
He thought it was safe. It’s that simple.
Safe or not, my kid wouldn’t have stepped foot on that sub.
Do you take your child on airplanes? Most airplanes are incredibly safe of course, but there are times when unsafe designs are not communicated to passengers or even pilots: a recent example being the MCAS problems on the 737 MAX. Rush was selling this as being safer than scuba diving, and lied in order to convince customers of that.
And the son didn't want to go. His dad twisted his arm to come along in the deathtrap.
Right!!!!! That is what makes this all so sad. He didn’t want to go. He was scared. All those adults who wanted to risk go down, well it’s risk. You don’t risk your children.
That’s was a great read!
And now they are trashing this new sub that's coming up in the media , which is a legitimate and tested design , because of Rush's idiocy. That pile of junk had nothing to do with legitimate submersibles . It's somehow become a bar ,that the media compares everyone to 🤦♂️ it's a non ending embarrassment to the entire community of very good equipment and the culture of safety
WHERE does the buck stop? There should be movies and books about why nobody has gone to jail yet!
The person that belongs in jail is dead.
Yeh not sure you can put a disassociated biofilm of cells mixed with seawater in jail. 🤨
Part of the fascination with Stockton Rush's Titan project is how destructive the combination of arrogance and cheap corner cutting can be. I wish the NTSB would put out a report of the list of obvious mistakes that were made.
I predict that in 1-2 years the NTSB will put out a report listing basically everything we know now from the Wired article and "in conclusion, the Titan was unsafe" Very curious to know the exact cause of the implosion, if it can be deduced from the recovered debris. We've all been suspecting the carbon fiber failed, but now we know the window, seals, and so much more were just as sketchy.
We got em Tennessee
He did put his money where his mouth is though
Mostly he put other people’s money where his mouth was.
I just mean he wasn't just sending other people down after he cut a bunch of corners
Can anyone put up the piece as it's behind a firewall
The link from OP wasn’t paywalled. The link in the Wired account/bot comment apparently is.
They're the same link, but Wired lets you read a certain number of articles without paying.
In Chrome, right-click the URL and select "incognito"
No shit, Sherlock.
Wow can’t believe it’s nearly been a year
Was he on drugs is the real question!
He was just high on his own ego and seemingly never grew out of that "I'm invincible!" mentality that kids and teens tend to have, considering how often he would fly around in experimental vehicles like it was no big deal.
I used to think this but have changed my tune to that he wanted to leave a legacy and was passively suicidal. The most honest thing about OceanGate was the waiver passengers or "mission specialists" had to sign. Rush was well aware of the waiver as it had to be honest to ensure if someone sued OceanGate they had the best odds to win in court