Exploration — of land, air, space, and water — is often hailed as a noble feat that has defined nations and people for centuries. Whether the OceanGate submersible’s deadly dive to the Titanic in summer 2023 meets that bar, however, is up for debate.
In “TITAN: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster,” documentarian Mark Monroe dives deep into the decisions that ultimately led to the watery demise of OceanGate Founder and CEO Stockton Rush, the Titan submersible, and its passengers.
According to the former OceanGate employees interviewed for the documentary, Rush likely would have believed he died a maritime exploration martyr. After all, the boy who dreamed of being an astronaut became an adult determined to conquer the Earth’s last great frontier.
His desire to be the next Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk by creating a dynasty of ocean excursions and underwater communities, however, never manifested the way he imagined when he launched OceanGate in 2009. “TITAN’s” interviews with the former employees, U.S. Coast Guard Investigator Jason Neubauer, a family member of a Titan passenger, and legitimate explorers and maritime experts who encountered the submersible and its inventor strongly suggest that Rush cut corners on his projects at every turn
Mothership, We Have A Problem
David Lochridge, OceanGate’s former director of marine operations, was the only employee who, according to reports, emails, and audio recordings, openly pushed back on Rush’s attempts to ignore and cover up operational problems. For his outspokenness, Lochridge explained in the documentary, he was fired.
He tried to loop in the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (especially because Rush was doing his best to sell the public on OceanGate without revealing its technological vulnerabilities), but red tape kept his case from getting the timely attention it deserved. Lochridge’s OSHA case manager admitted in the documentary that he did not get to his complaint, which was later withdrawn by Lochridge after months of legal threats from Rush and OceanGate.
One of the biggest flaws Lochridge identified with Titan during his time at OceanGate was the shell of the submersible. Rush’s attempt to create a lighter, cheaper vehicle by using a carbon-fiber hull turned out to be more of a pipe dream than an innovation. Tests on the porous material yielded breakage that manifested as audible “pops” with every mounting pressure marker.
Despite nearly a decade of red flags raised by experts and the team charged with building the Titan submersible, Rush plowed ahead with his quest to take tourists on undersea trips to the Titanic wreckage.
Rush pulled off several test dives in the submersible that increased signs of fissure and damage. His survivor’s bias, especially after living to see a crack in the structure occur without an implosion, led to an exodus of OceanGate engineers and employees who claimed in the documentary that they were uncomfortable with themselves or passengers spending time underwater in the glorified capsule.
Rush’s dreams of turning the Titan into a tourist vessel officially sank on June 18, 2023, when the underwater vehicle’s hull audibly imploded, immediately killing its five passengers.
A Drop In The Ocean
While the U.S. government had evidence of the implosion from the get-go, it was not immediately clear to the public or the families of the passengers that the submersible was gone for good. In fact, the daughter of Titan victim Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a French deep sea explorer and Titanic expert, said government officials falsely inflated family members’ hopes with calls boasting of their rigorous search efforts.
Corporate media also repeatedly suggested that Rush and his passengers could be alive. Outlets often noted how many “hours of oxygen” were left in the pod and circulated claims of “banging noises” around the suspected site of the sub. Debris, discovered a few days after the submersible lost contact with its mothership and later fished out of Atlantic, however, confirmed that neither the Titan nor its crew survived.
It suffered, by different means, a similar fate to the ship it was intended to explore.
Many have speculated over the last two years why Rush continued what we now know was his doomed mission. Some said he motivated by the money promised by wannabe passengers. Others, including many in the documentary, claimed he was a narcissist or a “humble human but arrogant scientist” who didn’t know when to quit.
The U.S. Coast Guard has yet to release their findings about the implosion. If one thing about the Titan tragedy is certain, however, it’s that Rush wanted to be remembered as a deep sea explorer.
The sea, like a siren, was always calling to him. Two years ago today, the swirling depths permanently captured him. Unfortunately for the four others aboard Rush’s apparent death trap, the ocean doesn’t discriminate.
[READ: We Need To Get More Comfortable With People Dying In Space]
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.
