‘UNSINKABLE’

OceanGate CEO Was Tired of Hearing ‘You Are Going to Kill Someone’: Report

An expert warned Stockton Rush that his submersible would share the fate of the doomed ship it was meant to explore. Rush didn’t listen.

Stockton Rush, the OceanGate CEO whose flawed submarine imploded while en route to the Titanic, repeatedly dismissed an expert consultant’s warnings, a new report reveals. In a series of emails obtained by the BBC, deep-sea expedition expert Rob McCallum warned Rush that his design was faulty and urged him to get it independently certified. “In your race to Titanic you are mirroring that famous catch cry: ‘She is unsinkable’,” he wrote to Rush. But the OceanGate CEO scorned McCallum’s calls for restraint, calling them a “personal insult.” “We have heard the baseless cries of ‘you are going to kill someone’ way too often,” Rush fired back, adding that he was “tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation.” The implosion of Rush’s submarine earlier this week killed 5 people and kicked off a desperate multinational effort to save the doomed expedition.