Stockton Rush, the mastermind behind the Titan submersible expedition of 2023, didn’t just want to tour the wreck of the Titanic – he intended to die there.
That’s the disturbing claim made by a close friend of the late OceanGate CEO, who alleges that the multimillionaire engineer was suicidal and hellbent on writing himself into the mythology of the world’s most infamous shipwreck, even if it meant sacrificing four others in the process.
Karl Stanley, an expert in commercial submersibles, told Matthew Gavin Frank for his new book, Submersed: Wonder, Obsession and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines, that: ‘Rush’s ego was so big, he was willing to die and kill to be pivotal to the character of this story.
‘He wanted to go [die] at the wreck [of the Titanic]. The more high-profile, the better. He didn’t just murder four wealthy people and get paid a cool mill to do it – they are all part of the Titanic mythology now.’
Twelve days after Titan imploded in the North Atlantic in June 2023, killing five, Stanley messaged Frank via WhatsApp with a chilling declaration: that Rush had known exactly what would happen during the vessel’s final fateful trip.
Stanley claimed that Rush actively plotted for the fatal plunge to be a one-way trip – a deliberate death dive engineered to cement his legacy in the history books, aboard a ‘futile’ vessel that had never been intended to return.
‘He was in fact a good engineer,’ said Stanley. ‘He set a new standard for going out with a bang.’
Stockton Rush founded OceanGate in 2009. A former business associate claimsthat he wanted to be the Elon Musk of ocean exploration
The Titan submersible disaster shocked the world in June 2023. All five passengers aboard the vessel, including Rush, were killed following a catastrophic implosion
According to Stanley, Rush named his doomed sub after the fictional British oceanliner Titan, from the 1898 novella Futility by Morgan Robertson, in which the fictional ship sinks in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg, in an eerily similar fashion to how the Titanic met its fate 14 years later.
Stanley alleged that in order to extend, and to be a part of the wider Titanic folklore, ‘Rush needed to compel more than just his own death, and he needed to knowingly fabricate a ‘futile’ vessel, costumed in a titanic name, as his murder weapon,’ Frank writes.
The fellow sub enthusiast further claimed that Rush designed the Titan to be a ‘mousetrap for billionaires’.
Asked if he truly believed that Rush actively intended to kill everyone on board as part of a suicidal vanity project, Stanley didn’t waver: ‘I know this is what happened.’
Four years before the Titan disaster, Stanley had accompanied Rush on one of the vessel’s test dives in the Bahamas, where the pair and two others dived to a record-breaking, Titanic-level depth of 12,336 feet.
The day after the voyage, he wrote an email to Rush, raising alarm bells about what he deemed to be significant safety issues.
His concerns stemmed from ominous gunshot-like sounds thundering out every three to four minutes during their hours-long descent.
Stanley feared that the deafening noise was the sub’s hull buckling under the immense pressure of the deep.
‘The sounds we observed yesterday sounded like a flaw/defect in one area being acted on by the tremendous pressures and being crushed/damaged,’ he wrote.
‘From the intensity of the sounds [and] the fact that they never totally stopped at depth… [it] would indicate that there is an area of the hull that is breaking down/getting spongy.’
Matthew Gavin Frank’s new book, Submersed: Wonder, Obsession and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines, includes insights into the disaster from those who knew Rush
Stanley implored Rush to postpone any further dives, particularly with paying passengers, until the issue could be properly investigated.
‘I don’t think you push forward with dives to the Titanic this season… I think it will be succumbing to pressures of your own creation in some part dictated by ego to do what people said couldn’t be done,’ he wrote.
In a heated reply, Rush ordered Stanley to keep his opinions to himself, insisting that he hadn’t been invited to take part in the test dive to give feedback on the design or safety of Titan.
‘I value your experience and advice on many things, but not on the assessment of carbon fiber pressure hulls… I hope you, of all people, will think twice before expressing opinions on subjects in which you are not fully versed,’ wrote Rush.
But, refusing to back down, Stanley laid out a grim and vivid image for Rush about what awaited him at the end of the reckless path he appeared to be treading.
‘How I like to make decisions is by considering the worst-case scenarios. The worst-case scenario of delaying diving until you have identified the defect, making all that noise, is some disappointed customers and financial woes,’ wrote Stanley.
‘The worst-case scenario of pushing ahead and not listening to the hull yelling at you involves [rival sub builder and CEO of Triton Submarines] Patrick Lahey and some Russian oligarch tooling around a Russian nesting dolls version of a wreck site in a made-for-TV special, telling his version of how things went wrong.
‘I hope you see option B as unacceptable as I do.’
Four years later, Stanley’s worst-case scenario would be realized in front of the world’s watching eyes.
Karl Stanley, an expert in commercial submersibles, believes that his long-term friend Rush was suicidal and planned to die at the Titanic wreck to write himself into the ship’s mythology
Rush (left) was related by marriage to Isidor and Ida Straus, who died on the Titanic
Titan’s implosion was triggered when the vessel’s carbon fiber hull failed
Damage to the vessel’s carbon fiber hull is show in the above image
On June 18, 2023, Rush, 61, and four passengers – British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, his son Suleman Dawood, 19, and French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77 – were sealed into the Titan to descend thousands of feet through the dark waters of the North Atlantic to catch a glimpse of the Titanic wreck.
One hour and 45 minutes into their dive, the Titan lost contact with its support ship, the Polar Prince, and vanished.
For four days, the world held its breath as a dramatic international search and rescue mission unfolded in the remote waters several hundred miles southeast of Newfoundland.
It was a race against time, with oxygen supplies aboard the Titan dwindling with each passing minute.
But Stanley, watching from afar, said he had known from the outset: the sub had imploded and there would be no survivors, just as he had warned.
‘It was the carbon fiber tube that failed,’ he said.
‘Stockton was fixated on a larger number of people getting to the depth of the Titanic, and every other decision was secondary. He put too much faith in carbon fiber as a material, financial pressures from investors, causes… this was only dive fourteen to the Titanic.
‘I suggested to Stockton he should have at least fifty dives under his belt before going commercial… he should have listened.’
On June 22, the US Coast Guard held a press conference in Boston, Massachusetts, confirming that the sub had suffered a catastrophic implosion at the time it lost contact with the Polar Prince.
All five on board were killed instantly.
In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, Rush was hailed by OceanGate colleagues as one of the last great American dreamers and a pioneer of exploration whose love for adventure was as palpable as it was infectious.
However, troubling information soon came to light that Rush had for years ignored glaring warning signs that Titan might be unsafe – and that a disaster of this magnitude had long been predicted.
Victims: British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, (left) and French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, (right) died alongside Rush, 61
As did Shahzada Dawood, 48, (left) his son Suleman Dawood, 19, (right)
The debris from Titan was discovered approximately 1,600 feet from the Titanic’s bow
But Rush was accused of venturing on regardless because he was strapped for cash and needed his wealthy client’s money to keep OceanGate afloat.
David Lochridge, the former director of marine operations at OceanGate, claimed in a complaint filed in Seattle’s US District Court that he was fired by Rush after questioning the design and safety of the Titan in 2018. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount.
In later testimony during the US Coast Guard’s inquiry into the catastrophe last year, Lochridge said: ‘The whole idea behind the company was to make money. There was very little in the way of science.’
In his book, Submersed, Frank highlights that just a year before the Titan disaster, Rush publicly claimed that there was a ‘limit’ on safety.
‘At some point,’ he said, ‘safety is just a pure waste. I mean, if you want to be safe, don’t get out of bed.’
He also described the safety regulations imposed on submersibles seeking certification as ‘obscene’.
Stanley testified during last year’s inquiry. He told the panel that Rush had known what he was doing, and that the fatal outcome of his risky venture suited him just fine.
‘He knew that eventually it was going to end like this and he wasn’t going to be held accountable,’ said Stanley.
‘But he was going to be the most famous of all his famous relatives,’ he added of the mindset of Rush, who claimed to be a descendant of a pair of Declaration of Independence signers, Richard Stockton and Benjamin Rush. He was also related by marriage to Isidor and Ida Straus, who died on the Titanic.
A former business associate of Rush’s told Frank that the OceanGate CEO was a frustrated astronaut who, when his efforts to venture into space faltered, turned to ocean exploration in the hope of becoming the Elon Musk of the sea.
Rush – a Princeton grad, an aerospace engineer and a former pilot – founded OceanGate Expeditions in 2009.
The company started offering tours of the Titanic site in 2021, charging guests up to $250,000 per seat to catch a first-hand glimpse of the ‘unsinkable ship’ that went down during its ill-fated maiden voyage in April 1912.
After the disaster, OceanGate permanently ceased all operations. The debris from Titan’s wreckage was discovered around 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic.
There has been no response to the Daily Mail’s request for comment from Rush’s former business partners.
Submersed: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder In The World of Amateur Submarines, by Matthew Gavin Frank (Pantheon), is available now.
