OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush said he was “personally insulted” after an industry expert raised concerns about safety flaws in the Titan submersible, which imploded killing five crew members on Sunday.
Former OceanGate consultant Rob McCallum warned Rush that he was endangering passengers’ lives and urged him to stop using the vessel until it had been independently certified, emails reviewed by the BBC showed.
Rush dismissed Mr McCallum’s concerns as “baseless cries” and accused him of trying to stop innovation in the deep-water submersible industry, the BBC stated.
Follow the latest updates on the Titanic sub here
On Thursday, Rush was confirmed to have died in a “catastrophic implosion” of the Titan’s carbon fibre hull that killed all five crew on board.
Mr McCallum, the founder of the deep-sea research and tour company EYOS Expeditions, consulted for OceanGate in 2009 before leaving in part over concerns that Rush was rushing development of the vessel.
In a 2018 email, he told Rush that he was “potentially placing yourself and your clients in a dangerous dynamic”.
“I implore you to take every care in your testing and sea trials and to be very, very conservative,” he wrote. “As much as I appreciate entrepreneurship and innovation, you are potentially putting an entire industry at risk.”
In an eerie warning, Mr McCallum added: “In your race to [the] Titanic you are mirroring that famous catch cry: ‘She is unsinkable’”.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush boasted of ‘bending rules’ to build the Titan— (OceanGate)
Rush defended the company’s credentials and denied there were any safety issues with the Titan in a heated response a few days later, according to the BBC.
OceanGate’s approach to maritime engineering “flies in the face of the submersible orthodoxy, but that is the nature of innovation,” he wrote.
“We have heard the baseless cries of 'you are going to kill someone' way too often.”
“I take this as a serious personal insult,” he added.
The tense exchange ended when OceanGate threatened legal action against Mr McCallum, he told the BBC.
Since the Titan vanished 105 minutes into a dive to the Titanic on Sunday, it’s emerged that whistleblowers, industry leaders and notable experts like James Cameron held longstanding fears about the vessel’s design.
The Titan’s carbon fibre hull was incapable of withstanding the pressure of seep-sea expeditions, experts say— (PA Media)
In March 2018, the chair of the Marine Technology Society’s Submarine Committee Will Kohnen wrote to Rush expressing “unanimous concern” on behalf of the group about the development of the Titan.
"Our apprehension is that the current experimental approach adopted by Oceangate could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry," he wrote, according to a copy obtained by the New York Times.
Cameron, an expert in submarine design, described the Titan’s construction out of carbon fibre composite as a major flaw in an interview with Reuters.
He said the lightweight composite was not designed to withstand the compression which occurs when subs descend to extreme depths.
“We celebrate innovation, right? But you shouldn't be using an experimental vehicle for paying passengers that aren't themselves deep ocean engineers,” Cameron told Reuters.
In a resurfaced 2021 interview, Rush appeared to boast of “bending rules” in order to build the Titan.
“I have broken some rules to make this. The carbon fibre and titanium... there is a rule that you don’t do that. Well, I did,” he said.
An operation to map out and recover the debris from the Titan using remotely operated vehicles is continuing in the North Atlantic Ocean.
