OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush made “very strange” comments regarding the potential fate of passengers aboard the Titan submersible, according to a cameraman on a test dive with Rush.
Brian Weed, an adventure-documentary cameraman working on Discovery Channel’s “Expedition Unknown” show, told Insider that he joined Rush on a “precursor” to the Titanic mission.
After moments on board, Mr Weed asked Rush what would happen if the Titan experienced an emergency, and was far from the mothership.
Mr Weed told the publication about his conversation with the vessel’s creator: “‘Well, there’s four or five days of oxygen on board, and I said, ‘What if they don’t find you?’ And he said, ‘Well, you’re dead anyway.’”
“It felt like a very strange thing to think, and it seemed to almost be a nihilistic attitude toward life or death out in the middle of the ocean,” Mr Weed reflected.
The camera operator summarised Rush’s point: “If you’re out there, and they don’t find you in that many days, you’re just going to die anyway — it’s over for you, so what does it matter if you can’t get out of the sub on your own.”
Mr Weed said that Rush’s “cavalier attitude” toward “basic safety” made him feel “uneasy.” He added, “That whole dive made me very uncomfortable with the idea of going down to Titanic depths in that submersible.”
The Titan submersible lost all five passengers last month after imploding due to the ocean’s extreme pressures.
