The chief executive of the failed Titanic exploration company, whose submarine imploded, killing all five people on board, including him, ominously joked: “What could go wrong?” just a few weeks before the disaster.
Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate, gave an interview to St John’s Radio, a Canadian radio show just weeks before the ill-fated Titan submarine imploded during an expedition to the wreckage of the Titanic off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, in June 2023.
He coolly joked during the interview: “What could go wrong?”
Rush told the interviewer that he chose to launch the Titan submarine in June, since that time of year was when the waters around the Titanic wreckage were most “calm.”
‘So with the Polar Prince (the ship that took the submarine to sea), that ice capability we thought, let’s move the mission a little earlier this year.
“We designed the submersible specifically for this mission,” he added.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush (pictured) gave an interview to a Canadian radio show just weeks before the ill-fated Titan submarine imploded.
The Titan imploded during an expedition to the Titanic wreckage off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, in June 2023 (pictured)
The clip was found by the makers of the Channel 5 documentary, Minute by Minute: The Titan Sub Disaster, which will air tonight and tomorrow at 9pm.
There were five passengers aboard the doomed ship; Tourists Hamish Harding, 58, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and her son Sulaiman Dawood, 19, French Navy pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.
Experts who spoke to the documentary’s creators said the passengers’ final moments would have been “absolutely torturous.”
Dik Barton, former vice president of RMS Titanic Inc., a company that owns about 5,500 Titanic relics, said: “The approach of both Stockton and PH would have been to try to gain some control of the submersible, to try to recover it.” some height and get the boat to stabilize and return to the surface.
‘That would have been his complete and utter approach.
‘The fear that would generate, I can’t even fathom. I think the last moment would have been absolutely torturous.
The world was trapped as rescuers urgently redoubled their efforts to locate the missing submarine before its oxygen was expected to run out.
The Pelagic search team’s submersible, Odysseus 6K, reached the seafloor after days of searching and on June 22 found remains of the submarine, about 1,600 feet from the Titanic’s bow.
Titan had imploded as a result of the enormous water pressure pressing down on the ship, killing everyone on board in what was likely a matter of milliseconds.
The world was trapped as rescuers urgently redoubled their efforts to locate the missing submarine before its oxygen was expected to run out.
Five people were on board, including British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding and Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman.
French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet (left) was on the submarine along with Stockton Rush (right), executive director of the OceanGate Expedition.
Minute by Minute: The Titan Sub Disaster details the events leading up to Titan’s ill-fated expedition to the wreckage of the Titanic.
The documentary, made by ITN productions for Channel 5, also asks what lessons can be learned from the disaster.
Researchers believe the Titan imploded while descending into the deep waters of the North Atlantic on June 18, before the noise was recorded.
The submarine was launched around 8 a.m. that day in the Atlantic Ocean, 400 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, at the site of the Titanic wreck.
The five passengers began to descend while Rush piloted the boat, but at 9:45 a.m., one hour and 45 minutes after the dive, he lost contact with his mother ship Polar Prince.
It took OceanGate Expeditions eight hours to report the submarine’s disappearance to the US Coast Guard after it lost contact.
That prompted a massive international response to rescue the five passengers.
As the world held its breath, ships from around the world began making the journey to help search for the missing submarine as the hours and estimated oxygen ticked away.
However, it was later announced that all five people aboard the submarine were believed to have died in a probable implosion, and that a US Navy monitoring system had picked up a possible sound of the implosion in the initial descent.
According to experts, the ‘hits’ could be due to search teams in the area, marine species such as whales or even simply sounds from the depths of the Atlantic.
Banging noises were detected at 30-minute intervals using underwater sonar devices called “sonobuoys.” The graph shows how they were used during last year’s search.
Authorities soon announced that all five people aboard the submarine were believed dead, but search efforts continued.
Confirming the worst fears, on June 22 it was revealed that remains of the submarine that imploded were found near the site of the Titanic.
Ten days after her disappearance, the Coast Guard announced that “suspected human remains” had been found in the wreckage of the submarine.
Washington-based OceanGate closed its doors amid the search, and questions arose after the disaster about the future of deep-sea tourism at the site.
“We had spent four or five days… hoping to get down there and perform a miracle,” deep-sea expert Jesse Doren told Sky after the discovery of the wreck.
“Obviously our sense of disappointment is minuscule compared to that of those close to the families of those who were lost.”
According to experts, the “knocks” could come from search teams in the area, from marine animals such as whales or even simply from sounds from the depths of the Atlantic.
Dr Jamie Pringle, Professor of Forensic Geosciences at Keele University, also told MailOnline at the time that he believes the sound was “man-made”.
A desperate search was launched for the submarine after it lost contact with its mother ship and disappeared during an expedition to the wreckage of the Titanic on Sunday, June 18, 2023.
“The ocean is a very noisy place because of the passage of ships, submarines, fishing boats and, in this case, even search vessels.”
Matthew Schanck, founder of the maritime search and rescue organization Marsar International, also suspected a human origin.
“We understand the noise could have a number of sources,” he told MailOnline. ‘The ocean subsurface is a noisy environment.
“But given the high density of vessels in the area operating their propulsion systems and heavy machinery/equipment in the area, this may have been picked up by sonobuoys.”
Ships that deployed remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) in the search, including the Polar Prince mothership, would also have caused underwater noise, Schanck said.
Schanck does not believe the noise came from Titanic debris, although it may have come from Titanic “if there is loose metal moving around”, but the surface ships and ROVs deployed in the search were the most likely cause.
Stefan B. Williams, professor of marine robotics at the University of Sydney, told Business Insider that marine wildlife “like whales” could even have caused the noise.
Minute by Minute: Titan Sub Disaster, produced by ITN Productions for Channel 5, airs on March 6 and 7 at 9:00 p.m.