On Wednesday, we reported that the former OceanGate Stockton Rush CEO has dismisses safety concerns regarding Titan submersible, saying, “You know, there’s a limit. At some point, safety is just pure waste. I mean if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed. Don’t be in your car. Don’t do anything. At some point you’re going to accept some risk and it’s really a question of risk/reward. I think I can safely do this by breaking the rules. Now we know that he can’tin fact, do it safely, but new information reveals that he is even more reckless than previously known.
CBS report that in a video interview from 2021, Rush told vlogger Alan Estrada, “I want to be remembered as an innovator. I think it’s common [Douglas] MacArthur, who said, ‘You are remembered for the rules you break. And I broke some rules to make this happen. I think I broke them with good logic and technique behind me.”
From there it only got worse:
Carbon fiber and titanium – there’s a rule you can’t do that,” Rush said, referring to the materials used to build the submarine. “Yes, I did. It’s about choosing rules that you break, those are rules that add value to others and add value to society, and that’s really about innovation for me.
It is very difficult to test and verify. … Metal shells are resilient to them. We know how they behave. … But carbon fiber – has a very, very strong stretch. They are not too strong during compression. And we know that. But it is how they respond under extreme pressure that is a matter of much research.
Rush has also been explicitly warned that this approach is extremely dangerous. BBC received the email from 2018 between deep-sea diving expert Rob McCallum, where McCallum begged him to stop using Titan until it was thoroughly tested and independently classified. Rush’s response was that he was “tired of industry players trying to use safety arguments to stifle innovation.” According to McCallum, the email exchange stopped because OceanGate’s attorney threatened to take legal action against him.
“I think you’re putting yourself and your client in danger,” McCallum told Rush. “In the race to the Titanic, you’re mimicking the famous appeal: ‘She can’t sink.’” In another message, Rush told McCallum, “We heard groundless cries. that ‘you are about to kill someone’ too often. I take this as a serious personal insult.”
Turns out, he didn’t just kill someone. Five who diedincluding myself. Can he at least take down his rinky-dink toy by himself so no one else’s family has to suffer the loss of their loved one?
