Appalling reason OceanGate CEO kept diving Titan sub even though he knew it would eventually implode

OceanGate's CEO continued diving his Titan submersible despite knowing it would eventually implode because he knew he wouldn't be 'held accountable', his friend has testified.

Karl Stanley, a submersible pilot and designer of the Roatan Institute of Deepsea Exploration, told a US Coast Guard panel that Stockton Rush was more concerned with leaving, 'his mark on history'.

'He knew that eventually it was going to end like this, and he wasn't going to be held accountable,' Stanley testified Tuesday during the panel's inquiry into the fatal crash.

'But he was going to be the most famous of all his famous relatives.'

Rush was among the five people - including adventurer Hamish Harding, father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood and Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet - who died when the submersible imploded in June 2023.

Stanley said he had tried to flag safety concerns he noticed during a test drive in April 2019, including cracking noises and issues with drop weights. He emailed Rush, who dismissed the concerns.

'I felt also, this exchange of emails strained our relationship from what it had been previously,' he said. 'I felt like I pushed things as far as I could without him telling me to shut up and never talk to him again.' 

Stanley also said he viewed OceanGate's characterization of paid passengers as 'mission specialists' to be an attempt to avoid accountability.

'It's clearly a dodge with trying to get around U.S. regulations with passengers,' Stanley said.

Additionally, the company's 'entire business plan made zero sense,' Stanley said. 

'There was nothing unexpected about this. This was expected by everyone who had access to a little bit of information,' Stanley said.

'And I think that if it wasn't an accident, it then has to be some degree of crime. And if it's a crime, I think to truly understand it, you need to understand the criminal's motive.

'The entire reason this whole operation started was Stockton had a desire to leave his mark on history.'

Amber Bay, director of administration for the company that owned the doomed submersible, insisted Tuesday that the company would not 'conduct dives that would be risky just to meet a need'.

But she agreed that the company wanted to deliver for those who paid $250,000 and were encouraged to participate as 'mission specialists.'

'There definitely was an urgency to deliver on what we had offered and a dedication and perseverance towards that goal,' she told a Coast Guard panel.

She later broke down in tears when discussing the tragedy, which was personal, because she knew the victims.

'I had the privilege of knowing the explorers lives who were lost,' Bay said through tears. 'And there´s not a day that passes that I don´t think of them, their families and the loss.'

Former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge previously told the panel he frequently clashed with Rush and felt the company was committed only to making money. 

'The whole idea behind the company was to make money,' Lochridge testified. 'There was very little in the way of science.'

But at a previous hearing, Rush told staff he would not die on his Titan submersible five years before his ill-fated journey to the Titanic.

The U.S. Coast Guard released a redacted transcript between Rush and his former director of marine operations David Lochridge from January 19, 2018 as part of the high level investigation into the cause of the implosion.