OceanGate:#Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as ‘baseless cries’, emails show

Throughout the exchange, Mr Rush defended his credentials and questioned the existing framework around deep sea expeditions.

He said “industry players” were trying to stop “new entrants from entering their small existing market”.

“I am well qualified to understand the risks and issues associated with subsea exploration in a new vehicle,” he wrote.

Mr McCallum then responded in stark terms, writing: “It will be sea trials that determine whether the vehicle can handle what you intend to do with it so again; take care and keep safe.”

“There is a lot more riding on this than Titan and the Titanic,” he said.

Mr Rush founded OceanGate in 2009 and the company offered customers a chance to experience deep sea travel, including to the wreck of the Titanic, on board Titan for a price of $250,000 (£195,600).

The company has not commented on the email exchange.

Experts have questioned the safety of Titan and how private sector deep-sea expeditions are regulated. Concerns have been raised over the Titan’s experimental design and the carbon fibre material used to build it.

Mr McCallum was among more than three dozen industry leaders and experts who signed a 2018 letter to Mr Rush that warned OceanGate’s approach could lead to “catastrophic” problems.

“The industry has been trying for several years to get Stockton Rush to halt his programme for two reasons,” Mr McCallum, a specialist who runs his own ocean expedition company, told the BBC on Friday.

“One is that carbon fibre is not an acceptable material,” he said. “The other is that this was the only submersible in the world doing commercial work that was unclassed. It was not certified by an independent agency.”

Subs can be certified or “classed” by marine organisations – for example by the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) or DNV (a global accreditation organisation based in Norway) or Lloyd’s Register.

This essentially means that the vehicle must meet certain standards on aspects including stability, strength, safety and performance. But this process is not mandatory.

In a blog post in 2019, the company said the way it had been designed fell outside of the accepted system – but it “does not mean that OceanGate does not meet standards where they apply.”

“Stockton fancied himself as somewhat of a maverick entrepreneur,” Mr McCallum said. “He liked to think outside the box, didn’t like to be penned in by rules. But there are rules – and then there are sound engineering principles and the laws of physics.”

He maintains that nobody should have travelled in the Titan sub.

“If you steer away from sound engineering principles, which are all based on hard won experience, there is a price to pay, and it’s a terrible price,” he said. “So it should never be allowed to happen again. It shouldn’t have been allowed to happen this time.”