“Safety is a complete waste of time”: so risky is the submarine owner Rush Monkey Haters – the hunt for the monkey tormentors

The “last American visionary,” as one former client called Stockton Rush. The founder of Oceangate has a magnetic personality, says Mike Reiss, who once went deep diving with Rush in one of his boats. Whoever takes $250,000 from people to take them to the bottom of the Atlantic in a narrow tube needs a certain charisma. And possibly also a certain lack of conscience.

In any case, the safety of his expedition guests probably wasn’t Rush’s top priority, as is now known. In 2018, he fired his chief engineer, British naval expert David Lochridge. In an internal report, he had complained that Oceangate would not allow the Titan to be inspected and certified by independent experts, the New York Times reported, citing Lochridge’s report. The “Titan” is the submarine that has now disappeared into the Atlantic – with Stockton Rush and four of his guests on board.

Lochridge sued his dismissal, accusing the company of accepting “extreme risk to passengers”. The engineer demanded endurance tests, including the destruction of a prototype, to test the “Titan’s” experimental design to the limits of its resilience.

The hull of the submarine is largely made of carbon fiber and not of steel or titanium, as is the case with classic submersibles for such depths. In contrast, the company claimed that a simple acoustic test would be sufficient to determine the integrity of the hull. According to Lochridge, this test revealed no structural flaws.

According to the court documents, Lochridge also complained that the “Titan’s” viewing window was only approved by the manufacturer for a diving depth of up to 1,300 meters. Oceangate refused to let the manufacturer build a viewing window that would be approved for depths of up to 13,000 feet. The boat should eventually penetrate to this depth. According to the report, Lochridge and Oceangate eventually reached an out-of-court settlement. Neither the company nor Lochridge would comment on the New York Times report.

A great willingness to take risks is reflected in Rush’s earlier statements: “At a certain point, security is just a waste of time,” Rush said on CBS last year.

Rush stated that the journey to the wreckage of the “Titanic” was safe as long as the submarine kept clear of fishing nets and cliffs: “Ultimately, it’s all about steering the submarine correctly. You have to stay away from the dangers.”

The 61-year-old apparently likes the role of captain. As a child, he says he wanted to be an astronaut and even graduated in 1984 as an aerospace engineer. Then one thing became clear to him, Rush said in the CBS interview: “It wasn’t about flying in space, it was about discovering new life forms.” His role model: the daring hero of the 1960s “Star Trek” series.

Used sources:

(t-online, mk)