Was Stockton Rush happy to risk lives of Titan submersible passengers? Close friend Karl Stanley reveals OceanGate CEO's 'death wish'
EVERETT, WASHINGTON: Stockton Rush who operated the Titan submersible that imploded on June 18 is now being accused by his close friend that he created a "mouse trap for billionaires." Karl Stanley who is also a submarine operator opened up about the OceanGate CEO's "death wish" and claimed he allegedly murdered the other four passengers.
In 2019, Stanley took a test dive on the Titan in the Bahamas, and during his recent interview with '60 Minutes Australia', he said "Stockton was designing a mouse trap for billionaires." Talking about what he believed was the reason behind the tragic implosion, he said, "There’s no doubt in my mind that it was the carbon fiber tube that was the mechanical part that failed."
Was Stockton Rush 'happy' to risk lives of Titan submersible passengers?
During the interview that aired Monday, July 17, Stanley claimed Rush was a person who wanted to go down in history and he was happy to risk the lives of his fellow passengers and himself. Responding to the question of whether the OceanGate CEO had a "death wish," he said "The only question is, ‘When?’ He was risking his life and his customers’ lives to go down in history. He’s more famous now than anything else he would’ve done."
"He quite literally and figuratively went out with the biggest bang in human history that you could go out with, and who was the last person to murder two billionaires at once, and have them pay for the privilege?" he added.
Stanley claims he heard 'loud, gunshot-like noises' during test dive
Stanley went on to explain his experience accompanying Rush during the two-hour test dive and recalled he heard "loud, gunshot-like noises … every three to four minutes." Speaking of the noise he heard during the 12, 000 descent, he said "That’s a heck of a sound to hear when you’re that far under the ocean in a craft that’s only been down that deep once before."
Following the test run, Stanley raised concerns that the sound they heard was the submersible's hull cracking. In 2019, he wrote to Rush saying "There is an area of the hull that is breaking down. It will only get worse," and candidly told him he lacked experience in operating the submersible. "I literally painted a picture of his wrecked sub at the bottom [of the ocean] and even that wasn’t enough," he added, according to New York Post.
Rush, 61, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, his son, Sulaiman Dawood, 19, British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, and French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet were the voyagers who were killed in the Titan’s "catastrophic implosion."