Founder and CEO of OceanGate Expeditions Stockton Rush once complained of the submarine industry’s “obscenely safe” regulations, according to a report.
Rush, who is lost in the ocean with four other individuals who boarded the submersible for a tour of the Titanic wreckage, complained in 2019 that regulations were preventing innovation in the industry, according to an interview Rush did with Smithsonian Magazine.
“There hasn’t been an injury in the commercial sub industry in over 35 years,” Rush told the outlet. “It’s obscenely safe, because they have all these regulations. But it also hasn’t innovated or grown – because they have all these regulations.”
Rush told the same thing to Will Kohnen, chairman of the Marine Technology Society, which warned that OceanGate’s experimental designs could lead to “catastrophic” results that might impact the whole industry. (RELATED: Billionaire Lost On Titanic Submersible Sent Chilling Last Text)
Marine Technology Society member Bart Kempter said OceanGate was able to evade some regulations by deploying in international waters where U.S. laws can’t be applied, according to Insider.
🚨 BREAKING: The US Coast Guard has just reported even MORE “banging noises” via P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft but still cannot confirm the source is the lost Titanic submersible.
pic.twitter.com/GPQ59uMvHb— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) June 21, 2023
In a letter to OceanGate, the Marine Technology Society warned that OceanGate’s “marketing material advertises that the TITAN design will meet or exceed the DNV-GL safety standards, yet it does not appear that OceanGate has the intention of following DNV-GL class rules. Your representation is, at minimum, misleading to the public and breaches an industry-wide professional code of conduct we all endeavor to uphold.”
Meanwhile David Lochridge, OceanGate’s former director of marine operations, warned the company in 2018 that there was a “lack of non-destructive testing performed on the hull of the Titan.” Lochridge later sued the company after alleging he was wrongly terminated for raising the concerns.
Contact with the mission was lost less than two hours after the initial dive on Sunday, setting off a race against the clock to find the submersible before oxygen runs out.