OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush "definitely knew it was going to end like this."

Sounds like Trouble

During his testimony at the ongoing public hearings into last year's OceanGate Titanic submersible disaster, diving expedition company owner Karl Stanley said that the company's CEO Stockton Rush "definitely knew it was going to end like this."

"The definition of an accident is something that happened unexpectedly and by sheer chance," Stanley said, as quoted by the Independent. "There was nothing unexpected about this. This was expected by everybody that had access to a little bit of information."

Stanley was on board the Titan during an expedition off the coast of the Bahamas in April 2019 more than four years before the submersible imploded, killing Rush and his four fellow crew members in a fraction of a second.

Ominously, he recalled hearing "unnerving" cracking noises during his journey.

"I remember I was the one that was able to isolate the area where it was coming from and told them, 'this, this is the area,' and was listening right there," Stanley testified.

It's only the latest in a long line of incriminating details that have come to light, from shoddy workmanship, a shockingly convoluted navigation system, and Rush's infamous disregard for basic safety.

Worse yet, Stanley told Rush in previous emails that he told him "not to speak about the noises I heard on the dive," highlighting the CEO's well-documented efforts to silence his critics.

Hullible Rich

Stanley revealed that he would've refused to board the Titan after his first experience. That's despite being friends with Stockton for at least ten years, according to his testimony today.

"He told us to be prepared for noises," Stanley said. "He had recently done the solo dive on his own, and basically just said, ‘this is going to make noise’ and ‘brace yourselves.'"

He also recalled that Rush "didn't do any of the driving," which Stanley thought was "his kind of sick way of if we had imploded, we were a little bit in control of our own destiny."

The Coast Guard has also shared footage of the submersible wreck's tail cone and its imploded crew compartment during the hearings.

In an email, Stanley warned Rush not to board the Titan for its next dive to the Titanic shipwreck after hearing the unnerving cracking sounds during the 2019 expedition. Rush never replied but did cancel upcoming dives to build a new hull — which clearly didn't fare much better years later.

"Imagine this project was self-funded and on your own schedule," Stanley wrote in an email to Rush at the time, as obtained by the New York Times last year. "Would you consider taking dozens of other people to the Titanic before you truly knew the source of those sounds??"

More on the disaster: Before the Titanic Sub Imploded, Its Creator Was Working to Create a Whole Fleet of Them


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